From: Twistspore Lashcap 947
Quest Giver: A noble’s spymaster desperate to sabotage a cruel lord’s upcoming feast.
Location: Beneath a crumbled fortress, in cellars where prisoners once screamed; Lashcap grows in hidden pockets of blood-soaked stone.
Objective: Harvest the fungus before the tyrant’s cooks can, ensuring his banquet loses its coercive power.
Reward: A purse of gold, plus an introduction into the noble’s secret resistance network.
Instructions (non-sequential, field-use notes)
• Operate as a kitchen-shadow, not a tunnel-brawler: soft shoes, wrapped buckles, hooded lamps, bone or wood knives only for Lashcap cuts, wicker with damp moss for carry, parchment separators to prevent cross-spore.
• Keep your language non-imperative belowground; the cellars remember command-tones and may rebound them as coercive pulses. Favor “request” phrasing when addressing each other near growth pockets.
• Time pressure is real: set a quiet hourglass or bead-count; the tyrant’s cooks sweep in rolling waves tied to oven cycles and wine pulls.
• Use servants’ vectors: ash-chutes, drain runs, barrel-coopers’ slots, and chimney ladders. Avoid main stairwells tied to tasting bells.
• Neutralize traces: wipe prints with vinegar rags; dust disturbed stone with flour then brush it flat; re-stack decoy barrels with the bulged bung outward to match house style.
• Keep samples shaded end-to-end; direct lamplight is fine, direct sunlight ruins the phonic quality. Stage a covered pass-through at the postern or wagon-bay.
• Harvest discipline: slice caps above the gill-tongues, never scrape; lift with palette slats; pack “live side up.” Discard any that twitch irregularly (spite-echo variance).
• Social cover beats stealth alone: porter’s roll, cooper’s tap-test, scullion’s tray. Carry one plausible tool per avatar that matches the corridor you’re in.
• Noise map as you go: kitchens thrum, pickling vaults tick (drips), wine galleries breathe; if the ambient pattern changes, freeze—someone opened a door.
• If caught, pivot to public service: “removing spoiled caps.” Do not flash blades; present brush and vinegar rag first.
Gold Reward
• 60 Gold on success (15 Gold advance for supplies; 45 Gold upon delivery of fresh, viable clusters). Discreet bonus of 10 Gold if evidence shows the feast’s Lashcap course was canceled.
Uncommon Magical Reward
• Sommelier’s Veil Pin (uncommon, brooch/cloak pin; attunement optional). Passive: advantage (+2) on checks/saves to detect or resist mind-affecting properties in food or drink; faint tone (only wearer hears) when Lashcap, Whisperwind Morel reductions, or coercive glazes are within 10 feet. Active (1/day, attuned): create a 5-foot “palate veil” for 1 minute; ingested mind-effects within the veil are muffled (disadvantage/–2 to their influence) for all creatures eating or drinking therein.
Difficulties
• Blood-soaked stone pockets that amplify coercive harmonics; issuing a sharp order can briefly stagger allies.
• Cellar tasters with trained palates and cudgels; they move in pairs and know every echo.
• Heat-surge from banked ovens opens pressure vents; sudden drafts can snuff lamps or blow doors wide.
• Rival kitchen-knives already working the halls; they harvest rough and will spoil patches to deny others.
• Dripstone wells with bad air; breath shortens without warning near old chains.
• Spice-smoke curtains in tasting corridors; visibility drops and coughs betray position.
• Magnetic seams tugging at buckles, ladles, and hooks; involuntary clinks cascade along chain racks.
• Lashcap spite-bloom: a few clusters “remember” cruelty and twitch to startle cutters into dropping them.
Problems
• The spymaster is under quiet audit; any noisy scrape may be traced back to their household if you leave distinctive kit behind.
• A bribed scullion feeds timings to the tyrant’s cooks; harvest windows shrink at the worst moments.
• The resistance introduction is contingent on nonlethal outcomes inside the cellars; spilled blood heightens the stone’s obedience memory.
• Feast-day bell schedules shift mid-operation when a foreign envoy arrives; kitchen patrols tighten unexpectedly.
