Port
Haunted
Poor prices
The Hat and Hold
the alehouse where drowned men leave their hats
Salt and old tobacco fog the air, and the rafters groan under a forest of dripping hats — tricorne caps, woolen beanies, battered bowler hats and a child's sailor cap, each nailed in place with an old coin. Lanterns gutter low, casting the hats' shadows like a second crowd overhead; every now and then a hat will drip and the sound runs like a murmured warning through the tables. The room smells of brine, beef stew and spilled ale; conversation is low, full of clipped sailors' talk and occasional bobbing laughter that stops when a hat creaks. Walking in, you notice a polished plank behind the bar carved with names and dates, and a single hat on the counter that seems newer than the others.
A rotted wooden board carved with a tilted captain's tricorne pierced by a rusty nail; seaweed clings to its edges and a faded, water-streaked pennant hangs below with no words.
Mernic Bale
human
Manner
Quirk
Stats
Wavecap Grog
4 cpA burning blend of cheap rum and ale with a squeeze of preserved lemon; it steadies the stomach and dulls memory of the cold for an hour (advantage on saves vs. cold and -1 to History checks about details while drunk).
Poor (5e lifestyle: about 2 sp a day)
Gisel Run · barmaid
Gisel darts between tables with a tray, speaking in clipped jokes and knowing where every sailor's tab is owed.
Old Pritch · bouncer
A broad-shouldered ex-deckhand who keeps order with an eye and a single menacing finger-tap on the table.
Ned 'Shortline' Brum
A chart-mender who claims the Silver Keel went down with a chest of brassware and will pay to find it.
Tamsin Hogg
A fisherwoman who comes nightly to knead her sore hands and mutters about a lantern that floats off the East Pier at moonrise.
Shale the Quiet
A retired cargo hauler who nails hats to the rafters and listens for the hats that 'still hold a tide.'
1
Ned Shortline says the wreck of the schooner Silver Keel lies three leagues south of the East Pier and contains a sealed chest with a brass-sheathed journal.
2
Tamsin Hogg insists the Beacon of Marn — a stone lantern on the rocky spit — has been relit by unseen hands and now points toward a hidden inlet at low tide.
3
A drunken dockhand claims Harbormaster Durric Stane paid a shadowy diver named 'Knuck' to retrieve something from the river last month and then threatened anyone who asked questions.
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