Elizabeth Clawthorn

Elizabeth Clawthorn was an inhabitant of in the town of Ghars in Cormyr in the mid–14 century DR. She was called Mother Clawthorn or Looney Liz by the townsfolk; they thought she was a witch, but she was only very old and absentminded.

Description
She was very frail and slow-moving, and shrunken to almost a dwarf's height. Her teeth were yellow or black or absent and her hair long and dirty. She had cataracts that clouded her eyes and obscured her sight. She wore an unwashed smock.

Personality
At her great age, her wits were said to be wandering; at times she was lucid, but at others she acted strangely, and she mistook people and things for others.

Relations
She once had a husband and a son named Jamie.

Home
She lived about to the south of Ghars, in a small cottage that had become dilapidated. The walls needed painting, greasy hides were used to cover the windows, and wreaths of dead flowers hung on the walls and door. While Liz had an apple tree and grew vegetables such as lettuce, potatoes, and tomatoes in a small garden by the side, the drought that struck Ghars in 1367 DR meant these grew poorly or died. A dead dog lying by one withered tree completed the bleak appearance. The inside was little better, being unclean and smelly.

History
On the night of Flamerule 8 in the, Liz saw the axe-wielding ghost of the bandit chieftain Fastred that had been appearing to townsfolk that autumn. She fled at first but then returned, having mistaken it for her long-deceased husband and wanting to remind him to mend a bucket. After following the apparition, she realized her error when she saw it had a "golden hand" and hid in case it ate her. She watched this ghost wave to another golden-handed ghost in the Vast Swamp. She later told her story in town. And of course few believed her.

Some time after, Liz offered a dead cat in trade for a linen tablecloth at Bryn Goldtooth's store, but he declined. She did share some of the story of her ghost sighting, however.

Later that year, on Eleint 18, Jasper visited Liz at her cottage to ask about her sighting, as part of his investigation into the killings of Dovo (who was impersonating the ghost) and Grodoveth. He brought her bread and vegetables (she mistook the carrots for oranges) and briefly mistook him for her son Jamie. From her account, he realized the ghosts' golden hands were actually lanterns seen through her obscured sight. Liz's evidence blew the case wide open: Jasper and Benelaius realized Dovo had been signaling to agents in the swamp.