• The tyrant’s sommelier trials a Whisperwine Reduction variant that masks Lashcap scent; detection requires touch or the right tool.
• Spoilage risk: if vinegar tubs are overturned, the air sourness “flattens” your samples’ phonic echo before you can exit.
Who to Ask for More Information
• Retired scullions at dockside taverns: oven cycles, tasting bell codes, where tasters stash cudgels.
• Cooper’s Guild journeymen: which barrel-runs connect cellars to wagon bays without guard posts.
• Vintners’ porters: when the wine gallery is emptied for decanting (best ambient cover).
• Perfumer-apothecaries: how spice-smoke blends travel, and which corridors they reveal or conceal.
• Old fortress masons: forgotten lintels, blocked posterns, and the “stone that drinks breath.”
• Dissident footmen: seating charts and exactly which course the Lashcap would crown.
Tags
Tier 1, Stealth, Infiltration, Sabotage, Harvest, Time Limit, Nonlethal, Food Magic, Resistance, Social Cover, Echo Hazard, Magnetic Interference, Kitchen Disguise, Ash-Chute Access, Vent-Shaft Climb, Spice-Smoke Cover, Taste-Bell Timetable, Barrel-Route Navigation, Evidence Erasure, Phonic Integrity, Decoy Barrels, Resistance Vetting
Environments (simple list)
• Collapsed curtain-wall approach with ash carts
• Scullery alleys behind soot-black ovens
• Pickling vaults lined with vinegar barrels
• Blood-echo fungus pockets in chained alcoves
• Vent-shafts and ash-chutes laddering to chimneys
• Wine galleries with sweating stone and breathing doors
• Dripstone wells with thin air
• Wagon-bay postern under tattered awnings
Mood setting excerpt from:
Compendye of Red Remembraunce and Water-Woe
Capitulum XXXII
“How the Lord his Table maketh Bond of Voyce, and how the Low Celler answereth”
Lo, under broken battlement and crabbed ivy, ther lieth a way downe, where cask and chain do kepe felowship, and the stoon yet sweateh with olde sorwes. In thilke vaults, where prisouners cryede and were unherd but of iren, groweth a queynte burgeyn men clepen Lash-cap, with gillettes thinne as lytel tongues, and a savor as of pepper wedded to blood. Who-so fyndeth it nought afore the kookes of the lord, he shal see a feste y-dight that bendeth men’s courages as a bowe bendeth a reede.
Heer the ovens blowe as bellows of helle, and the ayre is thicke with spice-smok and wine-brethe. Iren hooks, y-habited with blacke grees, chirk and chime whan a proud foote passeth; barrells of vyne yeve lytel sighes, as though they drewe breath. And if a man speke fel commandement in these places, the stones take up his worde and y-tellen it ageyn, sharper than it wente forth, so that his felaw, innocent, feleth his nekke y-taken with no hande. But if he aske softely, the same stones turne his sawes to linen, and lay hem down meeke.
Take kepe to the sompnour of sauces, that shadewy clerk men callen the sommelier; he bereth a broche hid under his hood, and with it he winnoweth the savor and maketh fals sweetnes cover a cruel tast. He hath lerned the hour of the bell that tollethe the tasting, and at ech chime the servauntes pouren out newe draughte, and the celler doors opnen like liddes of a serpent’s eye. In suche stoundes the vaynes of the wall drawe wynd sudden, and candles die as birds in winter; many a wary foot hath y-slipped for lak of light.
Wite also the path of the ashen shute, and the small laddres within the vent-werk, for ther-through cometh the folk of the kechyn with treen knyves and wicker trays, sekynge the redder caps in pryvee holes where the stoon is marblid with old blode. Sum tyme the rokkes pulle at buckels and ladels, as a dam ledyng her childe—magnetick in their malice—and setten a clatre that runneth like a ratte along chain after chain, til the tasters heeren and come with cudgels meek as shepherdes and hard as wardeys.
In a narwe vault beside the vyntner’s table, the very ayre hath lerned double-singing. A whispre groweth to twenty, a cough to an hundred, and the twenty and the hundred stryven which shal be maister, so that a man may mis-knowe his owne voyce and take it for a lord’s. Ther the Lash-cap hideth in slittyngs of red stone, and twicheth slyly whan a harde herte nigheth; but if a mild eyen behold it, it is stille and suffreth to be cutte with boon or wode, and leyd in mos as a child in swadelyng.
