E3 — The Gilded Ledger Tavern
Background art
The Gilded Ledger Tavern
Social Hub, Frontier Rumors, and River Trade
The Gilded Ledger stands just off the southern gate road, a broad timber-and-stone tavern built close against the riverfront. Its steep roof and upper gables rise above the neighboring warehouses and riverside buildings, while a wide porch runs along the front beneath heavy wooden beams. A large painted sign swings from an iron chain over the road, its gold lettering and tankard emblem marking the tavern long before you reach the door.
Green-and-gold banners hang from the eaves, each bearing a barrel above stylized river waves. Lanterns burn beside the entrance even in daylight, their warm light reflecting from rain-darkened boards and the shallow puddles gathered along the road. Barrels, coiled ropes, handcarts, and stacked cargo crowd the edges of the porch, giving the place the look of somewhere equally accustomed to receiving thirsty travelers and conducting river business.
The sounds of Old Macridi gather here. Wagons rattle over the wet planks, rigging creaks from the nearby docks, and somewhere along the waterfront a cargo hoist groans beneath its load. Through the tavern's broad windows comes a warmer mixture of lamplight, moving shadows, conversation, and occasional laughter. The smell of damp timber and river water gives way near the doorway to woodsmoke, roasting meat, and something sharp and sweet with cider spices.
Whatever business brings people through Old Macridi, sooner or later a great deal of it seems to pass through the doors of the Gilded Ledger.
A roaring stone hearth casts a warm, amber glow across crowded trestle tables made of thick darkwood planks. The heavy air smells of spiced river cider, roasting venison, and wet wool. Off-duty loggers, river barge pilots, and traveling merchants huddle in noisy groups, their laughter occasionally drowned out by the thrum of a bard's lute.
Behind the bar hangs a massive gilded slate ledger covered in chalked bounty notices, cargo warnings, job offers, and river contracts. Tankards move almost as quickly as gossip, and nearly every table seems to hold someone with an opinion about the Palakar, the river, or the latest trouble beyond town.
Located near Old Macridi's southern gate road, The Gilded Ledger Tavern is one of the town's busiest gathering places for laborers, merchants, river crews, mercenaries, and travelers. It is owned and operated by Garrick "Gold-Sieve" Vance, a retired Blackjacket and former mercenary who runs the establishment with the practiced eye of someone accustomed to watching a crowded room.
Where New Macridi's wealthy conduct business behind closed doors, the Gilded Ledger is considerably less private. Timber prices, damaged cargo, missing workers, river conditions, contract disputes, and increasingly uneasy reports from the Palakar all find their way across its tables sooner or later.
Food, Drink & Lodging
- Spiced Palakar Cider — 2 cp per mug
- Roasted River Trout & Rye — 1 sp
- Private Bunkroom — 5 sp per night
- Bounty Board Posting Fee — 1 gp
People Around the Tavern
Garrick "Gold-Sieve" Vance can usually be found behind the bar or moving through the room. He is broad-shouldered, watchful, and unmistakably accustomed to dealing with mercenaries and frontier workers.
Captain Sella Varn is seated among the river crews and merchants. The weathered captain is dressed for work rather than company, with practical river clothes and the easy stillness of someone accustomed to long hours on deck. Karland's description is enough for you to recognize her.
Other patrons come and go constantly: loggers fresh from the mills, boat crews waiting on cargo, merchants arranging shipments, hired blades looking for work, and travelers exchanging news before heading farther into the Palakar.
Jobs, Rumors & River Business
The tavern's gilded slate serves as a constantly changing public notice board. River work, salvage claims, escort contracts, missing cargo, mercenary jobs, and private requests are a normal part of life here.
The room also carries an undercurrent of unease. Conversations repeatedly turn toward conditions downriver and strange reports coming out of the Palakar, though separating useful information from tavern exaggeration requires more than simply walking through the door.
Recovery of Six Darkwood Boles
Captain Sella Varn offers river passage to Reiver's Right in exchange for the recovery of a lost shipment of darkwood presently stranded at Mudjaw Beach.
A timber tow belonging to one of Sella's upriver contacts broke loose during a storm. Six valuable darkwood boles were carried into the backwater before they could be recovered. Sella wants the timber secured before another river crew discovers it and attempts to claim it as salvage.
The Timber
Sella is emphatic that the count is exact: six boles, not five.
Recovery Equipment Provided
Sella provides the party with basic timber-recovery equipment from her barge stores:
- 1 timber sled, built low and heavy for dragging a bole across mud, sand, roots, and uneven ground.
- 1 portable block-and-tackle pulley with hauling line, suitable for anchoring to a sturdy tree, piling, or similar fixed point.
The equipment is intended to let the party move the timber without attempting to lift a full darkwood bole by hand. Sella expects both pieces of equipment returned with the recovered cargo.
Terms of Recovery
- Travel to Mudjaw Beach.
- Locate the six darkwood boles bearing Sella's blue double-slash.
- Recover all six and return them intact.
- Return Sella's timber sled and pulley equipment.
- Avoid surrendering, selling, abandoning, or registering the timber as salvage with another claimant.
River Captain & Master of the Long Dividend