Thack (“the Muffin Man”) & Hansy
Status: Thack at large — assume he already knows where you’re staying, and now assume he has an exit strategy involving a dog door. Hansy recovered and, as far as this wiki can tell, doing great. Affiliation: Founder/figurehead of Church of the Yips
Overview
Thack has been stalking this party since Kharbranth with the persistence of a man who has never once been told to take a hint. He’s murdered an axehound breeder and slaughtered the man’s stock outright, left a blood message on the shop wall reading “I took him to Vedenar. Come find me there; hopefully before Handsy becomes my new best friend,” and rigged a neurotoxin trap for good measure — all in service of stealing Kael’s axehound and building an entire religion around him. That religion, the Church of the Yips, venerates the ten Heralds as unique “Yip” spren, complete with hierarchies, chapels, and — this wiki cannot stress this enough — a genuine stained-glass window.
Hansy, born “Handsy” and stolen from Kael, is the reason the church exists at all. Venerated as “the Goodest Boy” — the first Yip — he has, in his time away from the party, bitten a guard’s entire backside off during an escape from Vedenar (the guard did not survive; Hansy remains uncharged for this) and been immortalized in stained glass so devoutly that when the party burned that chapel to the ground, the window depicting him survived the fire completely untouched. The congregation took this as a miracle. Kael took it as motivation to burn down a second one. Sebarial eventually recovered the actual dog and handed him back to the party at his final research outpost — arguably the single most decent thing anyone in this entry has ever done, Thack included.
Thack has also, since the above was written, personally tortured a captured party member at his own public execution and then vanished into the crowd rather than face the consequences — twice, if you count the follow-up session, where he escaped a second cornering through a secret tunnel that used to be a dog’s house. This wiki notes, without further comment, that his official adversary sheet was at one point accidentally filled out as a player character sheet instead, which may explain a great deal.
Key Moments
- Murdered an axehound breeder and his entire stock in Kharbranth, then rigged a neurotoxin trap on the way out — an escalation from “harassment” to “actual murder” that the party has not forgiven.
- Founded the Church of the Yips, complete with chapters, a nine-Seneschal hierarchy, and full congregational devotion to Hansy as a living demigod.
- Party has now burned down two Church of the Yips chapels hunting Thack directly. Neither arson has produced Thack. Both have produced excellent stained-glass survival stories.
- Sebarial personally delivered Hansy back to the party at the final research outpost, using the dog as both payment and bait near the campaign’s endgame.
The Execution That Wasn’t
- Presided personally over Torin’s public execution — tied spread-eagle between four horses in the town square — and used the “checking his bindings” moment to lean in and break three of Torin’s fingers by hand, one at a time, while explaining his philosophy on respect. His own words: “I really wish I was doing this to your brother. You were never involved in this. But you know, I’m really here to make sure that you and your friends die. It’s nothing personal.” Torin passed his discipline check and didn’t so much as flinch, denying him the reaction he was clearly fishing for.
- Was, in the same breath, publicly humiliated by his own voice: Mel used Illumination to throw a perfect impression of Thack calling a full retreat (“my friends, they are too powerful, and I am so weak — I cannot protect you all”). Every soldier present failed their check and fell for it, retreating on command from a Thack who wasn’t actually speaking. The real Thack did not order this and, as far as this wiki can tell, never found out it happened.
- Vanished sometime during the resulting chaos. By the time the party had dealt with his remaining enforcers — including the tier-two boss fighting Keth, see Veth — nobody could find him at all; Ravan was left demanding of the crowd “where has Thack gone?” and getting nothing but silence.
The Doggie Door
- Cornered again at what turned out to be a converted axehound den, complete with cage and a small door cut into the outer wall for the animal’s own use — grimly on-brand, given how this whole feud started. Torin and company found the space by triggering a secret latch hidden behind a fireplace.
- The “doggie door” was already standing open. On a successful check, the party worked out that Thack had used it to slip out roughly 45 minutes to an hour before they found it — plenty of head start in a sprawling war camp with, as the GM put it, “all manner of places he could have ran off to.”
- Net result: still at large, now confirmed to know how to use a dog door faster than the party can search a building.