This four-story stone structure constantly streams smoke of unusual colors from various vents and chimneys. From the elaborate showroom spanning the bottom two floors, alchemist Avery Sonshal (neutral male human mage) maintains his family's longstanding monopoly on smokepowder production in Baldur's Gate.
While smokepowder is reserved for the Council of Four and Gond's High House of Wonders, the shop sells a variety of lesser alchemical items to the public, from torches with colored flames to smoke grenades and fireworks, some of them enhanced with harmless illusions. While the windowless workshop filling the building's upper two stories is strictly off-limits, its stairwell blocked by a massive iron vault door and a thug hired from the Bannerless Legion, the mutton-chopped Avery is usually happy to chat with customers and other alchemical enthusiasts on the lower floors.
At the moment, however, Avery is visibly troubled. Recently, someone managed to break into the upper workshop while he was sleeping and steal four kegs of smokepowder. In their place, he found a drawing of a phoenix. Avery is terrified of what the thieves might do with the powder—he's all too aware that someone with that much smokepowder could blow up a portion of the High Hall, Wyrm's Rock, or any number of other fortifications. Yet as horrifying as he finds those possibilities, he seems more concerned about himself: smokepowder security is his responsibility, and he can't tell the city government about the theft without getting punished for negligence. Yet if he keeps quiet and the thieves use the powder, he'll obviously be implicated. The only solution is to hire someone discreet and trustworthy to track down and recover the missing kegs of smokepowder before it's too late.
If smokepowder is set on fire, dropped, or otherwise handled roughly, it explodes and deals fire damage to each creature or object within 20 feet of it: 1d6 for a handful, 9d6 for a keg. A successful DC 12 Dexterity saving throw halves the damage. Casting dispel magic on smokepowder renders it permanently inert.
Comments