Murder Party · ready to clone

You All Meet in a Tavern

A scenario by Murder Maker

11 players
~3h 40m
Language: English
Murder Party

Power
Mystery
Debt
Contract
Investigation
Vengeance

The premise

Every adventure begins the same way: a hooded stranger, a corner table, a contract. Tonight the Last Torch inn stands sealed from the Ninth Bell to dawn, and twelve sealed summonses have gathered you for the richest job ever posted in Tallowmark — the Great Commission. But when the hood at the corner table is pulled back, the Broker is dead — and has been for an hour. No wound. No poison in his cup. Only a room full of hired strangers and an evening of small, innocent jobs that may add up to something monstrous. The Commission voids at dawn. Ask what your contract was really for.

The cast

Hodge Merrin

Victim NPC

THE BROKER. For eleven years the hooded fixer at the corner table of the Last Torch has posted every delve, every escort, every quiet job in Tallowmark. No one has seen his face; everyone has taken his coin. Tonight he…

Prue Alderquill

Suspect

The Last Torch's bookkeeper these eleven years: a small, grey, endlessly patient woman who counts casks, settles wages, and forgets to be noticed. The staff say the inn would fall down without her. She has never once…

Barlow Crane

Suspect

Keeper of the Last Torch, the most famous inn in the world, and it shows in his shoulders: big, tired, generous with the first tankard and careful with the second. He has flinched at the corner table for three years…

Ser Ondrek Vail

Suspect

A knight with no retinue and a scabbard gone shabby, drinking like a man rehearsing something. Two years ago Ser Vail's name was worth a garrison; now it is worth a bar tab. He arrived with a sealed summons like…

Lady Isolde Marchmain

Witness

The heiress-delver: youngest of House Marchmain, funds two crews in the Deep, dresses for the ballad about herself. Everyone knows she wants the Great Commission. Since the seventh bell she sat posed at the west…

Sabelle Corr

Suspect

A licensed goods factor from the city of Vray, sea-silk coat and ledgers of her own, in Tallowmark 'to price salvage.' She drinks little, tips exactly, and has spent all week getting the Broker's ear while richer…

Assessor Tamsin Reed

Detective

An assessor of the Guild of Charters, sent to audit 'irregular brokerage' in Tallowmark: guild-grey coat, a seal worth more than a sword, and a docket-book she writes in constantly. By charter law her seal can void the…

Ferrin Bly

Suspect

Tallowmark's apothecary: nervous hands, an immaculate shop-apron even at an inn, a faint smell of camphor. Everyone heard his shop was raided this week; tonight half the room watched him deliver a sealed cask to the…

Perrin Fife

Witness

A bard of exactly the middle rank: good voice, better memory, plays the Torch three nights a week for supper. Tonight he sang the long shanty — all nine verses, who does that? — and since the Bell he has been smiling…

Father Ansel Dray

Witness

Priest of the Door: he blesses every delve at the stable-yard shrine and rings the Ninth Bell himself. Tonight he stood watch over the Broker's table 'for the Commission's dignity' — and since the hood came off he has…

Maddox Turlow

Suspect

Steward of the Torchboys, the runners' union whose whistle-codes stitch Tallowmark together. The dead-drop board on the Lantern Porch is his: every contract in town passes through his posting box. He counts everything…

Greta Sorn

Suspect

An old soldier with a skinning knife and no small talk, drinking with her back to the wall. She arrived a week ago, asked one question — 'who sits at the corner table?' — and has been watching the hood ever since.…

Pip Weck

Character NPC

A torchboy of about eleven, all elbows and whistle-codes, sealed in with everyone else when the Bell rang. Runs errands for a copper and hears everything at knee height.

Intrigues

One Ledger, Three FatesPower

Somewhere in this inn is a book with every dirty commission in Tallowmark written down. Burn it, sell it, or seize it — it can only have one fate, and everyone wants a different one.
Six Innocent ContractsMystery

Latch a shutter. Swap a candle. Sing a song. Small jobs, fair coin, posted like any other day. What could they possibly add up to?
The Debt on the TorchDebt

The Last Torch is the most famous inn in the world, and its keeper cannot look at the corner table without flinching. Ask him why. He will lie.
The Great CommissionContract

The richest job ever posted in Tallowmark will void at dawn — unless someone proves a claim before the whole room. Everyone here was summoned for it. Only one can hold it.
The Poisoned CupInvestigation

There is a vial by the spilled tankard and an apothecary in the room whose stock was raided this week. Ask what the cup actually held before you decide what it means.
The Redwater ReckoningVengeance

Twenty-two years ago a free company sold a town to its enemies for gold. Somebody in this room was there. Somebody else got rich on it. And somebody just died with a soldier's shoulders.

Factions & circles

Staff of the Last TorchStaff
The Broker's TableFaction
The Gull-SignFaction
The TorchboysTeam