Thrakkus's Butchery

Thrakkus's Butchery

Windmill-DM

An evil dragonborn named Thrakkus has converted an old, fire-scorched windmill in the Field Ward into a butcher's shop. A member of the Guild of Butchers, Thrakkus has a lucrative side business. Zhents loyal to Wongas pay Thrakkus to chop up people they kill, and he sells the meat on the sly. As Deadwinter Day approaches, this meat is in high demand.

The corpses are brought to him in the dead of night, most often delivered by Sidra Romeir (see chapter 8, area K2) in a covered cart pulled by a draft horse.

## Butchery

A red wooden sign carved to look like a butcher's cleaver hangs above the door of Thrakkus's butchery, which occupies the westernmost room of the west wing. The butchery is ice cold in the winter and reeks of meat and blood. A bloodstained chopping block dominates the room, and shelves of cut meat wrapped in bloody parchment line the walls. The floor is streaked with blood and covered with bits of gore.

Thrakkus padlocks the door at night. Picking the lock requires a successful DC 15 Dexterity check using thieves' tools. The door can also be forced open with a successful DC 18 Strength (Athletics) check.

## Larder

The chamber next to the butchery has been converted into a larder, the doors to which are padlocked at all hours. The locked doors are otherwise identical to the butchery door (see above). Like the butchery, the larder is frigid in the winter and smells of meat and blood. Six half-frozen humanoid carcasses are stacked under a 10-foot-square canvas tarpaulin near the western wall. Thrakkus hasn't gotten around to cutting them up yet.

## Squatters

The dragonborn allows squatters to dwell in his home. Those who can perform menial chores are spared and fed scraps of cooked meat; the rest end up on the chopping block. These homeless sods are too frightened of Thrakkus to speak ill of him, and the City Watch doesn't seem to care about crimes committed in the Field Ward.

## Thrakkus the Butcher

The butcher has no time to suffer fools, and the characters are fools for meddling in his business. Thrakkus spends most of the day in the butchery. At dusk, he retires to his apartment, where he stays until dawn or until someone comes knocking with a body to dispose of. Thrakkus carries keys to the butchery, the larder, and his apartment (area W7).

Thrakkus is a dragonborn berserker of red dragon ancestry, with these changes:

* He is chaotic evil.
* He has these racial traits: He can use his action to exhale a 15-foot cone of fire (but can't do this again until he finishes a short or long rest); each creature in the cone must make a DC 13 Dexterity saving throw, taking 2d6 fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. He has resistance to fire damage. He speaks Common and Draconic.

## Where's the Stone?

Thrakkus hid the Stone of Golorr in a recent meat delivery to an alley in the Trades Ward. Thrakkus doesn't keep records of his illegal transactions, so the characters must interrogate him or one of the commoners that dwell in his residence.

Thrakkus is belligerent and not eager to give up his Zhent friends. A charm person spell or similar magic is needed to compel him to talk. His squatters are another matter; they roll over on Thrakkus quickly to save their own skins once the dragonborn butcher no longer becomes a factor in their well-being. Either approach yields the following information:

* Thrakkus's last shipment of meat was taken to a shop in the Trades Ward called Cuttle's Meat Pies. It's located in an alley.
* The meat was delivered by a member of the Guild of Butchers named Justyn Rassk. Thrakkus paid extra coin to see it delivered "quickly and quietly."
* Rassk has a blood-spattered horse-drawn cart that he uses to make deliveries outside the Field Ward.

The characters might know Justyn Rassk from their own dealings with the Guild of Butchers.