Frontier
Seedy
Squalid prices
Ledger of Broken Stakes
the tent at the edge of the badlands
You push aside the heavy canvas and step into a low, lopsided tent that smells of wet wool, frying fat, and coal smoke. Lanterns in mason jars gutter on ropes slung from the central pole; voices cluster around a low plank bar and a ring of crates that serve as tables. Prospecting gear, a bent pick, and claim tags hang from the walls like badges of recent violence; men and women nurse bruised faces and thinner smiles, eyes flicking to newcomers as both threat and opportunity. The air is thick with the clink of coins, the scrape of a whetstone, and the occasional shouted tally of a hand of cards — every conversation seems to orbit a single, whispered subject: who owns the ground beyond the bent ridge.
A sun-bleached hide stretched over a crooked pole; someone has painted a ledger page and three battered wooden stakes in crude black ink. The hide is patched with rope; a single coin nailed in the corner winks in the dust.
Brug Varn
half-orc
Manner
Quirk
Stats
Dust-Catcher
2 cpA bitter hot coffee spiked with a slug of burned whiskey and a pinch of ground bark; it stings, warms, and sharpens the tongue. The first sip clears drowsiness and gives advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks to notice recent tracks or fresh footprints for the next hour.
Squalid (5e lifestyle: about 1 sp a day)
Jekk · barmaid
A wiry ex-wagoner who pours ale with one hand and keeps a hand on a stowed truncheon with the other.
Old Tress · cook
A toothless woman who turns game and canned rations into greasy stews that taste better than they should.
Harlan One-Eye
A gaunt prospector who claims he found a spiral-marked shaft and lost his partner — he wants a crew to go back and finish the job.
Suri "Bits" Mir
A nimble claim-jumper and cardshark who always has a pocketful of pilfered claim tags for the highest bidder.
Marrow-Tongue
A quiet ex-merc who tends the tent's perimeter at night and will trade information for a warm stew and a cigarette of shredded sage.
1
Harlan One-Eye says the 'Spiral Shaft' three miles past Red Drift holds a vein of glasslike ore that hums at night and drew men crazy.
2
Suri "Bits" Mir whispers that a surveyor named Kellan Pryce is buying claim tags in secret and will pay handsomely for any map showing the low gullies west of Broken Tooth Ridge.
3
Marrow-Tongue reports a rusted iron box found near the wind-swept cairn outside camp, sealed with a sigil matching the one on Brug's hidden map; a gang called the Nailbones will kill to retrieve it.
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