Last Orders at Matt’s Grill#

The adventure

The richest miser in Tharsis drops dead face-first into Matt’s famous stew, the cook is going to hang for it, and the body has gone missing from the dead-house. Matt would like it all sorted out before it does any more damage to the stew’s reputation.

For 3 to 5 characters of level 1 to 5. One long session, or two short ones. Set in Tharsis.

Storytellers first

Everything below gives the mystery away. Players should stop reading here.

The job#

The party is in Matt’s Grill on Sunshine Avenue, in the Stoneward quarter of Tharsis, on a wet evening when the fog has come down off the mountain wall and stayed. The place is empty but for them. Matt brings the drinks himself, sits down without being asked, and says:

Two nights ago Corwin Tallow, richest chandler in Tharsis and the meanest man who ever left a copper under a plate, sat at that table there for his birthday supper, took one spoonful of my stew and died in it. Face first. Ruined the stew.

The watch says poison and has taken Nell, my cook, because she once told half the Grill she'd poison the old miser one day. Nell says that about everyone. She said it about me on Tuesday.

Sergeant Coldwell says if nobody raises Corwin inside ten days he's dead for good, and Nell hangs at dawn on the eleventh for making him so. That gives you eight days. Clear her and there's five dover apiece and a table in this room that's yours as long as I'm alive. Oh, and one more thing. Corwin's body walked out of the dead-house at Hospital Grace last night. Not on its own feet, I'd hope.

What really happened#

Corwin Tallow isn’t dead. He’s asleep, after a fashion. Convinced that everyone he knew was waiting for him to die, he bought a draught called Widow’s Rest from Mother Gutch at the Thieves’ Knackery. A dose makes the drinker as good as dead, cold and still and without a pulse, for ten days to the hour, and then they wake up hungry. Corwin meant to die at his own birthday supper, watch from the dead-house who wept and who danced, rewrite his will to suit, and be raised in a blaze of glory on the ninth day by Brother Anselm, a priest he’d paid five sovern to stand over him and pretend. Anselm can’t raise anyone. He didn’t have to: Corwin would wake on his own.

Mother Gutch has sold Widow’s Rest for years, mostly to debtors who want to die for a while: the family collects, the creditors give up, and ten days later the dead man slips out of town. It’s a fine business, as long as nobody asks why so few of the bodies are ever buried. Corwin is too rich and too loud to be trusted with the secret, and she knows exactly what he’ll do when he wakes: tell everyone.

So on the second night her men stole the body from the dead-house and sold it, through her, to Fennimore Bray of the Waterdeep Theatre, whose prop corpse the rats had eaten. Corwin now plays the dead merchant in the third act of The Merchant’s Fall every night, to the best reviews the theatre has had in years. Gutch has paid the stagehand who keeps the props to swap the hero’s stage dagger for a real one on the tenth night, the night Corwin wakes. Four hundred people will watch a dead man get stabbed, and nobody will ever think to ask whether he was dead when it happened.

Nobody poisoned Corwin, Nell least of all. She did spit in his soup, but she’s done that for years and he never noticed.

The ten days#

If the party does nothing, this is how it goes. Count days from Corwin’s supper.

Who’s who#

Matt#

Owner of Matt’s Grill, famous questmaster, and by rumor once a famous thief. Grey, unhurried, and never surprised.

Wants

Nell home, his stew's good name back, and the whole business closed without anyone looking too hard at Widow's Rest.

Hides

He knows the smell of cloves and pewter in that stew bowl. He just isn't saying how.

"I'm not saying it was murder. I'm saying it happened in my stew, and that makes it my business."

Nell#

The Grill’s cook, in a cell at the South Gate watch-house. Built like a cask, with a voice that carries to the back of the kitchen and the front of the street.

Wants

Out, and an apology from Sergeant Coldwell, in that order.

Hides

She's spat in Corwin's soup every week for eleven years. She will tell the party this unprompted and proudly.

"If I'd poisoned him, love, he'd have known. I'd have told him."

Corwin Tallow#

The richest chandler in Tharsis, sixty-one, thin as one of his own tapers and twice as stiff. Currently the toast of the Waterdeep Theatre.

Wants

To find out who loved him. The answer will disappoint him.

Hides

He drank the draught himself. He'd rather Nell hang than admit it, at first.

"I paid for that table. I paid for that stew. I want a refund on the stew."

Pip Tallow#

Corwin’s nephew and only heir, twenty-three, charming, and in debt to everyone in Stoneward who’ll take his word for it.

Wants

His inheritance, preferably yesterday.

Hides

Nothing worth hiding. He's been celebrating at the Bloody Crane since the night his uncle died, which looks dreadful and means nothing.

In a fight

level 2, health 5, AC 5, +0 to hit, 1d4 damage

"Grief takes us all differently. Mine takes the form of a round for the house."

Ysolde Wick#

Corwin’s rival in the candle trade, with a shop across the Market Plaza from his. They haven’t spoken in twenty years and never missed a chance to undercut each other.

