Cachot hooks

Portrait of a Lady
The adventurers are approached by a representative from Cartel Cachot with a clandestine mission in mind: reclaiming a stolen painting depicting a lady elf from Cartel Vilaverde. The painting has made its way to Cachou's port district. Find the art smugglers and acquire the portrait for Mam Itria LeLouche.

Mam Itria will direct the party to Rook's Rest as a place to prepare for their entry to Cachou - she does not want to be associated with the job, so the party will need a cover story.

Mam Itria LeLouche
Mam Itria is a striking elf with a generous figure, chestnut hair and greenish eyes. She's well travelled and has been to New Albion; she even speaks a little Morning in the dialect of a local Draioth sept. Mam Itria is married but it's well known that she and Seu Giuliu both take lovers and may even live in a menage a trois with Bebe (Leu Septime Rivet, one third of the Powers That Be behind Cartel Cachot). Mam Itria uses theatrical glamours and honeyed words to get what she wants, but she wields more than just influence. Like most full elves, it's hard to estimate her age.

[insider knowledge: Mam Itria has a bonded loa, which grants her some kind of powerful boon but at a great cost to her soul. Her glamours are extra heavy to disguise this supernatural pact. It is a Faustian bargain and she often regrets it. Mam Itria may have some understanding of what happened to Kevan and can use this to entice him into taking the job.]

Cartels Vilaverde and Cachot
The cartels haven't always seen eye to eye over colonies, both are vying for control over Cheri (an archipelago in the Wide Sea). Mam Itria probably plans to use the painting as leverage over its former owner.

The Painting
The portrait is reportedly of a lady elf who is high in the ranks of Cartel Vilaverde (Dona Adelisa Vilaverde), from her younger days. Mam Itria will tell you that it was stolen from the family's villa in the seaside town of Basilica to the south, and that it ended up in Cachot to be 'fenced'. [What actually happened: DomNa Adenor, Adelisa's sibling, stole the painting from their own household and sold it to finance their latest expedition against their family's wishes]. Mam Itria doesn't know what's odd about the painting, but she does know that Dona Adelisa has never exhibited it in public - so it must be embarrassing! Maybe it shows up how old Adelisa really is!

[the painting is quite bulky - it can't be stowed under a coat, though a single person can carry it without too much trouble. It depicts a younger Dona Adelisa sitting in a Diviner's pose - the Cartel is known for their skill as diviners. She holds a seer's bowl and an olive branch, a reference to the family's coat of arms. What's odd is that she sits atop a volcanic fissure and inhales the fumes. This is something that worshippers of Sha the Teller do, and she is both an evil goddess and a goddess of sad stories "Our Lady of Loss". Why did Dona Adelisa commission a portrait of herself worshipping this deity?]

If the party tracks down the current keepers of the painting they will not find thieves, just very shady art and antiquities dealers who will be completely surprised and claim the moral high ground. It won't be long before the gang Los Gatos breaks in to the same warehouse, to reclaim the painting on behalf of Dona Adelisa!

The journey
The travelling party are grateful for good roads - heavy rain makes the area very boggy, armadillos crawl up on the road to escape surface flooding. It's obvious why few people go to war at this time of year. The terrain is a mix of farmland and wild country. Near the road are shallow-dug, wet fields growing potatoes, canola, celery and onions, protected with levees of piled-up Desh stones. Further away, you see the shapes of large glyptodon browsing tall reeds and grasses. An alpaca herder crosses the road with her livestock.

The team are directed to stay the night at Rook's Rest, a distinctive square building at a corner of the road to Cachou (roadworks lead further south). Gilberto runs the place as an unorthodox inn. The walls are just an entranceway, the sleeping quarters are below ground, on the top gallery of an otherwise submerged Deshi building complex. There's a nice pond of giant lilies under the skylight. Leu Ozile Neanmoins will be expecting the party and can kit them out in disguises/with documents of the party's choice, for a reasonable price. They are a very oily person, half elf half human, and wear a lot of fur even though it's not that cold.

Port District
While in Cachou, the party has opportunities to do shopping and explore as well as pick up leads on the art thieves.
 * A reference to 'olives' is the thieves' argot for the painting.
 * The party can use the elven tchotchke as a way 'in' to dealerships to try and find clues.
 * Carousing will give them leads on ships in and out of port, including one that took DomNa Adenor into town. Adenor's expedition to The Belfry is the talk of the local underworld, because Roma/grey elves have cool treasure and are selective about outsiders.

LaFitte's Antiquities
LaFitte's is among a newer class of shop called a rigattiero - selling tapestries, fine bedlinen, ornate furniture and other decorations. It also trades in art. It's quite near the merchant ships, and faces onto a busy street.

The shop front below mostly sells sculptures, curtains and carved chests. It's securely barred and boarded at night, with nice displays and actual glass windows by day. The shop looks both fancy and sordid - they have fancy windows and a pretty brass countertop, but the floors don't get swept properly and objets d'art are stacked randomly in parts of the showroom. There is a back entrance for deliveries: near it, a small smoker's cubby adjoins a neighbouring paint business and is planted with sad looking ferns.

