The Meat Market

[Ampers&nd]

I thought I'd share the location my playgroup will be visiting next as they 'undertake' more tasks for the mysterious 'N' and his dishevelled henchman, it's designed to be entirely story led with little to no conflict, just to challenge them a little:) 

 

The Meat Market

 

Once a month, or thereabouts, it doesn’t pay to be too regular when Justice and the judge are looking for you, an unlucky traveller may stumble upon one of the strangest secrets in the outer wilds. As they ride into one of the many forgotten and decrepit ghost towns in Malifaux’s wilderness, they may see rotted walls start to rise up and hold steady as a train of dust covered and morbid wagons ride quietly into town, ghostly walls and canopies begin to form pathways and stalls in the streets and giant amalgamations of flesh and stone stride forward, clearing the paths and watching those who enter as they each pay a darkened hooded figures a pair of old coins. This is the Meat Market, for one night the dead town is resurrected into a true carnival, with resurrectionists  and their dark servants holding stalls alongside wandering spirits,  decaying stitched and even more foul and loathsome creatures.

 

For a dabbler who seeks to walk the dark path of the resurrectionist this market is a dream come true, on one stall he may find the severed limbs of man, neverborn and some of the wilds most fearsome beasts, ready to be sewn onto whatever crazed creation he has in mind, another contains nothing but dark grimoires, strangely incorporeal until the stallholder, herself a floating spirit with a rotting face beneath her pince-nez, hands them to a buyer for study. Deeper in and stalls can be found selling ointments, unguents, ingredients and fetishes of all shapes and sizes, tools of the trade, sharp and gleaming line the walls of an old hostelry whilst the blacksmiths now contains a rabble of wrecked and ruined constructs and abominations for salvage.  The same traveller may find himself in deep waters here though, as the traders barter between each other with mystic goods, the only currency accepted outside these trades are precious soulstones, and the sellers here do not take kindly to time wasters.

 

A rare creature holds court over the market as it appears each night, a stitched nephelim by the name of Tamar. Said to be a powerful necromancer with command of untold spirits, she is still as beautiful as she was when alive, though her wings have proved resistant to even the most potent of restorative magics, and they hang around her as a tattered shroud of white filigreed flesh, their gossamer thin membranes concealing her form as she moves. Little is known of how Tamar became one of the undead, and few have the courage to delve into the history of even a living Nephelim, but it is said Lady Justice has a file on Tamar that contains information torn from the lips of a hundred tortured nephelim and sorcerers, and that she edges closer to the truth about Tamar with each confession.

 

Strangers with artefacts of magical power, or a pocketful of soulstones, are welcome in the market, as are those with tales of Malifaux city, information itself can be very much worth trading, and the whispers of messenger spirits are a constant background noise over this eerily quiet bazaar. The safety of a visitor could be in doubt when you consider the fell deeds that most of those who attend the moonlit market have accomplished, but security is kept tight by Tamar’s enforcers, spirit infused Flesh and stone Golems of a size rarely seen in Malifaux itself, capable of tearing most humans apart with ease. Real customers and traders should not fear however, as long as the laws of the market are upheld a traveller is safe to wander the streets and barter for goods, they can even visit one of the more brightly lit food stalls, though they should not be too particular what they are eating if they choose to do so.  The other arbiters of this dark community are the hooded figures themselves, spirits under Tamar’s control known as Charon, wizened cloak bound creatures with a keen intellect when it come to magic, and perhaps they were once great wizards themselves before they fell into Tamar’s thrall. Whatever their background, they now stalk the streets of the market, ensuring the five laws: all deals are final, no customer to be cheated, no violence in market grounds, one tenth of a traders purse to Tamar, and everybody pays the Toll.

 

It is rare to see the most powerful practitioners of the Necromantic arts in the Market, Nicodemus and Seamus have little need of the trinkets on sale, and are quite capable of securing their own raw materials, and McMourning scoffs at the non-scientific nature of the market itself. Tara is sometimes seen in the Market, most often scouring its streets and alleys for Karina, who seems drawn to it without knowing why, she certainly rarely purchases anything before she is drawn away by Tara’s hand. This suits Tamar well, as she knows too many powerful resurrectionists in one place would draw the Death Marshalls in faster than ever, but personal visits aside, it isn’t totally uncommon for one of these masters of the darker paths to send a minion or other flunky to the market if they need something particular, and even these emissaries are wary of their behaviour when Tamar’s eye is on them.

 

The Market lasts for a varying length of time, never the same twice. The signal for the opening and closing of the market is a pair of stone statues that appear in the centre of the market as it commences. The first statue is recognisably Lady Justice, captured perfectly as she moves to capture her prey, and before her stands an emaciated lady in a long flowing dress. Though the stone seems as hard as granite to the touch, the statues will over the course of the evening move together, until Justice almost has the girl in her grasp, as soon as the statues reach this point Tamar gives the signal, and with barely a whisper the stalls close, ethereal paths drag stall holders away as others mount their wagons and carriages and head into the night. The statues themselves fall into dust and Tamar fades into nothing above them. The traders believe that the statues represent how close Justice and her Death Marshalls are to discovering the Markets location that evening, moving closer together as the Guild closes in and slowly passing apart when false leads or other events distract them.

 

Thus it is within but a few hours the traveller has seen a town rise from the dead, become a bustling if quiet market of the most unusual type, and then just as quickly disappear leaving nothing but tracks in the dirt. But you may be wondering why I called our traveller unlucky, the reason for that is simple, when the market started to build itself around them the Charon would have asked them for their Toll; two coins, minted before the first breach opened with sigils unknown to humanity. If they have these coins then luck must be with them and I must bite my tongue, If not.. well, there’s usually room on the stalls for a little more stock, and fresh is best as the butcher always says…

[dgraz]

Wow. That's the kind of FM I want to be. With all the thought and work that obviously went into this it would be a shame if only your group got to enjoy it so..........consider it stolen

 

Any further fleshing out (NPC's, specific stalls, stats, etc) will also be quickly consumed by my rapacious greed for anything Malifaux

[sephiroa]

i really love this! and i would love to use this (and give credit where credit is due) BUT! 1 of my players just became a death marshal so i presume this would be kinda.. well.. sending him to die

[Ampers&nd]

hey it's malifaux, disguises can be found in all shapes and sizes:) Glad you guys like it, I'm hoping to fill in some details this week (stats for Tamar, Charons and Golems, as well as some infamous stores and their owners)

[sephiroa]

hey it's malifaux, disguises can be found in all shapes and sizes:) Glad you guys like it, I'm hoping to fill in some details this week (stats for Tamar, Charons and Golems, as well as some infamous stores and their owners)

 

oh yeah. i forgot to mention, 1 of the party also is a nephilim hunter.. should be fun

[Nathan Caroland]

Very well done, and quite an enjoyable read.