Wants

To stop seeing Corwin's face every time she closes her eyes.

Hides

She loved him, once, a long time ago. She also sold the Waterdeep its stage candles, and she's seen the third act.

"I'd have killed him with a better candle and a fair price. Poison is beneath the trade."

Brother Anselm#

A priest of middling rank and excellent coat, who can heal a scratch and not much more. Corwin’s paid accomplice, now hiding at Ardie’s Coffee Shop.

Wants

To keep the five sovern, and to be very far from Tharsis when anyone finds out what it was for.

Hides

He was hired to fake a greater resurrect, an ability he's thirty levels short of. He knows the name of the draught and where Corwin bought it.

"Raise him? My child, I can barely raise my voice."

Mother Gutch#

The fence who runs the back room of the Thieves’ Knackery. Small, kindly, with a lap full of knitting and a long memory for debts.

Wants

Corwin to stay quiet, permanently, and her business to stay out of the pamphlets.

Hides

Widow's Rest, the bodies that were never buried, the ones at the paupers' field that were, and a ledger with every name in it.

In a fight

level 6, health 37, AC 7, +1 to hit, 1d6 damage

"Everyone dies, dearie. I just help them do it at a convenient time."

Gutch’s collectors#

Two to four of Mother Gutch’s men, in good boots and bad moods. They collect debts at the Bloody Crane and do her lifting.

Wants

To be paid, to go home, and not to fight anybody who looks like they enjoy it.

Hides

They carried Corwin to the Waterdeep's stage door. They'll say so to anyone who knocks one of them down.

In a fight

level 3, health 12, AC 6, +0 to hit, 1d6 damage

"Mother says you're to stop asking about things, and that she's knitting you a scarf."

Fennimore Bray#

Director of the Waterdeep Theatre, playwright of The Merchant’s Fall, and its leading man. Enormous voice, enormous sleeves.

Wants

One more full house. He has no idea his corpse is a person and will be devastated to learn it was a better actor than him.

Hides

He bought the body from Mother Gutch, through the stage door, for two dover and no questions.

"The corpse? A marvel of the modern stage. I'm told it's wax."

Sergeant Coldwell#

The watch sergeant at the South Gate, who has never been wrong in his own opinion and is determined to hang somebody before his captain asks why he hasn’t.

Wants

A confession, a hanging, and a quiet week.

Hides

He's not sure Nell did it either. He'll free her for proof he can show his captain: Corwin alive, Gutch's ledger, or a living victim of Widow's Rest.

"Ten days, the priests say. After that a dead man's dead, and so's whoever made him that way."

Old Mott#

The sexton of the paupers’ field below the South Gate, on the hillside path toward the Temple of Goad. He talks to the dead and swears they’re better company than the living.

Wants

Somebody else to deal with the knocking.

Hides

Three of his graves have been knocking at night for a week. He's been politely ignoring them.

"They knock, I knock back. It's only manners."

Where to look#

Any order works. Each place has more than one clue pointing onward, so a missed roll slows the party down rather than stopping them. Checks are the ones on The Basics.

Matt’s Grill#

Sunshine Avenue, Stoneward, with a back door onto Williams Corner Park under the mountain wall

Warm, low-beamed and smelling of onions. Corwin’s table is still set, his chair pushed back as he left it. Matt has kept the stew bowl under a cloth in the larder, “for the watch, if they ever ask”. They haven’t.

Matt says

If you’re going to search the larder, mind the cheese. It’s older than some of you and twice as mean.

The dead-house at Hospital Grace#

The cold cellar under Hospital Grace, at the top of Stoneward

A long stone room, a drain in the floor, and six slabs, five of them full. The orderly, a nervous boy named Sim, was asleep when the body went and is terrified the watch will find out. A little kindness gets everything out of him.

Matt says

I’d have thought a dead-house would be the one place in Tharsis nobody bothered to rob. Shows what I know about this city, which is everything.

The Bloody Crane#

Between the Market Plaza and Stoneward, with doors onto both

A gambling house with sawdust on the floor and the kind of dice that land the way the house likes. Pip Tallow has been here every night since his uncle died, buying rounds on credit. If the party comes on the sixth night, or makes enough noise asking about Pip, Gutch’s collectors arrive to have a word with him, and with anyone else who’s interested.

The collectors

One collector for each member of the party. They fight to rough people up, not to kill, and they run once half of them are down. Use the beaten rules (Defeat & Death): neither side wants a hanging.

Gutch’s collectors: level 3, health 12, AC 6, +0 to hit, 1d6 damage

Matt says

The Crane’s dice are honest. They’re just loyal to the house.

Ardie’s Coffee Shop#

The court behind the Art Colony, off the Market Plaza

Brother Anselm has drunk eleven cups since breakfast and jumps every time the door opens. He’ll lie badly, then confess well, especially if someone mentions the watch or the word “fraud”.

Matt says

A priest who drinks coffee all day is either very holy or very guilty. In my experience it’s never the first one.

