Cleaver

A joke circulates about the back alleys and seedy taverns of Novigrad. It claims the dwarf Carlo Varese, one of the four leading lights of the local criminal strata, was, in his own way, a fierce proponent of racial coexistence. He applied this principle in a somewhat selective fashion, however.

Cleaver firmly felt that, as an assimilated dwarven resident of the city of Novigrad, he had every right to run his own business. Anyone who had a problem with the way he ran it or with the nature of his dealings - be they dwarf, human or halfling - revealed themselves a vile racist. And what was the only fitting thing to do with such scum? Why, feed them to a herd of ferociously hungry hogs – right after he sliced off their fingers with his namesake cleaver. Naturally, such tales could very well have been mere rumor and slander – but very few had the courage to test their veracity.

Cleaver was famed for his hot temper. What boiled his blood hottest of all, however, were folk who thought they could pull one over on him.

No wonder, then, that the attack by Whoreson's thugs riled him somewhat. The violent tirade he directed at Wiley clearly contained not idle threats but promises he meant to keep, even if doing so meant leaving half a district of the city in ruins.