At The Knight's Table

 A tavern with a reputation for stories, a meeting place for society's dawdlers and delinquents, its dusty and its disheveled. The Knight's Table plays host to a wild mixture of freebooters, mercenaries, dealers, and drifters. One goes there to look for someone with certain indispensable skills, to sell one's own particular talents, or to hear an astonishing yarn or two. Oh yes, and drink of course. Don't forget the drink.

 

 

For some context, last weekend I went on a camping trip in the Yorkshire Dales- a wild and rugged place with beautiful, bleak rolling hills and brooding skies. I really liked  the atmosphere there. I decided to take my bike, though, and when you take bikes to the second most hilly place in the country without really taking that into account, you generally have a difficult time. It was a somewhat difficult time. However, that meant I had to go extremely slowly, and I took in a lot more of the scenery than if I'd been going at a reasonable pace. I would definitely/definitely not recommend.

Anyway, when I was there I passed a sign to a pub called the Knight's Table, and for some reason this immediately conjured in my mind a pretty cool idea, and I wanted to share it.

I don't have a concrete image of what the tavern looks like on the outside, but I think that is a good thing. It could be many things, or occur in many places, and fit into a variety of campaigns or settings. This makes it feel like an almost mythical place, a legendary establishment which one can only find through word of mouth. For example:

1D6 Hidden Taverns

1. 
   A dingy set of stairs descending from an alley somewhere in a sprawling city. A door of heavy wooden planks set into a crooked stone archway. Perhaps it was a cellar once, an addend to a larger building, or perhaps the entrance to some municipal waterworks or a sewer. Inside, one might find vaulted stone ceilings and dank walls shored up with scaffolding, lined with tapestries and draped with luxurious cloths from distant lands.
2. In the back of an old, dusty antique shop. No one knows it's there from the outside unless you've been told about it by someone else. You don't have to speak to the shopkeeper to get in, you just have to tweak the codpiece of the suit of armour standing next to the tapestry of the young heroine fighting the beholder. The armour is brown and rusted except for the codpiece, which is suspiciously shiny. Once tweaked, the armour screeches into life and lifts a curtain and a stone wall slides away to reveal the tavern. Newcomers can always be recognised as they step through the door by their slightly bemused, annoyed, or droll expression. People who discover the place by surprise are obvious, laughed at most of all.
   
3. In the ruins of an old manor house on some blasted heath, a desolate moor where light from the windows spills across rolling heather. Inside, there is the raucous laughter of incredulous patrons, who gasp and groan at the stories told around the central table.
4. The undercroft of an old church or temple, hidden and quiet in the depths of dark green trees and uneven gravestones. Entrance to the place is gained through lifting the lid on the tomb of an old knight. Clues to this would be something like the Knight's effigy is holding a flagon to their chest, or their expression is one of inebriation rather than quiet, noble repose.
5. A cave at the foot of a great cliff, perhaps next to the sea. Half of the time, it's actually easier to access with a dinghy. The floor of the cave is slippery and coated with various lurid green seaweed. It smells like the ocean, that salty and stifling smell which is yet somehow fresh and invigorating. When one reaches the innermost chambers of the cave, a warm glow reaches out from the interior. The tavern is crammed into an alcove at the rear of the cave, a level perch which stretches back and back. It is complete with a single long table around which all the patrons sit and talk, swap tales, and exchange various twinkling trinkets whipped from their long overcoats.
6. Perhaps even in the depths of some forsaken dungeon or in the far reaches of the Underdark itself. It would need a hefty stone door to survive in that place, perhaps one of Dwarf origin. The tavern has ensconced itself in the shell of an old Dwarfish safehouse, a bolthole along one of the Underdark's main trading routes where the people of the dark once sought refuge- much like the bothys which dot the Scottish highlands. There is an inscription above the door, chiseled into the massive stone lintel, which reads, "Lay down thy weary bones, cousin of mine. Your path has been long and from here is longer still through the cold-dark. But now there is warmth and safe-dark to wrap thee in its folds." n.b. The ancient Khuzdish tongue has many different words for darkness, but none of them are literally translatable into the common tongue without some hyphenating nonsense. I suppose the main question here is why anyone would think to start a business in so inhospitable a place. Why indeed. Perhaps it sits upon a passage to the surface, or a passage to further down below. Who knows? Who dares to know?

