Roadside
Festive
Comfortable prices
The Candle and Cloak
the pilgrim inn on the road to Saint Marn's shrine
Lanterns and bunting crowd the low beams, and the air tastes of spiced wine, roasting chestnuts and beeswax. The common room is a jumble of benches and rushes, pilgrims in mismatched cloaks trading footsteps-for-stories beside travelers' satchels; a fiddler plays a lively reel from beneath a banner sewn with little stitched scallop shells. Incense of juniper hangs in the doorway, chased by laughter and the regular bell that the keeper rings whenever a new group reaches the inn. By the hearth a wooden shrine stands draped with garlands and coins left by passersby; its flicker throws dancing patterns across a map-spattered table where routes to Saint Marn's hill are debated. Children weave between legs with ribbons; weary hands are offered a steaming bowl and a warm pallet — for a price — while small, furtive conversations at the edges suggest some travelers are here for more than devotion.
A weathered iron sign showing a hooded cloak wrapped around a burning candle; soot darkens the lower edge and a small paper pennant—stitched with the saint's emblem—flutters from one corner.
Marta Brine
human
Manner
Quirk
Stats
Marn's Lantern
5 spA heady mulled wine brightened with juniper and saffron; it warms the bones and steadies frayed nerves — after drinking, gain advantage on one Wisdom (Insight) check made within the hour as the warmth clears the head.
Comfortable (5e lifestyle: about 2 gp a day)
Brogan Fell · cook
A cheery, scarred ex-merchant who ladles the festival stew and tells improbable stories about every spice.
Tamsin · barmaid
Fleet-footed and sharp-eyed, she delivers plates and gossip in equal measure and keeps pockets of sleeping pilgrims well-guarded.
Brother Halv
A thin, talkative itinerant friar who collects prayers and notices everything; he believes the shrine's reliquary is cursed.
Nera of Coldford
A linen-hooded pilgrim who pays well and asks private questions about routes and cloaked merchants—she's actually a relic broker seeking the shrine's artifacts.
Mathu the Busker
A one-eyed fiddler who trades tunes for coin and keeps a ledger of who sleeps where along the road.
1
The reliquary at Saint Marn's shrine was recently replaced; Brother Lucan, the shrine's warden, insists the original was stolen on the night of the last storm.
2
A cloaked broker named 'The Silver Needle' is said to be buying small saintly relics at the festival—Nera of Coldford has been asking who travels with broken carvings.
3
In the marsh two miles east, a weeping statue called the Hollow Maiden is said to have wept real blood; a local hermit named Joren claims he found a map tucked under the statue leading to a hidden chapel.
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