Norgorber’s Knot - a sidequest for Edgewatch

[Naurgul]

Shreeve:
Introduced in the toolbox of the Gallery of Evil, Ventalie Shreeve owns a small potion shop on Vermillion Way in the Ivy District. A hidden cellar under the shop conceals a meeting room, where an elite circle of assassins for hire known as Norgorber’s Knot dedicates its kills to Norgorber.

Shreeve is intimately acquainted with the Blackfinger temple yet she has not been granted access to the inner sanctum under the temple proper. Nevertheless she knows a lot of secrets of the cult. Even though she is not directly involved with the twilight four, she knows a few things about the blackfingers. She has been trying to gain access to the blackfingers lower temple unsuccessfully for a while now. Jonis has word from Norgorber himself that she's not to be trusted. She has heard that Jonis the head priest of the Blackfingers temple is part of the twilight four, a conspiracy of high-level norgorberites. She does not know what the conspiracy involves exactly but she knows it's important. This information was fed to her by Vancaskerkin's agents, hoping it would lead investigators off his trail and destroy Jonis at the same time.

Shreeve was recently hired by Bloody Berleth to kill Maurissa Jonne but he had second thoughts, did not make the payment so the assassination never went through.

Possible hooks to start mini-adventure:

• • she frequently attends the midnight meetings at the Black Mask costume shop, the PCs might be doing a stakeout
  
• • one of the PCs might have dealt with her in his background, especially if the PC is from the Ivy district
  
• • there is a pile of unsolved cases at the Thistleguard, perhaps one of the PCs' contacts there tries to solicit their help to investigate the seemingly unsolvable ones.
  
• • they might be led to her while searching for possible norgorberite activity in the city
  
• • they might notice something suspicious (like a customer speaking in code) going on while purchasing potions from her shop
  
• • they meet her in person at the Noxious Retort conference and decide to investigate her further
  
• • somehow the PCs get Bloody Berleth to admit he almost hired an assassin to kill Morissa Jones
  

Potion shop:
I used this map. It includes the shop and her house and basement. Does not include the secret sub-basement.

Her shop seems like a normal potion shop, with a focus on alchemical consumables. False bottoms/backs in the cabinets she stores her usual wares conceal potent divine poisons (pretty much everything from the adventure toolbox of book 4 is available), those are for special clients or for her own use.

In her private chambers on the 2nd floor connected to the shop via a staircase, on her desk, one can find her formula book, where she keeps all her recipes: focus cathartic, vermin repellent agent, vexing vapor, skeptic's elixir, silvertongue mutagen, quicksilver mutagen, juggernaut mutagen, energy mutagen, dread ampoule, cognitive mutagen, drakeheart mutagen, tanglefoot bag, alchemist's fire, acid flask, snake oil, antidote, bravo's brew, elixir of life, wyvern poison (last one is encrypted, DC 30).

The same notebook also contains a list of her clientèle each associated with a 4-digit code. If studied, Perception or similar DC20 to notice some clients have no associated orders at all. Perception or similar DC25 to notice she has nowhere near 9999 clients so there's no sense in using 4-digit codes. These deductions will come into play later.

The altar:
In the middle of the basement, there is an oblong stone altar. Its surface is sculpted with a network of long winding grooves that connect in an intricate pattern. There is a hole in the middle like a drain. DC20 to observe that it is actually one continuous line with the drain at one end. Religion/crafting DC30 to realise it's a mixture or alchemical and norgorberite symbolism. Another appropriate DC30 check like Identify Magic reveals that it's a magic device that accepts sound and liquid as input.

The actual solution is to sing a skiprope rhyme called "No-No Norgorber" while pouring the right sort of liquid at certain times, as noted below. The players could figure this out on their own if they are familiar with the rhyme (try to foreshadow it), or they could remember it with an appropriate check (DC20 if they realise it's something like a song or poem or hymn, DC30 if they have no idea what they're supposed to be looking for).

The timings and liquid requirements can also be figured out with appropriate Identify Magic or similar checks. The device hums and glows more and more with each correct new liquid poured but if you pour something wrongly then the humming and glowing ends abruptly. This together with knowledge of Norgorber lore (as a lore-skill or just paying attention) will help the PCs figure it out. Someone who is a Master in Thievery can Disable Device DC30 to completely bypass it. Other similar brute-force solutions should be around DC35.

Here is the rhyme and liquids:

Reaper?
Master?
Skinsaw Man?
Where is the poison? (pour in any poison)
What is the plan? (pour in anything that fools senses)
No-No Norgorber!
Folks take care!
How many dark masks does he wear?
One Reaper! (pour in anything that manipulates knowledge or information)
Two Master! (pour in anything that fools senses)
Skinsaw Man! (pour in blood)
Quick leaper!
Jump faster!
Bogeyman!

