Thaluikhain wrote:
(Oh, and I think you are obliged to make a "Claus"/"Claws" joke)
The most potent punchline is often a diverted one.
Play up an aspect you think is funny, but confused with an other slightly similar aspect, as
intensely as you can. Only after things have been mostly resolved (i.e.
after the last second) do you reveal that said aspect was merely a tangent to the actual truth.
First, some confusion that St.Claws has defeated enemies with their shrewd legal skills (i.e. their many deadly "clause"). This could happen in more urban settings, or with civilized NPCs. They also maintain some form of pan-dimensional census that is automagically updating itself; perhaps the first Yule gift a mortal receives invokes some form of "Yule clause" that is vagule understood, or has different/conflicting interpretations.
Then NPCs in rural and wilderness settings could heavily play up the fact that St. Claws has the power to rend their enemies apart with their massive mitts (a rework of the Skyrim quote about Ulfric Stormcloak 'shouting' King Torryg "apart", i.e. "He clawed them apart"; might be an option). Perhaps even have environmental demonstrations of forest paths, mountains, giant cities, which are rent with successive parallel scoring lines (indicating claws large enough to destroy forests/coliseums /mountains).
The reveal would be that the "claus" is actually a result of the fact that people are lazy, and have shortened St.Nickolaus, to St.Klaus. St.Nick themselves would be the best way to make that reveal, when the PCs finally meet up with them.
When confronted, Claus could explain that the other misattributions are simply compounded laziness and cognitive bias by people who have observed the results of eons of St.Claws' labours, but have misinterpreted their causes.
Yes, St. Claws will admit that they rely heavily upon inventoried lists/rosters/documents to enforce their Imperial Yule. However the fact that clause and claus are homonyms is purely coincidence compounded by human ignorance.
While their environmentally destructive powers come from the vorpal switches/bundles carried by the minotaurian Krampus-reindeer which pull his war-sleighs through forests and mountainous terrain.
After all, how are you going to create, update, & leverage, a pan-dimensional census if you can't even hold a fragile quill in your hand without snapping it inside your mountain-shredding claws?