The Case of the Golden Idol/The Strange Practices of a Secretive Society

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A secret society is having a meeting.

For this one most of the people are wearing masks, as such many names are infeasible to deduce. Instead you are given ranks and houses.

The masks and robes

The tapestries make it clear that each mask represents a house and each robe represents a rank.

Going by the rituals, the proudbeast and watersnake masks can be deduced. Likewise, the robes for master and steward are deduced. This leaves the remaining mask and robe for darkhand and initiate.

The ritual upstairs

The main starting point here is to deduce which ritual is taking place. The scrolls on the wall speak of four different rituals.

The way to tell them apart is the decorations used. Each decoration is marked with a blue tag. There are three decorations, a huge book, a key and an image of the grim reaper. The grim reaper is easy to match to the scrolls, but the others use more poetic names. The book is "The Nevertiring Teacher" and the key is "The Keeper of Treasures". This means that this is the ritual of Dispute.

This means that the man with the scepter is the Watersnake Master.

It seems like someone has taken the place of one of the members here, since there is a man in the bushes. Going by the mask and robe, the Darkhand Initiate was replaced.

The man in the bushes

The brandings on his back match up with the symbols on the tapestries showing that he is a Darkhand Initiate.

The ritual downstairs

Again the main starting point is determining which ritual is taking place. Checking the scroll on the statue, there are four possible rituals.

The rituals each have four tests. The tests of this ritual match up with the paintings on the wall. Of course, it's not quite that straight forward, they are riddles.

• The first one is a man carrying a house on his back. This represents a snail.
• The second one is a man eating without a mouth. This represents fire.
• The third one is a fish inside a house. This represents water.
• The fourth one is a man dressed in the summer, but naked in the winter. This represents a tree.

This matches the ritual of inception.

With the ritual known, we know that the one administering it is the proudbeast steward.

This only leaves the kneeling man. Since he is the one who has taken the tests, he is the one earning the rank. The middle letter on the table speaks of adding a Lazarus Herst, this must be him.

Filling out the scroll

The letters make it clear that Walter Keene was challenged by Jeffery Sinclair. This was resolved using the dispute ritual upstairs.

The tied up man, the marks outside, the personal belongings and particularly the letter from W.K. to David makes it clear what happened outside.

Walter Keene and David Gorran ambushed the Darkhand Initiate and David took his place. This was done so that he could signal with the tankard which cup was clear of the poison.

Meanwhile Lazarus Herst passed the inception ritual and got branded as a proudbeast initiate.