<<nestled>>

The main idea of the place is that it is hidden- a haven nestled in the midst of an inhospitable or unexpected place. Perhaps the outside looks downright unappealing, or at the very best a little nondescript, almost as if to deter regular citizens simply looking for a cosy drink or a comfortable bed. The view of the owner is that such people would really deaden the mood. The Knight's Table is a place for the colourful and the strange. A fuzzy grey-market establishment for the exchange of goods and services away from the prying eyes of the Lawful-Goods and the tax collectors.

Who Goes There?

So, the question- who goes there? What can they offer the players, and what can the players offer them?

Conceivably anyone could be sat around the Knight's Table when players arrive at t he tavern. Any NPCs you may have in your setting. Recurring characters could greet them with a friendly (or a less friendly, or a seat-wettingly nervous) "fancy seeing you here." Okay here's another list:

1. A Rogue Golemancer- They were ejected from their college or their practice for engaging in ventures with questionable ethics, or for a fatal mishap which occurred. Perhaps they were caught one too many times paying body snatchers for parts. Perhaps one of their creations went berserk and killed a client. They have a companion who keeps silent and wears a long, hooded cloak. A drink sits untouched on the table in front of them.They are willing to part with their dear friend for a fee. Discount flesh/mud/clay/sand/wood golem, 200GP. The problem is that people around the nearest town might notice the face. It was someone they knew. OR the problem is that they might just go nuts without warning. It's a very disconcerting creature to stand next to, in either case.
   
2. A Ragged Hedge Wizard- Twigs and leaves are tangled in his/her hair. Sells substandard potions made from things found in hedges. A potion of transparency which he/she markets as a true invisibility potion- they'll sell it for 50GP and then slip away without being noticed. In truth, it just turns you partially see-through. Like one of those weird fish. Your heart and blood vessels wiggle and pulse with disconcerting vigour. Bags of liquid spill around inside you, uncomfortably visible. All except for your eyes and teeth, which remain totally opaque. It looks very bizarre. Lasts an annoyingly long time. 1d12 hours. Perhaps the imbiber gets advantage on intimidation checks instead of invisibility.
   
3. A Party of Chattering Halflings- No one tells a tale like the Halflings do. The adventurous types seen outside their insular communities are brimming with stories and jokes. Their stories would make them seem experienced adventurers, but the pristine condition of their equipment may betray that impression. They talk of the time they slew the vicious Drake of Gorebridge, outwitted the Troll of Fortrough, and sailed around the Findhorne through the dark and thrashing sea.
   
4. A 'Misunderstood' Necromancer- They have gleaned several small bones from the food which lines the centre of the table. They aren't doing anything, just sitting politely with a small pile of bones in front of them. Nothing seems actively wrong with them, they're just kind of reticent and weird. Perhaps they approach the players and ask to come along with them. Their motive for doing so is elusive at best.
   
5. A lvl 1 Peasant- He isn't sure how he wound up here but he's having a grand old time. What does he do? Perhaps he is a butcher, or a baker. Perhaps he makes candles. Perhaps talking about the intricacies of his craft is boring as hell, or perhaps the other patrons all find it fascinating.
   
6. A Small Band of War-Bitten Soldiers- They have come to the tavern in the wake of battle to offer their services. Fighting is all they know, and a lull in some war or another has left them without pay. If approached by the players, 1d6 of them will agree to join them, for a fee. Perhaps they can cut a deal. An even share of takings, or a flat fee- whatever they decide might be more lucrative. They are staunchly principled, though, and will not betray their contract, even for the promise of more money.
7. A Young Bard- Bright-eyed and keen for adventure, they sit with quill and paper, noodling on a lute and writing a new composition. They ask the players about a recent adventure, and propose turning it into a new smash-hit ballad.

Conceivably, the players could simply ask, "is there an x at this tavern we could talk to?" and there would be enough people sat along the length of the long table for them to make a roll for it.

I think what I'll do is write some more lists and furnish this tavern with people and services. Quests can be picked up after listening to tales of woe, or by tagging along with people headed on a treasure hunt, etc.