Yet the tyraunt’s table aboven is y-dight with silveren platers and sauce-bootes of vermayl, and by the thirde bell he wolde have his cruel glaze—whisper-wyne and cap togedre—so that his gestes shul smyle and consent and knele, and thinke it curtesye. He that loveth fredom sholde haste him under, or elles the brothe shal be brewed, and the song of assent shal rise from many mouthes that never ment assent. For the pryvee cokes goone in wave after wave, bound to the oven’s pulse, and the last wave was eek the first in craft.
Marke wel the flour on the stone: wher it is strewn, foot-stepes tellen tailes. Vinegre-rags wipe away y-print of fingers, but leve a sour wind that may quench the savor of thy gatheringe if thou be rechlesse. And knowe this proude peril: if the tubs of sharp pickle upturne, the very ayre groweth flatte, and the Lash-cap loseth his phonic vertue, as a harpe with no string. Than is al thy labour but a tale of smoke.
Grete drede is eek of the tasters tweyne and tweyne, that walke by twyn-light of lanthorns, their eares y-tuned to the cellar’s breth. They have craft to ken a door that “bretheth” and a door that “listeneth,” and at a lytel squeek they come soft and soone. Speak nat lordly in their shadow; bere nat yren nakede; and if thou be taken in their ken, holde forth a treen spatel and a mos-bale, and sey, “This cap is spoyled; I bere it to the ditch.” For of al thinges, proud steel is the quickest tongue.
And ther is writen, in a marge half-blotted by wine, that on the day whan a straunge ambassadour cometh, the bells be shiften, the runnynge of the kechyn turneth backwarde like a streem at neep-tyde, and men that knewe the pleyne path yester-even stumble as in a newe house. Than is discrecioun more worth than swiftnes, and silence more worth than a key; for keys ringe, and silence is a glove.
Thus seith the olde leaf: “Who gooth under the lord’s table muste ete neither pride ne haste. Take the burgeyn fresh, cover it fro day, and leve no voyce that the stoon may borrowe. For the feste aboven is a bittir musyk, and the celler ben the pipes. Stoppe the right pipe, and the song faileth; smyte the wrong, and a worse song riseth.” And who can rede, let him rede: the chain that maketh men bowe hath many linkes; breke the lytel ones firste, and the gret shal falle of kynde.
Guide Manager’s notes: The Tyrant’s Feast 842
- Kickoff: brief the op like a kitchen-shadow job
Open with the spymaster’s stakes and the hard boundary: nonlethal preference inside the cellars to qualify for the resistance introduction. Emphasize “sabotage by absence”—if the tyrant doesn’t get Lashcap, his banquet loses bite. - Role assignment and cover stories
Have players pick believable covers that fit each corridor: scullion with vinegar rags, barrel-cooper with mallet and chalk, porter with sling and ledger, chimney boy/girl with soot hood, sommelier’s runner with tasting tally. One prop per avatar that matches their cover. - Loadout and silence discipline
Specify soft shoes, wrapped buckles, hooded lamps, bone/wood knives for cutting, wicker with damp moss, parchment separators, vinegar rags for prints. Note slot impact: containers count, contents don’t. No metal on the fungus. - Clock the kitchen
Put a visible “taste-bell timetable” on the table (or call out beats): bake pull, sauce test, decant, plating rehearse. Each bell shifts patrol lanes. This is your stealth pressure—no fighting the clock, play with it. - Map the servants’ vectors
Encourage infiltration through ash-chutes, vent-shafts, drain runs, and barrel routes instead of the grand stairs. Offer small, distinct sounds as tells for each route (ash slide, vent whistle, drip cadence, cask thump). - Establish a noise baseline
Before deep entry, let the party “listen-in-place” for one minute. Kitchens thrum, pickling vaults tick-drip, wine galleries breathe. Any change in the background is a door opening or a patrol turning. Teach them to freeze when the pattern shifts. - First contact: tasters and spice-smoke curtains
Pairs of cellar tasters drift with cudgels and copper spoons. Smoke curtains cut sightlines, make coughs betraying. Use them to force body language play—chin dips, tray angles, and “busy hands” instead of blades. - The stone’s memory of command
