Roadside
Haunted
Poor prices
The Ash-Watching Lantern
the half-burned inn where the same storm always returns
The inn stands collapsed on one side: blackened beams jut from the roof like broken ribs, the south wall a mosaic of soot and pale plaster. Each night a low, rhythmic thunder rolls from the same cloud that hovers directly above the inn, and rain begins in a thin, relentless sheet even if the road beyond is clear. Inside the surviving common room the air smells of wet wood and old stew; a single battered lantern casts long trembling shadows that make the burned rafters look like fingers. The few patrons who shelter here speak in hushed, distracted tones — some watch the doorway as if the storm might take them by name — while a cat with a singed ear curls on a bench and purrs like a tiny bell.
A soot-dark iron lantern hangs on a charred iron ring; the glass is cracked and a faded sigil of a roving boot is barely visible, smoke stains crawling from the bottom like tears.
Merrik Brune
human
Manner
Quirk
Stats
Stormward Draught
1 spA shot of smoky ale mixed with a bitter tincture; it leaves the drinker with a faint static tingle in their fingertips for an hour and steadier nerves against fear effects for one short rest.
Poor (5e lifestyle: about 2 sp a day)
Hedda Mar · barmaid
A quick-footed woman with a soot-smudged apron who sings lullabies to the storm between pours.
Old Crag · stablehand
A quiet man who tends to scorched tack and claims the horses snort at a cloud-shaped mark on the yard fence.
Garnet of Hollowford
A dour hedge-witch seeking a lost wind-amulet she swears was stolen by a sky-wraith last harvest.
Perrin Kest
A road-weary courier who refuses to travel when the inn's storm is overhead and guards a satchel of rain-soaked letters.
Master Toren
A retired cartographer who maps the storm's nightly edge and pays in trade for a corner at the table.
1
Garnet claims the wind-amulet was dragged beneath Drowling Mire by a 'cloud-hound' that only surfaces during the nightly storm.
2
Perrin says a courier named Sable Whithead vanished on the road three nights ago; his last letter spoke of a hollow belltower that rings even though no bell hangs in it.
3
Master Toren insists there's a map fragment sewn into the hem of a raincoat kept in the inn's lost-and-found that points to a ruined weather-temple at the road's bend.
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