It’s a cheery, crisp sort of Saturday outside the Tammilanti District 58 guardhouse. The kind of day you’d grill burgers on. But inside the guardhouse, the chief is dealing with two very unusual criminals on what would otherwise be a slow, pleasant day.
The first is a wandering halfling “luchador” that the guard picked up after he caused a drunken ruckus at The Dog & Duck Inn a couple miles outside of town. Though the guard aren’t normally involved with that inn, it being so far outside the beaten path, two of the guards assigned to the 58 happened to be there receiving an unrelated complaint from the innkeeper at the time and were able to minimize the damage to the place, though it took both of them to restrain the halfling, even in his drunken state. This is Pip the Mighty Squeak, a former entertainer now wandering, seeking purpose or employment, or maybe just a new start.
The other, still more unusual detainee is a cat. You read correctly, the guard apprehended a cat. This is no ordinary cat, however: This one talks and wields daggers—quite proficiently, given how difficult it must be without opposable thumbs—and claims to be the product of a witch’s spell. Her name is just Felina (apparently self-selected), and unfortunately for her, there is no real protocol for stray animals of unusual intelligence, and it’s likely the guard will be forced by the law to turn her over to local animal control to be put down.
Just as the chief is about to start the piles of paperwork on these two, however, the door bursts open and in walks an important-looking, if slightly short gnome bearing the heraldry of the Gnoble House of Gnomes. This is Rashida, and, unbeknownst to the guard (but knownst now to us), she is Felina’s best friend.