Reinforce the rule: imperative words bounce. Barked orders can stagger allies or compel a step. Soft requests dampen the echo. Reward polite phrasing with gentler acoustics; punish domineering tone with a small, immediate complication. - Locate the blood-echo pockets
Lashcap hides in marbled red stone recesses. Telegraphed signs: faint pepper-iron scent, tiny twitch when hard hearts approach, stillness under kind attention. Mark three pockets; one is decoyed by rival knives (scraped, ruined), one is pristine but closely patrolled, one is reachable only via vent ladder. - Harvest discipline (no shortcuts)
Enforce the method: slice above gill-tongues with bone/wood, lift on flat slats, pack live-side-up in damp moss, interleave with parchment. Discard spite-blooms that twitch irregularly. Direct lamplight is fine; sunlight is fatal to the phonic quality. - Phonic integrity checks
Any overturned vinegar tub “flattens” nearby samples; a heavy spice plume can mask Lashcap scent but not the Sommelier’s Veil Pin tone (if the party earned it elsewhere). Allow a quick integrity test—gentle tap on the container, listen for that faint inner hum. - Rival kitchen-knives
They harvest rough and spoil scraps to deny others. Their tactics are noise-based: chain flicks, bung pops, staged clatters. Keep confrontation cat-and-mouse. If a chase happens, route it through barrel stacks where toppling risks exposure more than wounds. - The magnetic seams and clink cascades
Some passages drag buckles, ladles, hooks. Make the clink chain reaction audible room-to-room. Proper counter: ditch or wrap metal, switch to rope ties, hand-carry props. Reward foresight; teach with a single embarrassing clatter if they forget. - Heat surges and door breaths
When banked ovens vent, pressure swings pop latches and snuff lamps. Telegraph with a low whoomph. Give a beat for choices: brace a door with a cooper’s wedge, ride the draft to slip past a guarded arch, or wait it out and lose time. - Sample chain-of-custody
Designate a carrier and a shadow. The carrier never speaks in imperatives near growth pockets. The shadow watches lids and parchment. If separated, the carrier chooses hiding over heroics. Sunlight rule at exit: build a covered pass at the postern or wagon-bay. - Social cover beats stealth
When spotted, pivot to the cover story: “pulling spoiled caps.” Show brush first, blade last. A vinegar rag and ledger trump a drawn weapon in these halls. Let a single, well-played deception reroute a patrol rather than starting a fight. - The sommelier’s test pass
Optional spice scene: a quiet alcove where the tyrant’s sommelier trials a Whisperwine variant to hide Lashcap aroma. Offer a triumph moment—spot the masking note, swap a tag, or salt the cask bung so the trial fails upstairs. - Feast-day schedule shuffle
Mid-op, throw a curve: a foreign envoy arrives; the bells shift. Patrols rethread. Force the team to adapt route and timing. This is where their noise baseline and bell-map pay dividends. - Exfil clean, then cleaner
Retrace via servants’ vectors. Clear footprints with flour-brush-flour technique. Restack decoy barrels with bulged bungs facing out. At the wagon-bay, pass samples through a shaded sling, never into direct day. If the gate guard checks loads, your porter’s patter and stamped chit should already be in pocket. - Debrief, payout, and network handshake
On delivery of viable clusters: 45 Gold closes, plus the promised introduction to the resistance. If they kept it nonlethal and quiet, add a discreet 10 Gold bonus and a warmer welcome. If they were noisy but clever, the network still opens—but with wary eyes. - Failure-with-progress levers
If the tyrant’s cooks snag a pocket, the party can still sabotage phonic integrity (vinegar air, salt spill), or redirect the dish selection upstairs so Lashcap never hits the platters. Reward partial wins that blunt the banquet’s coercion. - Tone and boundaries
Keep tension high, cruelty low. Spotlight restraint, precision, and teamwork. When tempers flare, let the cellars answer with acoustics, not gore. Make the win feel like a perfectly timed service: plates up, and nothing ugly left in the pass.