The Hamhocks Slaughterhouse is both a legitimate business that deals in both butchered animals, hides, and selling meats… as well as a kidnap and murder cell for the Cult of Zariel.
The roster is split into a Day Rosterer and a Night Roster, with different NPCs present and in different locations depending on when the PCs arrive.
See Justin Alexander’s article on Adversary Rosters, which I have used to create these.
Adversary Rosters
Day Roster
| Group | Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 4 slaughterhouse works (commoners) | Slaughter Sheds | Easily encountered in insolation |
| Jaemus Exheltarion | H1 Shop Front | Reading occult tomes, serving customers |
| Butcher (commoner) and Fist of Bane #1 | H2 Workroom | Butchering and on guard |
| Night Blade | 75% H5 Common Room 25% absent | (sleeping on the sofa) (see schedule below) |
| Corian Khee | H6 Officers’ Room | (sleeping) |
| Ram-headed Golem | H12 The Chained Beast | Chained to wall |
| Pasque Enrial | 50% H3 Back Office 50% H13 Ankheg Butchery Cell | Doing paperwork Torturing latest victim |
Night Roster
| Group | Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Jaemus Exheltarion | H6 Officers’ Room | (sleeping) |
| Fist of Bane #2 | 50% H1 Shop Front 50% H2 Workroom | Patrolling ground floor |
| Corian Khee and Night Blade | 75% H5 Common Room 25% Abducting next victim or dumping body | (sleeping) (depending on time of night) |
| Ram-headed Golem | H12 The Chained Beast | Chained to wall |
| Pasque Enrial | H9 Pasque’s Bedroom | (sleeping) |
Observing the Slaughterhouse
Placing the Hamhock Slaughterhouse under watch will provide the regular routine of bother the slaughterhouse and butchery business, as well as the murder operation. You can also use this to give flavour to the location, depending on what time of day the PCs arrive here.
- Corian Khee and Jaemus Exheltarion leave before dawn to kidnap the next victim, from yesterday’s assassination orders.
- The two Fists of Bane swap shifts, sharing a bunkroom in a nearby residence.
- Slaugterhouse workers take new animals from sellers to the Animal Pens and bring animals to the slaughter sheds to slaughter and bleed. They remove the hides and lay them in massive piles of flesh.
- Customers come and go, arranging business with Jaemus Exheltarion. This is mostly for butchered meats, or animal suppliers scheduling deliveries with Pasque.
- Mad Morgane shows up multiple times a day, with various scavenged animals, typically peacocks ran over by carts and wagons.
- Carts of raw hides are collected by the workers of the Poisoned Poseidon tannery (Lower Brampton). The Night Blade will go with them through Basilisk Gate, but head off to the Frolicking Nypmph Bathhouse to get the latest assassination orders.
- The two Fists of Bane swap shifts again in the evening.
- Corian Khee and their Night Blade leave – shrouded by a darkness spell cast by Jaemus. They take the latest victims body to dump in the alleyways behind the Smilin’ Boar Tavern.
Assassination Squad
If the Hamhock Slaughterhouse cell discovers the PCs attempts to discover their location, they may send an Assassination Squad after them. This comprises of Corian Khee and their Night Blade apprentice.
Their goal is to scare off the investigation through suddent acts of extreme violence on a single target. They have no intention of fighting to the death and would rather use their speed and evasive abilities to escape and make subsequent attacks at a later point.
In my campaign this surprise attack killed one of the PCs, giving the player the opportunity to create a new NPC (they took Tarina from the Elfsong Tavern and turned her into a swashbuckling pirate!)
Questioning the Cultists
Cult members can be interrogated, although they will not cooperate easily. All of them know that their instructions come from a hidden temple to the Dead Three within Baldur’s Gate, somewhere in Heapside. They also know there is a second cell carrying out similar murders in the Inner City.
Only Pasque Enrial knows that the cell is specifically targetting Elturian Knights and their descendants. The rest know they are targetting Elturians but do not know why. All of them believe that their purpose is to cause terror and fear in the Elturians.
The slaughterhouse workers are also Dead Three cultists. They know the murders ar ehappening, but they are not ‘read in’ so to speak to the inner workings of the cult.
Names for cultists
- Malvin Scrolls (human)
- Danny Curtis (human)
- Gin Heavyhand (dwarf)
- Scarn “Scrote” Cote (half-orc)
- Lucky Eldon (half-orc)
That’s it for the adversaries, although we have dedicated NPC templates for the 3 unique NPCs, including a brand new stat block for the Ram-Headed Golem. These should help you really flesh out the location and turn it from a bunch of mooks into a legitimate evil cult organisation.