Summary: One of three Inns in the town of Brindenford, the Lost Shepherd is the one that appeals to those interested in exploring the ruins and dangers of the nearby dungeon.
Sights and Sounds: The sign over the front door shows a shepherd with a crooked staff but no sheep. From noon until midnight (and sometimes after), the Lost Shepherd is open as an eatery and taphouse. Never burgeoning with customers, the place is never empty, either. Good smells waft from the kitchen, from beef stew to fresh baked bread, frying bacon to sage-and-thyme roasted vegetables.
The building’s great age cannot be concealed by the frequent repairs, and so the interior is drafty and dusty, but fires in multiple fireplaces keep the place warm. The taproom is large and comfortable, with a second floor offering additional seating. Beyond the taproom lies the kitchen, a private dining or meeting room, and a small office. The second floor offers rooms for rent, about half of which seem occupied at any given time.
Beneath the kitchen is a cellar used for storage.
The Details: PCs wishing to rent a room above the tavern must pay 1 sp per night. Each room has two large beds, and is clean and well-kept. For an additional 5 cp per night, a simple (DC 20) padlock can be rented to put on the door. Each room also boasts a table, chairs, benches and washstands, and chamber pots. One meal is included with a room rental.
Meals in the taproom are hot, generous, and tasty, with surprising variety. They cost 1 sp as well, although for 6 coppers one can buy something lighter, simpler, and cold.
Ale is plentiful but nothing special (4 cp per mug). The bar also offers wine by the pitcher for 1 sp, and offers excellent whiskey at 1 sp per glass.
Caretaker, Roman Buevias: Roman (human commoner3) works at the Lost Shepherd doing most of the hard work that doesn’t involve interacting with customers. He tends the stables, maintains the very old building, handles the supplies, and even manages the accounts.
Roman is 40 years old with broad shoulders, thin hair, and a face well-acquainted with worry. He avoids talking to the clientele if he can, but those that win him as a friend find him to be pleasant and intelligent. Roman works from sunup and sundown, dedicated and conscientious. He sleeps in a room in the back over the stable.
Recently, Roman and Taran have fallen in love, although their relationship is secret. When Taran’s family finds out that she is pregnant, however, life is likely going to get very difficult for Roman.
Bartender and Cook, Juddelo Green: Juddelo (halfling expert4) is almost everything that Roman is not. Although a skilled cook, he would rather sit and talk to customers than do any real work. Well-liked in the tavern and around town, Juddelo actually can’t really be trusted. He knows no loyalties and frequently talks out of turn about the secrets of others.
Of an average height and build for a halfling, Juddelo is 55 years old. His black hair has only just started to gray, and he sports a gold tooth in his wide smile. Juddelo lives with his family in a small house in the center of town.
Cook, Murla Torren: Murla (human commoner2) almost never leaves the kitchen. She’s a competent cook, but mostly just follows Juddelo’s recipes (and takes up the kitchen work that he shirks) even though she doesn’t care for him much. But then, she doesn’t seem to care for anyone too much.
Murla is almost 60 years old, but her shriveled, hunched, and surprisingly hirsute features make it difficult to actually determine her age and even her gender with a casual glance. Her clothing bears the stains of a thousand prepared meals. She lives with her spinster sister in town.
Employee, Taran Manias: Taran (human commoner1) works as a maid and a server in the tavern. Pleasant and kind, she doesn’t flirt with customers or dress provocatively as do some servers in other taverns in town to help them with their “other source of income.” Taran is young and just on the pretty side of plain, interested in books, knowledge, and news of the outside world.
Taran wears her long brown hair in a ponytail and a clean white apron over the simple dress while she works. She is pregnant with her secret lover Roman’s child, although it does not yet show and she will hide it as long as she can, knowing that folks (including her surly father) will not look favorably upon her relationship with the much older man. She lives with her parents and siblings in town.
Customer, Erlan Furg: One could be forgiven for thinking that Erlan (dwarf fighter3) works at the Lost Shepherd in some capacity, for it would seem that he is always around. But in fact he doesn’t. Erlan also likes to pretend that he knows a great deal of lore about Dragon’s Delve, entertaining newcomers with tales from the region’s history. In truth, however, he’s never been farther than the surface ruins, having once worked as a man-at-arms assigned to guard some other adventurers’ camp while they explored a year or two ago. (Erlan would be a good source of rumors about the dungeon, although some of them would be false.) Most of his life, Erlan worked as a logger in the area, and later as a guard for the loggers in times of trouble, fighting off both wandering predators and the occasional brigand. Today, Erlan spends what little money he has left on ale in the tavern.
Erlan is short and muscular, with a dirty gray beard and ale on his breath. He wears banded mail armor and carries a greataxe on his back. But for the last few years, this has all just been for show.
Owner, Val Donage: Val (human fighter4/rogue2) is a retired adventurer who explored some of Dragon’s Delve seven years ago. She settled down with some of the wealth she uncovered and bought the tavern, however, she can almost never be found there. Instead, she spends most of her time in her large home south of town or traveling. Thus, while she could provide the player characters with valuable information about the first two levels dungeon--at least, how it existed seven years ago--she is very difficult for them to actually see. If the PCs find out about Val, the DM should making actually tracking her down, finding her home, or otherwise getting to talk to her a real challenge.
Val is in her mid-30s, with short hair and a broad face and tired eyes. Particularly perceptive characters might notice that she walks with a very slight limp that she tries to conceal. She dresses in expensive clothing (but never armor) and never is far from a weapon of some kind. Typically she has at least a masterwork longsword that she still wears in an ornate scabbard and +1 keen dagger hidden in her boot or sleeve.
Background: The Lost Shepherd is one of the oldest buildings in Brindenford. Before Val bought it, it stood derelict for around twenty years, and before that it was a tavern for almost a hundred years. It was at this time--during the days of Duke Chordille--that the tavern gained its name, which actually comes from a sorcerer named Urlaster who carried a crooked staff. People joked that Urlaster was a not a mage, but a lost shepherd. Before it was a tavern, the building served as Urlaster’s house. Urlaster explored Dragon’s Delve in his day, and learned many of its magical secrets. Like so many other mages before and after him, he sought the lore of the Mages Four.
Developments: As time passes, and Taran’s pregnancy becomes more obvious, there will be a confrontation between her father, Armel, and Roman, right in the tavern in front of everyone (including perhaps the PCs).
Treasure: On Level 3 of Dragon's Delve, the PCs may find a reference to Urlaster’s key, one of the means of unlocking the entrance to the Prison of the Red Saint on Level 4. That key lies on a cobweb-shrouded table in the secret cellar beneath the storage cellar behind a secret door (DC 28 to find). The cellar also holds an ancient laboratory in ill condition, although a potion of darkvision and another of see invisibility can be found amid dust-covered beakers, bottles, and tubes.
To get into the cellar to find the secret cellar, PCs will need to either be very sneaky, befriend one or more of the employees, or both.
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