It is a hot day. Tomorrow is the Swallowtail festival, which means that today is the last day of summer. Despite the heat, people are all out on the streets decorating the friendly town of Sandpoint with many colors to honor Desna the best way possible.
The Swallowtail festival is held in the first day of autumn throughout Golarion to commemorate the legend that an avatar of Desna fell to Golarion after a battle with the evil god Rovagug. According to the legend, a blind child nursed her back to health so Desna blessed the child by turning her into an immortal swallowtail butterfly to travel the world.
Children laugh and paint houses and, much to their mothers' dismay, their clothes. Larz Rovanky, the town's perfectionist tanner, tries to instruct the children and even some adults how to get the perfect lines of the butterfly drawings. Arika and Aneka Avertin work hard to get everyone fed with the pastries they made with their mother, but it seems that there are more people than buns. The spirits are high. Even the usually sad wheelwright Bilivar Wheen laughs at the occasional joke. Three ships can be seen in the docks with another arriving.
Tomorrow's festival means something more for the people in Sandpoint. It marks the inauguration of the new Sandpoint cathedral, after the old one burned down during a time locally known as the Late Unpleasantness 5 years ago.
The Late Unpleasantness was a period 5 years ago when terrible things happened. It started when a series of many murders happened over a month, where the killer was nicknamed the Chopper. One month after they stopped, a terrible fire struck the town's cathedral, also consuming a few other buildings nearby. The town's beloved priest, Father Ezakien Tobyn and his beautiful adopted daughter Nualia were killed in the fire.
The murderer was a formerly beloved man named Jervis Stoot. He was known for making beautiful bird sculptures out of wood throughout the town. No one knows why he did the killings. Each victim was found in the same terrible state: body bearing deep cuts to the neck and torso, hands and feet severed and stacked nearby, and the eyes and tongue missing entirely, having been plucked crudely from each head.
His last victim was the former sheriff, Casp Avertin who found him as he was working on a victim. The guard followed the trail of blood to his house on a small isle north of the town. There they found him dead, a pile of the 25 victims' eyes and tongues along with his on an altar to a demon lord of winged creatures and temptation. His house and body were burned and the town collectively removed his sculptures.