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Yes, I am equally confused but also voted for Sorcerous Sundries. I feel like if there is serious magic involved we may need serious magic to catch the killer/s and it hopefully will give us some leads from the 3 reasons to visit.

The weird thing to me is method and motivation. Why kill in such an elaborate way and in such a different way for each victim? It doesn't seem like revenge since the dragonborn was knocked out before being flayed, if it was revenge you would think that they would have tortured the dragonborn (given they seem to have access to serious magic that could incapacitate a victim). And with Selwyn Leventide why freeze him? If he had just drowned it would have been no less unpleasent a death (I would prefer to freeze than drown!) and passed off as an accident.
So that suggests they are sending a message to someone/s alive or these are ritual offerings to some evil deity?
And why kill in such varied ways? Strike to the head seems riskier than just casting a spell. Anchor presumably some sort of telekinetic spell? Cold spell then plant spell. Unless there is mind control involved and the 'murderers' are different characters each time controlled by this 'master'? I don't think anyone other than druids/rangers can cast plant controlling spells so maybe the druid was mind controlled to perform the act at insight park? Grave digger for dragonborn? Rouke for Seatower - spell or one off magic item like a scroll?

maybe a dragonborn with cold breath weapon?

It is good to take the possibility of mind control into account. It is quite possible that the urchin was mind controlled too, during our second encounter with him.
But on the topic of plant control: if magic was involved, the only applicable spell that I could find is Plant Growth, and the description says bards can cast it too.

I voted for the harbourmaster again. With Stonevalor about to sail off, I think the visit has an extra urgency.

Well this is food for thought.

A white dragonborn (or someone who appeared as a white dragonborn) bought the dagger. Also a white dragon was suggested as a possible explanation for Selwyn's death, but presumably that would also apply to a white dragonborn's breath weapon as JandK says. Also, we now hear the dead dragonborn was also a white dragonborn, though he clearly couldn't have killed Selwyn. We also have a name - Crane - as the person the Sorcerous Sundries proprietor seemed to think might be selling the dagger. The dead dragonborn was called Julikar Caeziryn - if the "family member" is to be believed. In fact, are we sure that the dead dragonborn was in fact white, or do we only have the word of the "family member" and was the descaling to disguise the fact he wasn't white? Because, erm, reasons. We also have a number of murders that involve great strength and/or magic and a dagger that requires sorcery to attune. A dragonborn, with high str and cha, could well make a good suspect. Plus there's the bloody dragonborn handprint near Drusilla's, which sounds like it might have been left by someone who had just killed a bard with an anchor, run towards Drusilla's (per original bloody footprint) then made their escape down the tunnels ... towards Riverveins?

The Guild have also cropped up again and rituals, though I couldn't work out how Magpie and the Guild member taking people under their wing was related to the Riverveins rituals that weren't, according to Drusilla, what they seemed.

We also have either an inside job or impersonation involved in Selwyn's killing - obviously Rourke is a suspect if the former, but possible impersonation has popped up a number of times in this case.

And the victim at Insight Park confirmed as Felsom Felgrim, so not E Shearan. Why were we given that latter name when we first visited the morgue? I started to wonder if I'd misinterpreted the situation, and E Shearan was the name on the bard's toe tag, but it definitely says E Shearan was under burlap and the bard under a thin sheet. Hmm.

Also, Felgrim killed by magical thorns (so Entangle, Spike Growth or Plant Growth?) not a dagger, so only connection to the dragonborn now is the note signed Grom, the gravedigger at the site where we assume the wrapping for the dragonborn corpse came from plus, as pointed out by Lyelle, the gravedigger's suspicious behaviour in preventing asking any more questions of the dragonborn. Otherwise, it's feeling quite different from the murders of the bard, butcher and Selwyn as I don't see any connection to a possible white dragonborn sorceror.

Also, I think we can take Fel confirmed as Top Hat aka The Butler given the similar speech mannerisms? Did his description sound like a redcap to anyone else? But another talisman has been lost, grr!

Need to mull this one over a while before deciding where to go next.

I'm more and more convinced that the murderer is Drusilla, and that she's a hag of some kind.

- Her description, behaviour and home are dead-ringers for Auntie Ethel
- Via her home she had easy access to all the murder places, including the tower for Selwyn's (he was in the water)
- Hags are physically strong as well as powerful magic users, and most of the murders require physical strength and powerful magic
- Hags have a cruel sense of humour; hanging up the butcher "like a pig" clearly fits into that
- Hags are also collectors and craft potions and items with body parts. She could have used the white drangonborn's skin to freeze Selwyn.
- Hags know everyone and everything going on; gossip is their main marketing pipeline. If any of the people involved with the victims ever went to see her (for love potions, advice, or other) that would be her connection to everyone in the city.

We should be focusing on places connected to water, see what happens.

I still somehow can't believe it's her, but additional evidence in favour would be that:

- The description of Top Hat made him sound like a redcap or some sort of fae, and we know redcaps serve Ethel so presumably other hags
- Top Hat aka The Butler aka (probably) Fel invited us round for tea, and we had tea with Drusilla back at the beginning of the investigation
- We've had a talisman from Drusilla hanging in our house doing ... something ... that's now been removed again

We also have Grom asking about a dagger, being pointed towards Sorcerous Sundries, only for a white Dragoborn to be the one who shows up there. It's interesting that you consider the murdered Dragonborn's family member to be suspect, I'm not sure.

