Threefold Lantern

Frontier

Cosy

Modest prices

Threefold Lantern

the inn that still lights the old trail

Warm, low light pools around tables carved with tally marks and old routes. The scent of browned meat and cider mixes with beeswax and the evergreen smoke from an iron brazier set against the far wall. Conversation here is quiet and practical: travellers trade directions and seed for stories, children doze in laps, and maps, knotted reins and a few rusty tools are draped on pegs as if they might be needed again by morning. The room feels arranged for coming and going — a sturdy bench at the door, a low shelf of loaned candles, and a board with spiky notes advertising passage to nearby hamlets. There’s a particular hush when the keeper moves: customers lean toward her, then relax as if some unspoken worry has been checked off and left behind. Soft wool curtains at the windows keep out wind and prying eyes. Despite the frontier grit, the place radiates careful order: mugs lined on their racks, knives honed each night, and a small locked chest under the bar that nobody asks about out loud.

Over the door

A weathered iron frame holds three small glass lanterns stacked into a triangle; two are dark, one glows with a sputtering blue wick. The paint is flaking and the glass is crazed, but the lanterns sway gently on a too-stiff hinge.

The keeper

Merris Ferrow

Human

Manner

Merris runs the inn like a well-read map: precise, kindly, and quicker with directions than with small talk. She treats strangers with quiet courtesy and long-term patrons with a warm, teasing bluntness.

Quirk

She taps three small points on the bar with a coin before closing the ledger every night.

Stats

Use the Commoner stat block; carries a heavy walking staff that she knows how to use defensively, AC 11 (sturdy coat), has a ring of minor warding hidden in her apron.
House special

Lantern's Glow

5 sp

A warm spiced cider finished with a drop of smoked honey and a pinch of emberroot — it loosens tongue and steadies nerves; after one mug, make a DC 12 Wisdom save to resist giving up a single minor secret (small fact, single-name, or direction) in friendly talk.

Prices

Modest (5e lifestyle: about 1 gp a day)

The menu
Food
Thick beef-and-barley stew
3 sp
Honey-roasted root platter with seed cakes
3 sp
Warm sheep's-cheese pie with nettle greens
3 sp
Cured venison slices with pickled turnip
3 sp
Drink
Frontier ale (mug)
4 cp
Spiced cider (mug)
4 cp
Herbal tea (mug)
4 cp
Small measure of house brandy
4 cp
Rooms
Shared bunk in the common loft
5 sp
Small private room with straw mattress
5 sp
Loft corner with curtained pallet
5 sp
Staff

Tolen · cook

A broad-shouldered ex-farmer who seasons every stew with a pinch of wild thyme and a joke about the weather.

Miri Quickstep · barmaid

Nimble and watchful, she remembers faces and tab debts and slips notes between receipts when she thinks someone needs a nudge.

Regulars

Garrin Holt

A retired rangers' scout who carries an old barbed arrow and mutters about a ruined watchtower east of the ridge — he wants someone to go with him to see what's inside.

Sib the Binder

A bookbinder and local lore-keeper who trades mended maps for hot broth and is always hunting a missing ledger believed taken by a road gang.

Pip and Tuck

A pair of halfling twin traders who sell odd trinkets and listen for news of safe shortcuts and river crossings.

Rumours
  1. 1

    Garrin claims the ruined Watchtower of Northwind hides a sealed supply vault whose gate is blocked by a carved stone seal; he believes it protects a chest of military signal flares.

  2. 2

    Sib swears a road gang led by a one-eyed man called Red Mancro stole a ledger from the trading caravan last moon and now sells forged permits at the crossroads.

  3. 3

    Pip and Tuck heard miners at Stoneford Bar speak of a 'blue seam' — veins of glass-flecked ore in a collapsed shaft that glow faintly at night and attract something from below.

Look out for
A pegboard of well-worn route markers and a loaner map collection where patrons can add notes — maps can contain small secrets or markers for hidden paths.A small quartered brazier at center used for community stew nights; anyone who brings a story or a trade-good can place a coin in the brazier to mark an owed favour (tracked by Merris).

Made with the free LoreKeeper Tavern Generator · Free to use at your table · Licence

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