The Thieves’ Knackery#

The shop row near the Pet Store, opening onto the yard behind it

A legitimate pawnshop in front, full of other people’s heirlooms at fair prices. In the back room, Mother Gutch knits by the fire with two collectors in the corner. She’s polite, warm, and lying about everything. She won’t fight in her own shop unless the party starts it; she’d much rather the party left and found the theatre too late.

Matt says

I haven’t been in the Knackery in thirty years. Give Mother Gutch my regards, and don’t drink anything she offers you. Not even the tea.

The paupers’ field#

Outside the South Gate, on the wooded hillside path down toward the Temple of Goad

Wet ground, leaning markers, and fog that lies in the hollows like water. Old Mott leads the party to the three graves that knock at night, holding his lantern well away from them. Digging one up takes an hour and a strong back. Rats live in the soft ground and object to being disturbed.

Graveyard rats

Two rats for each member of the party, out of the soft earth as the first spade goes in.

Rat: level 2, health 5, AC 5, +0 to hit, 1d4 damage

Matt says

Mott’s a good man. He once spent a whole winter reading to a grave because the fellow in it had died before finishing a book.

The Waterdeep Theatre#

The Market Plaza's west end, with a stage door on the alley behind

Gilt, velvet and draughts. The Merchant’s Fall is a tragedy in three acts about a cruel merchant who dies alone and unmourned, which is either a coincidence or Fennimore Bray has met Corwin. In the third act the merchant lies dead on a bier while his ungrateful heir, played by Fennimore, stabs the body in a rage. Corwin lies on that bier. Before the tenth night, his corpse can be visited from the wings with a ticket, a bribe or a DC 15 Dexterity check at the stage door.

Matt says

I saw Fennimore play a king once. The king died in the first act and it was still too long.

The last night#

On the tenth night the Waterdeep is full: four hundred people, a string band and a great deal of fog let in through the doors. Mother Gutch sits in a box with her knitting to watch her problem solved. Two of her collectors wait in the wings to carry the body out the stage door the moment the curtain falls, and Rafe the stagehand has already swapped the dagger.

The party can do it the quiet way: get backstage, find the real blade in Fennimore’s prop belt (Wisdom, DC 15) and swap it back before the third act. Or the loud way: stop the play. Either way, the collectors try to get the body out, Gutch tries to leave by the front of house with the ledger if she still has it, and Fennimore refuses to stop performing for anything short of fire.

At the very end of the third act, whatever else is happening, Corwin Tallow wakes up. He sits bolt upright on the bier, covered in flour, looks out at four hundred strangers and says, loudly, “Who wrote this rubbish?” The house rises to its feet. It is the greatest ovation the Waterdeep has had in a decade, and Fennimore takes all the bows.

Backstage

Two collectors in the wings, and Mother Gutch if the party corners her. She fights only to get away, and goes for the stage door the moment she’s hurt.

Gutch’s collectors: level 3, health 12, AC 6, +0 to hit, 1d6 damage

Mother Gutch: level 6, health 37, AC 7, +1 to hit, 1d6 damage

How it ends#

Corwin, alive, furious and floury, takes some persuading to admit he drank the draught himself, but he hates the idea of Pip inheriting even more than he hates the truth. His word, Gutch’s ledger, or Dabney Crumb walking into the watch-house frees Nell at once. Any two of them and Coldwell arrests Mother Gutch too, if she didn’t get away.

Matt pays as promised: five dover each and a table for life. Corwin, moved, gives each of the party a candle. It’s a very good candle. He tells them so several times.

If the party fails and Corwin dies on the stage, nobody but the party ever knows. Nell hangs unless they can prove Widow’s Rest some other way, and Matt closes the Grill for a week. Run the ending straight: the jokes stop where the dark gets in.

Matt’s last word#

When it’s done, Matt pours the party a drink from a bottle he keeps under the bar, and tells them the one thing he never told the watch. Widow’s Rest isn’t Mother Gutch’s recipe. It’s his. Thirty years ago he was the best thief in Tharsis, wanted in three provinces, and he brewed a draught that let him die in the Bloody Crane, lie in the dead-house for ten days, and walk out the back door a different man. He opened a grill with what he’d saved. Gutch was his fence. He always knew she’d kept the recipe.

“Where does a thief go when he retires?” he asks. “Somewhere nobody looks for a dead man. Behind a bar, mostly.” Whether the party keeps his secret is up to them. He’s fairly sure they will. He’s made the stew.

For the ready-made characters#

If your players brought the ready-made characters, each has a way in.

Rikazz

Mother Gutch fenced for his family in Narsis. She knows him, likes him, and will try to buy him off.

Melahna

She has buried paupers at fields like Mott's and can tell at a glance that the scratched lid is not a priest's business but the watch's.

Eremayis

An apprentice of the Mage Spire knows the smell of cloves and pewter from the alchemy hall. He gets the clue in the stew bowl with no roll.

Haldi

A page on garrison business can walk into Coldwell's watch-house and out again with Nell's charge sheet, which names a poison nobody ever tested for.

What it’s worth#

On top of the foes they beat (Levels):