“ The villages around the capital have a strange new disease cropping up. Spread by a fungus (much like ergot poisoning), it causes its victims to be very sensitive to sunlight. Hundreds of peasants are hiding from the sun, only coming out in the darkness to labor in the fields. Unfortunately, rumor makes their behavior sound more sinister and secretive than it really is.”
“ Poison can only ever be the tool of a murderer - as such, alchemists are tightly regulated by the Crown, and anyone found in posession of an unknown substance is forced to taste it themselves.”