Roadside
Dangerous
Squalid prices
The Split Coin Keep
the toll-house that takes more than road fees
A lean, smoke-stained building squats at the side of the road where travelers must slow for the toll post. Inside the air is rank with boiled stew and damp wool; a single guttering lantern fights the dusk while a circle of deserters lean against the bar, boots muddy and blades half-visible. Conversation drops when strangers enter — eyes flick, knives are tested with thumbs, and a strap-bound ledger sits where a proper host would keep a till. This place smells of grease, iron, and the faint sweet of stolen brandy; the light throws everyone into sharp, suspicious silhouettes.
A battered iron toll-plate, split down the middle and nailed to a warped plank; a blackened coin is riveted to one side. The metal is pitted with salt and blood; no words, only a crude tally of notches along the rim.
Merrik Dorn
Human
Manner
Quirk
Stats
Tollman's Bitter
2 cpA sharp mix of burnt smallbrand and bitter root that clears the head and loosens tongues — it leaves a metallic aftertaste and makes patrons twice as likely to boast about secrets.
Squalid (5e lifestyle: about 1 sp a day)
Grit · bouncer
A squat half-orc who collects unpaid tabs more often than he collects money, always chewing a loop of rawhide.
Old Fen · cook
A one-eyed ex-sailor who turns bad cuts of meat into passable stew and remembers the names of anyone who once wronged him.
Jern the Forger
A stubborn dwarf who fakes toll-stamps and wants Merrik's manifest to forge a clean identity for a wanted friend.
Risska
A nervous halfling runner who says she saw Merchant Lysa Wren's coach pulled aside and carried off toward the west ford.
Hobb 'Two-Pence'
A wiry human who always owes a coin and is looking for 'something buried under the post' he swore he saw last winter.
1
Captain Hargun of the royal roadwatch has posted a sealed warrant for the desertion ring operating at the Split Coin Keep; he'll pay coin or a favor to anyone who brings him a deserter's insignia.
2
A sealed convoy manifest naming Merchant Lysa Wren and listing a private cargo was buried beneath the toll-post last autumn; whoever finds it can claim the cargo's rumored valuables.
3
A hired band called the Westford Coyles stole a chest from a passing coach and stashed it in a collapsed culvert two miles west; Hobb 'Two-Pence' swears he knows which culvert.
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