Background

The meazel is a grotesque and thinly-haired biped that lurks in the underdark. Little is known of its origin, but it is believed that the creature is a twisted human soul, tormented and mutated from the Ethereal plane. It prefers to attack its victims from behind, often using a garrot or its bare hands to strangle small prey. With larger beasts, the meazel instead chooses to lunge at them, using its shadow-teleport ability to a nearby lair, where other foul creatures are waiting to feed.

Aurelian folklore refers to the meazel as the Murkwhisperer, a creature responsible for the disappearance of any who dare step into its hunting grounds.

Encounters

The party first encountered the meazel as they descended into the Aurelian sewers in search of a secret entrance into the besieged city. The Murkwhisperer attacked the party as their guide, Peroc, lead the way down through the sewer’s chambers. The creature stalked the party for some time, waiting for an opportunity to strike. Finally, the creature lurched at Scribbles, disappearing the wizard Kenku into a visage of black smoke. Scribbles was transported to a pitch black room, where he could hear scittering feet. In the dark, he could make out movement ahead of him, and to his horror, an arachnid swarm crept toward him. He managed to battle the swarm off, and returned to the Ball Fondlers in tact. Meanwhile, the party battled the Meazel for some time before it was able to escape into the darkness.

Shortly after meeting the Arcane Liberation Front and discovering their living chambers were flooding, the party once again traveled into the sewers to repair the broken lever that Yeldarb had broken.

There, they met face to face again with the Meazel. He lunged at Yeldarb and dropped him into a cavern occupied by the Spider Mother - a Giant Spider, who’d made the sewer system her dominion.

Yeldarb narrowly defeated the large arachnid despite sustaining critical injuries. Meanwhile, the Ball Fondlers had split into two groups in search for their missing Barbarian, leaving Scribbles to guard Squall, the Artificer and Gareth, as the two worked to repair the lever.

In this time, the Meazel, with the help of a spider swarm, attacked the three left-behind members, and left them all unconscious. Borislav dashed back to his comrades and fought off the beast. After it sustained multiple slashes from the human male’s halberd, it attempted to slink back into the shadows and escape once again, but with one last desperate slash, Borislav the Fighter managed to strike down the Murkwhisperer once and for all!