If a Dragonborn came to purchase the dagger, and the fellow at Sorcerous Sundries thought a "Crane" was looking to sell it again, then Crane might be the Dragonborn. But, in our latest meeting with Fel, he's refered to as the 'Butler', and he keeps referring to his master, so concievably the Dragonborn could have been another factotum for some noble. That would also track as to why the propietor thought you had brought in a dagger to sell for someone else.

All in all, we have a pretty good lead with Grom, so I voted to go back to the cemetary. It'd also be interesting to learn if the Dragonborn's corpse has been disturbed.

When I first learned about our suspicious Dragonborn, I considered that the murders where being committed by a daisy chain of the victims, either being possessed or possibly even reanimated.

It seems like body parts were only taken from the Bard and the Dragonborn so far.

We also now know her boat is by an entrace to the Undercity, and route to the Riverveins.

OOOOh a FANCY RED CAP IN A TOP HAT - a city mouse - country mouse situation.

Yes, the tea connection and the talisman are super suspicious.

So much new information - I have to think it through before I vote.

But there is something I noticed. I don't think the dead Dragonborn was a White Dragonborn. When we use the Speak with Dead token, Tav notices something:


So most likely, the dead Dragonborn was a Blue Dragonborn. I think the "relative" intentionally misidentified him. When everyone believes Julikar Caeziryn to be dead, he cannot be a suspect of any crime: Maybe he killed Selwyn Leventide - a White Dragonborn's breathweapon is Cold.

Oh, good spot!

Good spot indeed! We might even have the identity of the Dragonborn in Julikar Caeziryn, though for the ploy to work he's probably going around under a new identity, maybe even the one of the dead Dragonborn. .

Going to the Harbourmaster might give us the assumed identity.

Of course we know that Grom is involved as well. And, Crane if Crane is a real person.

I forgot to return to Insight Park - I'm a horrible detective.

Maybe we have another hint in that prophecy that the White Dragonborn, the maybe not so dead Julikar Caeziryn, is using a disguise spell to impersonate other people (which wouldn`t be difficult for a sorcerer):


I'm not sure how the physics of a Disguise Self spell work, but
Maybe it works the same way with light, and the shadow does not match the illusion?

(He doesn't use Alter Self because it's not in the game )

Ack, I nearly missed that we could get our prophecy right now, too! Thank you for pointing that out.

It definitely feels as though they’re not leaving it up to chance that we cotton on to this dragonborn connection

I was also wondering whether we’d been somehow made to appear as a dragonborn, but then why would the Fist be chasing us with a picture of our (presumably real) face? Though I may be trying to take that prophecy too literally. Perhaps the picture just means that working on this case will lead to us being wanted by the watch. Or perhaps the shadow means that a dragonborn is following us. Or that the metaphorical shadow hanging over us due to the Master’s threat is somehow linked to a dragonborn.

Oh, oh, oh, and - sorry, off on another tangent - I’ve just remembered the earlier chat in this thread where we mentioned Jopalin’s teahouse. That sounds like a place that might “offer an assortment of blends catering to varying palates” as mentioned by the Butler. New wild theory: we’re going to end up there. And of course Ethel’s Lair is also called a Teahouse in EA so BeeBee’s hag theory might tie in too! Though admittedly from its FR wiki page Jopalin’s doesn’t sound particularly promising as the hideout of a “vulgar fiend”! Though from the city map Lunar Dante shared, it is close to both Drusilla’s boat and Canary Lane where we first encountered Top Hat.

Gah, and I was intending to vote and post here what I’d decided, but think I’m going to sleep on it. I’m tempted to follow up on Magpie as our most direct link to Fel, but also suspect that this case might reward windier paths. I’ll see what I think in the morning!

I thought that maybe we do not see ourselves, but the Dragonborn impersonating us with a Disguise Self spell. I think that the prophecy maybe warns us that Julikar Caeziryn could commit the next crime disguised as Tav, so that we will be blamed for it.

Ooh, interesting!

Now I’m totally getting carried away. Could Grom Skullsmash actually be a dragonborn using Disguise Self? The limitations of the spell might help explain the hulking size unusual for a Githyanki.

That would make sense.

Felson Felgrim, the gambler who was murdered at Insight Park, had a note with Grom's name. Maybe Grom/the Dragonborn had made an appointment with Felson at Insight Park - and murdered Felson?

A hulking Githyanki indeed! That Gith’s a Dragonborn. The masons have said Grom was doing odd things lately, too.

So new hypotheses the murderer or Fel has been taking on the identities of the victims. How does the false beard factor in. Was Rourke the killer in disguise at any point?

I thought it was an odd, or misleading bit of set dressing, but did anyone else notice the candelabra of severed hands in the home of the Bugbear. I wasn't sure how to take it at the time, but now that I'm reviewing every character as possibly Fel or the killer in disguise, I'm wondering.