8.3 KiB
Main Hall
The heart of the Nether Inn. A single large room with a low ceiling, stone floor, and the permanent smell of smoke and regret.
Key Features
The Bar
A massive slab of darkwood, scarred by decades of knife marks, spilled drinks, and at least one axe blow that's been sanded down but never quite disappeared. Behind it: shelves of unlabeled bottles, a few labeled ones nobody orders, and a collection of confiscated weapons mounted on the wall like trophies.
Orenn's body lies behind the bar on the stone floor. He fell backward — whatever killed him came from the front, but nobody in the brawl was close enough, and the hall was black when it happened (Rennt's Thunderwave had just snuffed the candles). He's bruised and bleeding from a knock taken wading into the brawl — a decoy; that wound didn't kill him. See Murder Mystery for details.
Hidden: Under the bar is a recessed shelf with:
- A loaded hand crossbow (Orenn's insurance, DC 13 Investigation)
- A flask of Sovereign Glue (for situations that needed permanent solutions)
- A small leather journal in coded shorthand (DC 16 Intelligence to decode — contains names and debts owed to the house, including entries for both Sevra and Haddon)
The Fireplace
Large stone hearth, fire burning low. The mantle holds a single iron bell that has never been rung — a relic left from the tavern's summoner days. Mags knows the trick to ring it (never what it truly does): the toll wakes the old foundation sigils. It was the summoners' last resort, meant to seal the building against ethereal intrusion. The sigils are half-dormant and being siphoned now, so the effect is partial at best (disadvantage on Xarrul's Ethereal Jaunt saves rather than preventing it outright).
Assassin Table (North-West)
A long table pushed against the wall. Sevra sits at the head with her back to the corner — she can see both the entrance and the cultist table. Dace is to her right, nursing a drink and making easy conversation with anyone nearby — jumpier than usual, though he'd blame the room. Kael is standing, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, glaring at the cultist table. Thera "Even-Hand," the eldest blade present, sits a little apart with her hands folded, watching everything and saying almost nothing; Kael keeps glancing at her the way a dog checks on its master.
Two other unnamed blades fill the rest of the table. They defer to Sevra completely.
After the murder: Kael wants to search the cultists by force. Sevra is holding him back — barely. Dace is being "helpful" to whoever is investigating, subtly steering suspicion toward the cultists. Thera does not join the noise; she drifts once to look at Orenn's body, reads it in a glance no one else can, and returns to her seat. See The House of Scales.
Cultist Table (South-West)
A round table covered in papers, open books, and half-empty inkwells — maintaining the scholar facade. Haddon sits at the center, composed. Dalla is on his left, distracted and pale. Rennt is on his right, leaning forward with intense energy. Essek sits slightly apart, saying nothing.
After the murder: Haddon immediately begins constructing an alibi — "we were all engaged in discussion, none of us left the table." This is technically true but irrelevant (the fiend killed from the Ethereal Plane). Rennt is agitated and defensive. Dalla doesn't seem to care about the investigation at all — she's thinking about her child.
On the table (DC 12 Investigation): Among the scholarly papers, one diagram shows planar boundaries with annotations about "thinning points." Haddon will claim it's theoretical research. It's actually a map of potential Opening sites, and the Nether Inn is marked.
Tallow's Booth (South, near wall)
A small booth with high-backed wooden seats that create a natural privacy screen. Tallow has claimed this spot as his office. His bag of holding sits under the table between his feet — he never lets it out of reach.
He has a clear sightline to the bar, the entrance, and both faction tables. He sees everything and pretends to see nothing.
Under the table (DC 18 Perception or Sleight of Hand while Tallow is distracted): A lockbox bolted to the underside of the seat. Contains 3 doses of Veil Dust, 80 gp in mixed coin, and a sealed letter addressed to "V." — it's a message from Tallow's supplier about a new, more potent formulation of the dust. The supplier is unnamed but the handwriting matches Mother Vyre's (DC 17 Investigation to match, requires seeing another sample of her writing from cultist documents).
Bren's Corner (North-East, near bar)
Not a seat — a spot on the floor between the bar and the wall. Bren sits here with his knees drawn up, rocking slightly, muttering to the air beside him. A wooden bowl with a few copper coins sits in front of him — the regulars toss him change out of habit or superstition.
The space beside him where he talks to is occupied in the Ethereal Plane by Skein, a translucent, spider-like entity made of knotted threads. It's visible only via Veil Dust, See Invisibility, or similar effects.
Vetch's Spot (South-East, near cellar stairs)
Vetch sits on a stool near the stairs that lead down to the cellar. He's not here by accident — he knows Tallow keeps extra product and he's been trying to figure out how to get to it all night.
He's jittery, sweating, picking at the skin on his forearms. He flinches when spoken to but warms up quickly if shown even basic kindness.
Center Floor (Post-Brawl)
After the brawl, the center of the room is a mess:
- Overturned tables and stools
- Broken glass and pottery
- A few blood spatters (non-lethal injuries from the brawl — DC 12 Medicine confirms these are from fists and thrown objects, nothing matches how Orenn died)
- One cultist's book, kicked under a table, open to a page about binding circles (DC 14 Arcana reveals it's specifically about binding fiends)
Read-Aloud: After the Brawl
Ticho. Po minutách chaosu je to ticho skoro bolestivé. Stoly leží převrácené, střepy pokrývají podlahu jako skleněný koberec a ve vzduchu visí prach a těžký dech tuctu lidí, kteří se právě mlátili. Někdo kašle. Někdo nadává polohlasem.
A pak to někdo uvidí.
Orenn leží za barem na zádech. Jeho oči jsou otevřené, ale nic nevidí. Na jeho tváři je výraz čirého, upřímného překvapení — jako by smrt byla to poslední, co v tomhle místě čekal. Na hrudi má spáleninu ve tvaru, který nedává smysl. Žádná krev. Žádná rána. Jen ta podivná, černá značka a muž, který před chvílí stál za barem klidný jako jezero za bezvětří.
Ze dveří kuchyně vyjde žena. Zastaví se. Podívá se dolů. Její tvář projde něčím — ne pláčem, ne křikem. Něčím horším. Něčím tichým a tvrdým jako led, kterému trvalo celý život, než zamrzl.
"Nikdo," řekne Mags hlasem, který nepřipouští námitky, "nikam neodejde."
Klapnutí závory na hlavních dveřích zní jako rozsudek.
(DM: this is only her entrance. The full set-piece that follows — the forced heal, the failed Revivify with the diamond from her necklace, the shattered ward-crystal that seals the tavern until midnight, and the ultimatum — is scripted in Mags — Act 2: The Reveal. The "bolt" the players hear is the ward-crystal discharging into every exit, not a simple latch.)
Lighting & Atmosphere
- Before the brawl: Dim candlelight, warm in a grimy way. Shadows dance.
- During the brawl: Candles knocked over, intermittent darkness — then, on cue a few rounds in, Rennt's Thunderwave snuffs every flame at once and the hall goes pitch black. That blackout is the murder window. (Darkvision PCs/NPCs still see in it — use a glimpsed shape or cold spot near the bar as an early fiend clue, or make the dark linger unnaturally long as a "someone reinforced this" tell.)
- After the murder: Mags relights every candle and lantern at once with a brass ward-focus behind the bar. The room is brighter than it's ever been and somehow that makes it worse — you can see every stain, every scar, every face that doesn't want to be seen.