Madam Sybil

A wealthy, eccentric purveyor of magical oddities who came to the Tar Pit auction with cages instead of coin — and a “bodyguard” that isn’t a person.

[!summary] Named in S08 prep as a bidder, seen and identified at the Tar Pit in S09, and dismissed by Tessa Rook in S10 as “eccentric as always, collecting something exotic — not a threat.” The party never spoke to her.

Canon Facts

• Seen at the Tar Pit (S09). The party clocked her as “the woman with the cages” before they had a name: exotic cages and creatures stacked around her table, bidding relics and live specimens rather than gold. Longstride recognised her by name on his room read.
• Her bodyguard is not human. On Longstride’s Natural 20 Perception entering the auction floor, he clocked the hulking figure beside her standing perfectly still and breathing wrong. His read: a shapechanged monstrosity, not a bodyguard. This was one of the three hidden dynamics he caught in a single roll (the others being the Consortium spies and Brother Lorn).
• She used her menagerie as currency. She was “using the animals as her financial backing” for the Siren’s Gift — a Siren-Tail Parrot on her shoulder or perch among them, mimicking songs.
• She did not win, and she did not cause the chaos. The fog and the theft came from Vance’s disguised Consortium agents.
• Tessa’s assessment (S10). When the party debriefed Tessa on the bidders, she had little to add: Sybil is eccentric, always collecting something exotic, not considered a threat. (Vesper was her prime suspect for the trigger; Sybil was not.) The party’s own summary of her was “that’s the weird one that’s there.”
• She is based in the Shallows and bids with specimens drawn from that menagerie.
• The party has never learned about the shapechanger. Longstride knows. Whether he told anyone is a table question, not a vault fact.

Description

• Visuals: Established only through the cages. Her table at the Tar Pit was a wall of exotic creatures; the party’s own joke-image of her was “flanked by two peacocks.” Her face, race and age have never been described.
• Voice/Mannerisms: Never spoken to at the table. She is a collector first — she prices living things the way other bidders price coin.

Roleplay Traits

• Ideal: Acquisition. If it is rare and it breathes, it belongs in her collection.
• Bond: The menagerie itself, and whatever the “bodyguard” actually is to her — keeper, pet, partner, or debt.
• Flaw: She brings a shapechanged monstrosity into crowded rooms and considers that normal.

Background

An independent Undercurrent figure rather than a faction player — rich, harmless-looking, and the only bidder in that room who wanted the Siren’s Gift out of curiosity rather than doctrine, profit, or a purge order.

Mechanics / Stats

• Do not invent a stat block for Sybil herself — none exists, and she was written as a Low-Medium threat whose danger is entirely her entourage (09_Plan.md §139).
• Her creatures are already statted in 00-Sessions/Session_09/09_Tar_Pit_Stat_Blocks.md:
  • Sybil’s “Bodyguard” (Shapechanged Monstrosity) — Large Monstrosity, CR 4, AC 14, 68 HP; False Appearance (Humanoid Form) pierced only on a DC 15 Investigation; tentacle grapple (escape DC 14) and an acid bite on grappled targets.
  • Madam Sybil’s Menagerie — including the Singing Crystal Crab (CR 1/2, Resonant Shell thunder pulse, Sonic Harmonic charm) and the Siren-Tail Parrot (friendly — it only turns aggressive if Sybil is threatened or it is physically grabbed).
• The monstrosity’s trigger, per the encounter doc, is total chaos: it drops the disguise to protect her or to grab the prize.

Relationships

• Her “bodyguard” — a shapechanged monstrosity in a bodyguard’s clothes. The nature of the arrangement is unestablished.
• Baron Korth / Vesper / Sedge — rival bidders at the Tar Pit.
• “Rusty” Jax — the auctioneer she was bidding to; prep has her relics pitched specifically to tempt him.
• Tessa Rook — knows of her and does not rate her a danger.