The first floor features much simpler stonework and the warehouse proper. The team can rappel down from the roof or sneak into the sloppily kept stockroom and stay after hours. They might even get jobs as cleaners/stocktake keepers.

The main owner is Piedro LaFitte (an interesting mix of backgrounds there!) He has a lazy associate Giovanni who has a club foot, and two burly 'haulers', Bembo (M) and Larina (F), who do the heavy lifting. They are all humans and all look SUPER dodgy. [Piedro is not the original owner of LaFitte's, he changed his name so he could 'retain brand value', his actual name is Piedro Mascagni]

In Piedro LaFitte's office desk upstairs are documents verifying the legitimate-ish sale of the painting by DomNa Adenor, and a few discreet letters of offer from Cartel Vilaverde's various social enemies. A juicy list of rivals, there, maybe Dona Adelisa would find it interesting reading. There's very little in the way of portable loot, though there are some bills of sale that bear family seals and would be useful to forgers.

Options for smuggling the painting out include posing as porters, concealing it between pallets, hiring a small cart and concealing it in the floor, getting the guards to confiscate the painting and then taking it out of the guardhouse, and so on.

Gombo Gone
Big Mama Poulaine (half-elf) of Poule-Au-Pot kitchens makes the best gombo around. Unfortunately, her prize chickens keep going missing. She wants you to stop whatever's been taking the birds.

Poulaine's hints:
Clues round the chicken pens: Following the trail of feathers takes us to:
 * At least a couple of local families are jealous of her gombo making prowess
 * The swampland hereabouts is full of 'varmints', but her chickens can take care of themselves
 * Poulaine's gombo is 'certified glamour free and nutritious' - Cartel Cachot makes special orders
 * There is a herb garden with some odd aromatic plants you've not seen before
 * These birds leave unusually large tracks and distinctive red feathers
 * There is a trail of blood and feathers leading towards a nearby mangrove swamp
 * Faint traces of slime on the nearby soil lead away in another path towards reedy water

La Flache
A hamlet on the bayou

Abbaye La Batre - Celeste La Batre (elf) is the resident cleric of Jaundacul Tourbiere plantation - inhabited by the many human (you hope) cousins of Famille Tourbiere
 * a working hospital with at least one pregnant person visiting for a check up
 * an excellent Religion roll shows the symbology in the makeshift 'abbey' is a little off...
 * more interesting plants in the hospital's garden. A very small cemetery out back. (unusually small - maybe kin take their relatives back to the city to bury or burn?)
 * Moonshiner hilbilly vibes, smell of herbs and booze. How do they feed all those cousins?
 * A perceptive person will notice the Tourbieres all look really alike, the same facial mole and long fingernails. It's uncanny.
 * Tourbieres (truthfully) insist they had nothing to do with the disappearing chickens. They are hiding something though
 * One of the cousins says they prefer to eat 'varmints' and will pay you for 'varmint' meat.
 * A stream runs past the back porch of the plantation building, out into the bayou
 * Everything is a bit... wet.

Following the reedy water
The party ventures into a maze of tall trees, their buttress roots extending into the bayou. If the party's smart they will hire a flat bottomed boat, fashion a raft or they can 'borrow' one the local kids use for fishing. If they are not smart, this will be rough terrain and they will need to waterproof their supplies.

Further into the swamp, the following area effects start happening:
 * Unnatural thick fog that smells like bitter herbs and sulfur
 * Surfaces randomly become more slippery or slimy
 * The mud tries to grapple with characters who wade in it - or, tendrils of mud and slime start to snake on board the boat
 * Varmint attack (if you are out looking for them). Basically a reptilian ROUS/possum/it's gross
 * Just as the party is getting annoyed - look, on the surface of the mud - red feathers floating!

The Earthen Mound
Swampmother and her pet caiman, Coucou, are here, nestled in a grove of pungent herbs. The chickens are safe and unharmed, clucking away, enormous muscular birds with a lot of raptor in them.

Talking to Swampmother: Or - fight the caiman, who has a nasty bite attack and slippery terrain / herbs that make the party woozy when you roll in them. On inspecting the caiman's hide... is that a dark scale on its left cheek? Almost like a.. mole? Swampmother melts away into the mud to bother the party later. Possibly also a chicken attack if the party provokes the birds.
 * She made a deal with Big Mama Poulaine, and Big Mama has 'not held up her end of the bargain'.
 * The chickens got big and spicy on Swampmother's special seeds.
 * If you ask about the Tourbieres: "They are respectful, they are fruitful, we understand each other".
 * On a successful persuasion check - Swampmother will release the chickens on condition that you remind Big Mama of 'her deal'.
 * If you want to sacrifice something to Swampmother, you get some cool herbs!

Returning to Poule-au-Pot
Big Mama Poulaine tearfully says that she promised 'her dear one departed' in return for 'life bountiful'. When her baby died she interred it in the bayou - 'to be one of the Swampmother's children'. But the possibility of her baby going to ground was too tempting - Mama Poulaine took the child's body back from the swamp and buried it secretly in the churchyard at Abbaye La Batre, thinking that as the Abbaye had a good relationship with the Swampmother, this wouldn't get her in trouble. Celeste will have to help her return her baby's body to the swamp - or she will have to give up her 'gifts'. The party can persuade her either way.