Port
Seedy
Poor prices
Ledger & Keel
the stilt-house where charts change hands
Built on rickety stilts over the mudflats, the Ledger & Keel smells of brine, tar, and yesterday's fish stew. A narrow ramp leads in between piled crates; inside the floorboards dip and groan underfoot. Lanterns burn low in glass jars that sway with every tide; conversation is half-whisper, half-barked order. Beneath a single hanging lamp a battered table hosts the nightly exchange of folded charts — buyers trade coins, knives, and favors while a cynical tune is played on a cracked concertina. Patrons are a half-dozen hard-faced smugglers, a pair of shipwrights with paint under their nails, and sailors nursing the same ale until dawn. The bar's back wall is a patchwork of nailed planks where pinned trinkets — a compass housing, a child's boot, a moon-blasted pennant — serve as silent proof that this is where secrets are sold cheap. If you look closely there is a ledger chained beneath the counter and a loose floorboard that smells faintly of fresh ink.
A salt-bleached plank hangs crooked over the steps, painted with a cracked compass over an open ledger; the paint is flaking, rope fringe dangling, no words — just a streak of dried ink that looks like a map line
Marek Brine
Human
Manner
Quirk
Stats
Keelman's Knock
1 spA slug of burnt rum with a dash of brine and black pepper — it tastes like ship tar and courage; the first sip steadies the hands, the second loosens tongues (advantage on Performance or Deception checks to bluff about a maritime tale for 1 hour, but DC 10 Con save or be slightly dizzy: -1 to Dexterity checks for 10 minutes).
Poor (5e lifestyle: about 2 sp a day)
Rik of the Crate · barmaid
A wiry ex-deckhand who slings ale and listens for names worth passing on — she has an eye for a mark and a lockpick hidden in her sleeve.
Old Brant · cook
A one-armed shore-cook who seasons everything with brown rum; his stew is greasy comfort and sometimes contains more than just fish.
Old Joss
A retired pilot with a map-shaped scar on his forearm; he's desperate to find the Sable Shoal wreck and will barter the route to a hidden channel for a share.
Bram Fisher
A salvage diver who keeps asking Marek about a 'singing conch' that washed up in Fisher's Ditch and wants coin to refloat an old netted crate.
Petra 'Two-Fingers' Venn
A fence and petty thief who wants forged port passes bound for Vellin Wharf and will trade information for a cot and a favor.
1
The Sable Shoal chart: an accurate map to a sunken noble galley is said to be in Marek's private ledger, and Old Joss claims he can point out a marking that names the captain who carried a sealed chest.
2
Captain Mirek's Passes: Petra 'Two-Fingers' whispers that forged port passes stamped for Vellin Wharf are being exchanged tonight in a crate marked 'fish' — they would let a small crew enter the governor's warehouses for a narrow window.
3
The Singing Conch: Bram Fisher insists a conch recovered from Fisher's Ditch hums when the tide turns; he believes a drowned sea witch used it to call something up from a wreck near Blackwater Butt.
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