Casting Shadows

This is the third day of #RPGaDAY2025 and the prompt today is tavern. I expect that this word will have a serious medieval fantasy undertow for many folks, but for as long as people engage with the lifestyle choice of regularly and publicly consuming alcohol there will be taverns – no matter what they are called. A bar by any other name will have as sticky a floor – even in space. For our quest to form a pitch for cosmic horror under gaslight, this entry directs our attention from the patron as a person to the necessary step of giving some descriptive thought to the environment where that patron will be interacted with. Taking our inspiration from the word tavern, how about an old inn and public house?

Day 3: Tavern

I really love the ideas that this prompt suggests to me. Imagine if you will, Dear Reader, a long and winding road, unlit, and deeply rutted with iron and coal cart tracks. It leads down from the crumbling ruins of the sprawling manor house, Inumbrate Bury, through the untended and cratered fields littered with the crumpled frames of airships, aircraft, and test rockets, along mossy walls of stone, through a wild and silent wood, and then down for a lonely mile or three into the small and picturesque village of Luss on the shores of Loch Lomond. There, sitting where it has for more than a century by 1890 is the Loch Lomond Arms. There, a young and inquisitive globetrotter can remind themselves that the world is not all stone, shadows, and the half-finished frames or mostly wrecked cadavers of metal men, but a warm place full of people and music, good food, and strong ale.

In practical terms, getting a good sense of the Arms, the village around it, the travel routes to it, and some of its notable staff, residents, and regular customers will help ground the real world aspects of the campaign early on. The Arms can serve as the first meeting place of the characters as they arrive to meet Neslinger for the first time. One by one and in pairs and small groups who chose the same means of transport, characters can file into the arms the days and night before they are due to be interviewed by the reclusive inventor. Like with any interview, more will be called than are chosen.

Some of these will be turned away because of some perceived failing seen by Neslinger. Those might become fodder for future competitors and antagonists as the campaign takes shape in play.

Some will be turned away not because of a lack of qualification or quality, but because the cadre has already been chosen. These might become replacement characters for those who fall in the line of play to the horrors which await them.

Ideally, if the GM plays their words well, the Arms might become a home away from home and an unofficial HQ for the group when it has to deal directly with Neslinger. It should be a place of safety and warmth. A place where they are known, liked, and missed while away. Regular rooms, usual drinks, sheets done as a character likes them, meat done to the right turn and tea served just so, and those special cookies you like…

When things get really dark, and they will, the Arms could be that point of light in the distance that beckons to the characters and grounds them for one more push for survival.

See you tomorrow for Day 4: Message!