The Velvet Menagerie
The Velvet Menagerie
“Break into the city zoo, smash the display, and rescue three succubi before the respectable people make their crime permanent.”
— Hook · rescue
“Three succubi are on display behind warded glass in the city zoo, and the crowd thinks it is entertainment. Lust wants you to break in, free them, and leave the place standing only long enough to hide the truth. If you succeed quickly, the city will call it an accident. If you fail, it becomes a public scandal.”
— Hook · rescue
The zoo is loud with daytime cheer, but the rear gates are quiet and locked by iron bars wrapped in pale blue wards. Lust waits in the shadow of a marble beast statue, smiling without warmth. She points toward the Velvet Menagerie and says the captives have already spent one night too many in a glass cage.
Lust
Direct and confidential. Lust gives the party a clear target, a time limit, and just enough leverage to make refusal awkward.
Rumours
d3 · table- 01The zoo's night staff says the succubi sing in a language that makes the lock pins tremble.
- 02A curator paid in unmarked coins has been visiting the exhibit after dark.
- 03The reptile house has a service tunnel that should not exist on any official map.
If the party succeeds, they save innocent captives, embarrass powerful enemies, and uncover a criminal network hidden beneath civic respectability. If they fail, the city gains a harsher anti-fiend crackdown, the captives are sold or silenced, and Lust loses patience with the party's reliability.
Background Lore
The city prides itself on its famous civic zoo, a place where rare beasts are preserved, studied, and displayed behind polished glass. In recent days, an anonymous benefactor secretly funded a new attraction called the Velvet Menagerie, where three captured succubi are being exhibited as living curiosities under heavy warding and public amusement. The city assumes the fiends are dangerous predators. In truth, the captives are political refugees who have been leashed, drugged, and forcibly glamoured into compliance by a private syndicate that wants to prove it can imprison anything, even infernal nobility.
A city zoo is unlawfully displaying three captured succubi as its newest attraction. Break in after hours, bypass the wards and guards, rescue the captives, and escape before the alarm brings the whole district down on you.
