Underground
Dangerous
Poor prices
Three-Fathom Ledger
the cellar ledger of drowned accounts
You push through a trapdoor and descend into tight, lamp-lit rafters and dripping stone. The air tastes of brine, tar, and old coin; muffled voices bump into each other across a maze of barrels, hammocks and low tables carved from ship timbers. Lantern light throws sailors' faces into knife-sharp relief: missing teeth, tattoos half-hidden beneath collars, and eyes that calculate where your coin lives before you do. The bar is a plank nailed to a chest, and the cellar beyond smells of brined fish and something sweeter—waxed crates that are never opened in public.
A battered oak board hangs crooked over the stairwell, carved with a longship's ledger—three tally marks beneath a hooked grapnel; ironed salt stains and a smear of greasy tar hide any painted words.
Merris Kettle
human
Manner
Quirk
Stats
Ledger's Last Call
1 spA stiff measure of dark rum spiced with bitter seaweed tincture; it loosens tongues and nerves for an hour—drinkers find it easier to lie, confess, or remember distant dockside bargains.
Poor (5e lifestyle: about 2 sp a day)
Gurn · bouncer
A scarred half-orc who prefers warnings but will use his bar-stool like a cudgel if pushed.
Pip the Griddle · cook
An ex-privateer who turns salted cod and ship's biscuits into greasy, filling meals and hums sea shanties under his breath.
Rye · barmaid
A quick-footed halfling who balances mugs with one hand and slips folded notes into pockets with the other.
Captain Hesk
A one-legged human corsair nursing old wrongs—he's the man who claims the Ledger Key was stolen from him and will pay for its return.
Arno 'Fingers' Mil
A wiry fence and middleman who buys contraband and has his ear open for anything stamped with the drowned city's sigil.
Brother Nedd
A fallen cleric expelled for smuggling sacramental silver; he now trades prayers for favors and seeks the Drowned Bell to atone or profane it.
1
Captain Hesk says a Drowned Bell in the old submerged bellhouse north of the harbors will toll once more and call a crew to claim a sunken vault.
2
Arno 'Fingers' Mil is secretly buying planks stamped with the drowned city's sigil—he believes a sealed ledger chest under the 'Three-Fathom Ledger' holds its map.
3
Brother Nedd whispers that a skeleton crew haunts the Tidewarden's Way, ferrying crates marked with the same sigil Merris tries to hide, and one crate contains a prophecy scroll.
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