The Crawler is a Midkemian human gang leader in competition with the Mockers. His influence is felt throughout the Kingdom of the Isles in Betrayal at Krondor and its novelization, and his activities are mentioned in Return to Krondor and its novelization, Krondor: Tear of the Gods. He also drives the plot in the other two novels of the Riftwar Legacy series, Krondor: The Assassins and Jimmy and the Crawler.
Betrayal at Krondor
The Crawler has a residence in Silden.
Chapter 2
The party can receive a Note retrieved by Limm from a corpse near the Thieves' Highway sea gate. The Crawler, angrily writing to an unidentified recipient, is uninterested in their difficulties with the Mockers, noting that their special training should be more than adequate against common thieves. He orders the person to find an Amulet of the Upright Man and the Idol of Lassur and immediately load them aboard the Night Crawler, threatening that "our serpentine clients in the Sunset Isles," with whom his organization has pressing business, will not be patient with incompetence from his hirelings.
If they have not yet visited Max Feeber's house, they can speak to a friendly man at The Wayside in Lyton who believes the guild troubles in Romney troubles are being stirred up by "some bloke" from Silden, whose agents have been reportedly posing as members of other guilds and even carrying forged guild seals. The man adds that he has seen a group of such people with "that greedy bastard" Feeber.
Another agent leaves him a note near Silden reporting the acquisition of false Glazer's Guild Seals with which to enter Romney, and their storage in a barn near Lyton since the Silden area was too active to store them locally.
Chapter 3
At The Anchorhead, James overhears a whispered conversation in which a man asks a mercenary where the Crawler's key is. The mercenary replies that Kivo dropped it in the sewers during a scrambling escape from angry Mockers after the murder of the Upright Man. With the Crawler departed for the Sunset Isles, the key is still down there unless a Mocker has found it. The key can be purchased from Limm.
In exchange for information about the Silver Spider, James agrees to a bargain with Joftaz, who needs a thief unaffiliated with the Crawler to retrieving a Powder Bag stolen by the Crawler and hidden in his nearby house. After the theft is achieved and the information exchanged, Joftaz warns the party that the Crawler's agents will be seeking the thief and that they should leave for their own safety.
Return to Krondor
The Crawler has suborned Yusuf, a Keshian working under the head of Keshian Intelligence, paying him handsomely to foment conflict between the Kingdom and Kesh. If the party visits Yusuf's sweatshop, they can learn about the Crawler's involvement from the documents in its office, which are then brought to the Palace for investigation.
Trivia
- The strategy guide for Betrayal at Krondor ascribes the disturbance among the rusalki along the River Rom to an agent of the Crawler who stole an Eliaem's Heart from his master and used it to protect himself while fleeing north along the river.[1]
References
- ↑ Betrayal at Krondor: The Official Strategy Guide, p.63. Prima Publishing, Rockland, CA (1994).