Welp, those were normies~ If plot was afoot and authorities came out in force, capturing whole lot at once is plausible.
If we draw parallel to Manhattan around 1850, the slums are infested with immigrants that nobody cares about and is basically run by gangs that bribe the police to look the other way. There's so many murder going that it's impossible to settle the majority of them. It was a period of utter chaos for sure.
Or, and just hear me out Someone needs to collect and use an organless body as a cauldron to brew the potion. Just imagine piles of organs being left randomly
Absolutely ew. It gets bad enough with cannibals and sacrifices, no need to make a spoopy bathtub made of people flesh
I can imagine a bone cauldron at least. Strange, but mystical. And bones can be cleaned before use. And they dont have to be human bones.
"Hi, this is my Damascus Steel Sword. Damascus was a particularly swarthy fellow that stood at 2 meters and carried a large sledgehammer for intimidation. It took a while to properly cut him up, but now his steely personality can be properly presented!"
When we do autopsy, among other thing we first make a cut from the base of the neck to the bottom of the belly then cut the ribcage before removing and assessing the internal organ. The hollowed up corpse is about the right-ish shape for a cauldron, though it'd probably need some mental disorder or brain damage before one can comfortably use it.
LotM does have some SAN reducing parts to it. Some SPC foundation, some Lovecraft, it certainly had a junji ito vibe at one point. Dude cut his arm open to have thousands of tiny worm thingies crawling out. Disgusten
@Haxagen as I said before, please complete your backstory before posting things that might be problematic.