What lies beneath the altar:
When someone sings the song and pours the right liquids at the right times, the whole altar moves out of the way revealing a small shaft with handholds on all walls. The sub-basement is a small square room, the floor decorated with Norgorber's symbol made out of dried blood. In the corner there is a desk, on the desk there is a small booklet.

Assassination log:
The booklet is the lightly encrypted assassination log. It's written in Elven. Decipher Writing DC30 to decode it in one go. The PCs get repeated tries with possibly a reduced DC every time they make a reasonable deduction from the following clues:

• • There are rows and columns filled with data.
  (rows represent assassinations, columns represent the properties of each assassination)
  
• • The columns are: 8-digit number, another number (range 500-2000), 2-3 comma-separated keywords (from a fixed set of about a dozen different ones), a date, another date, a third date (in some entries both 2nd and 3rd date are missing). The dates are always ordered: 1st is always earlier than 2nd, 2nd is always earlier than 3rd.
  (columns represent 1: combined 4-digit client code and 4-digit target code 2: price in gold coins 3: the aliases of the assassins that got assigned to this task 4: order date 5: payment date 6: completion date)
  
• • The possible keywords in the 3rd column are: "Unseen Hand", "Qat", "Demon Dust", "Arsenic", "Dagger", "Belladonna", "Wyvern", "Black Adder", "Centipede", "Wasp" etc
  (these are the aliases of each assassin in the circle, Shreeve is the "Unseen Hand", the rest are named after assassination methods, mostly poisons)
  

Once the PCs solve this they get a clear picture of all the assassinations Norgorber's Knot has conducted.

There is only one entry that is related to the main case though: The last row is an assassination ordered by Bloody Berleth to get Maurissa Jonne killed. The bounty was set to 1800 gold but was never paid (as indicated by the fact that the last two dates are not filled in). Bloody Berleth, despite his hatred for Maurissa, couldn't go through with it.

Behaviour and schedule:
Shreeve tends to her shop every day of the week during daytime. Sometimes she can be found in the Blackfinger temple. One night per week she attends secret meetings at the Black Mask costume shop. She meets up with her assassin buddies in her basement almost every other night. If she knows the PCs are investigating her she will feign ignorance. If they make a move to arrest her or attack she will attempt to flee at the first good opportunity (perhaps using her gaseous form potion). If the PCs are investigating her shop/house there is a good chance she will show up with her 2-4 assassin buddies (number determined either randomly or based on desired difficulty). She may or may not know the PCs are there but she always returns home eventually. She does not fight to the death, she might trade secrets for her life and freedom.

For Shreeve use the statblock of Japu Thelenger (AoE book 4, page 14). Add a gaseous form potion (and at your discretion, perhaps some more alchemical items for emergencies). For her assassin buddies use the assassin statblock from the Gamemastery Guide. As an example, for 4 level 10 PCs, Shreeve + 4 assassins is a severe encounter, Shreeve + 2 assassins is a moderate encounter.

What the PCs can gain from this scenario:

• • Jonis' omen/instinct about Shreeve being untrustworthy is correct: If she's interrogated or otherwise pressured, she's going to try to trade her freedom for secrets (most likely Jonis' secret identity). Such secret might be hard to be used in an official capacity since Shreeve will be either gone or refuse to repeat it in a court of law.
  
• • Putting Shreeve behind bars and/or dismantling her circle of assassins will make people in the city safer and the Thistleguard will be grateful.
  
• • If they unlock the second basement and decrypt the assassination log, they can hand over the info to the Thistleguard which will be even more thankful.
  
• • If Shreeve abandons her shop and the PCs impound the merchandise, give them unlimited access to alchemical consumables up to level 7.
  

Where do we go from here:

• • You may allow the PCs to skip some parts of the Adventure Path to get to the Blackfinger temple raid sooner.
  
• • Add a new downtime activity to help with cleaning up the cases in the assassination log. This might involve arresting the ones who ordered the assassinations, arresting the assassins themselves based on their aliases. Providing closure to victims' families and so on.
  
• • Or you can invent new scenarios with the PCs doing these things on-screen.
  
• • The PCs might be invited as witnesses for Shreeve's trial.
  
• • Use the info as leverage over Maurissa/Berleth in future encounters.
  
• • Shreeve's confessions and/or trading of secrets might lead to more investigations of norgorberites she has been associated with, the Black Mask costume shop for example.
  

[BobTheArchmage]

Thank you for this write up! This is actually perfect for me to slot into our current investigation in my campaign of Edgewatch. We're at the tail end of book 3 and my players are chasing down the bomb threat posed by Franca Laurentz. As written I am suppose to give them downtime to just prepare for the Irorium being bombed, but my players like being proactive and wants to find Franca and the bomb before she gets a chance to detonate it at the Irorium. This might work perfect as a place for them to ultimately be lead to and deal with in their chase for the bomb!