More RPG Blogs As Fantasy Taverns

Format taken from Rise Up Comus here: http://riseupcomus.blogspot.com/2022/11/rpg-blogs-as-fantasy-taverns.html

Whose Measure

Aesthetic: The furniture and decor are old, but well cared-for - musty, but not moldy. Behind everything is a story. Its tables are round, separate enough for quiet conversation at one to be just barely audible at another if you strain to listen. The chairs are plush, easy to sink in to. Both hold secret compartments, drawers popping out with the clicking of tiny latches and buttons, messages carved seamlessly among embellishments.

Regulars: Intellectuals and artists - intellectuals who'd never be granted tenure at any reputable university, artists whose work won't be displayed in fancy galleries in their lifetime. Scruffy people, people with day jobs that don't involve much art or deep thinking, who accomplish ten times more in their field than those who've been publicly and popularly accredited. They compete and intrigue among themselves - subtle wars of style and taste conducted right under the nose of the unwary, who might be swayed as unknowing pawns.

Proprietor: A demure man simply called "Phlox", for the flower he keeps pinned to his lapel. He rhymes with the best of the artists, debates with the sharpest of the intellectuals, riddles with the shadiest conspirators. Once, way back in the day, the intrigues of his tavern broke out into open violence. Phlox stepped in to defuse the situation, and took the stem of a wine-glass through his throat for the trouble. The next day he was back, smiling and laughing with a circle of old-timers, the phlox on his chest fresh as ever.

On Tap: Sweet and cozy fare - hot and spicy chocolate, mulled wine, energizing tinctures, fruitsome liquers. The food is simple by comparison: breads, cheeses, and salads on little platters.

Hooks:

• One of the tavern's guests is a bloodthirsty vampire. She seeks to convert others in the tavern, subverting their talents to spread and legitimize her undead curse.
  
• A sword is hung above the tavern's fireplace - a magic sword, with a mild enchantment, yet it is part of a set which when assembled will release the full power of all its components. A band of philistinous thieves plot to steal it from under Phlox's nose.
  
• A natural philosopher of some renown has stolen the work of one of the Whose Measure's patrons and passed it off as his own. That patron now wants to assemble a crew to artfully humiliate the philosopher and reveal his ignorance and venality.
  

Weird & Wonderful Worlds

Aesthetic: A bonkers motley, ever-changing by the day. Often garish to the point of hurting to look at for too long, but just as often appealing in a way you couldn't have imagined before you walked in. Small and crowded, but not cramped - the more you interact with the space, the more you find yourself fitting in like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle. The only things you can be sure not to expect are the dreary and the flatly traditional.

Regulars: A peculiar bunch, each with their own distinct quirks and obsessions that by some combination of accident and ingenious design mesh together more often than not.

Proprietor: Max-A-Million, who may be some kind of giant, robotic beetle - it's hard to tell under all the prostheses and cybernetics. He claims to have been a scientist once, somewhere strange and far away from here. His former discipline is esoteric, hard to grasp for most, but he's able to apply it to the operations of his tavern in fascinating ways. Keen to argue on any of a thousand topics, but rarely takes offense. Has a good eye for people even when he seems caught up in some occult reverie.

On Tap: Like the decor - never the same twice, yet always at least a little zany. You might come in and be served a peanut butter squid stout, a fizzy durian-and-vanilla cocktail, a soup using a deep-fried beaver tail as its bowl, liquid rubies fired into your mouth with a blunderbuss, to name some very few options.

Hooks:

• Bring in rare and unusual ingredients for the tavern's food & beverages.
• A collaboration of the tavern's patrons unleashed an experimental chimera on the city - capture it without killing it for a big reward.
• The tavern's caught in a disastrous time-loop that inevitably results in the demise of all its patrons - find the critical inconsistency to unravel the loop and save some lives.
  

Numbers Aren't Real

Aesthetic: Damp and drafty, hewn right from the cold, pale stone. Furs are heaped here and there for the taking, and a stiff shot to warm you up is provided at the door. Everything's built for someone half-again as big as you. Everyone within wears a mask - never unique to the individual wearing it, but some triangulated combination of animal and colour and expression.

Regulars: A tight-knit and exclusive bunch. Regimented in all their behaviours within the tavern's confines - the songs, their nicknames, the symbolism of the mask they wear and the drinks they sip. Those who deviate from the exacting standards are ostracized, or physically cast out if they persist. Feathery, spiral-bound books written in a smattering of personal ciphers encode the rules of the place, recorded over the generations of its patronage.

Proprietor: Never seen, at least not explicitly, but hinted at - the regulars can breathlessly tell you a hundred stories of his exploits. "The God in the Curves" is one of his names among them. The bar-top holds an ashtray that hasn't been used in some time. To use it or empty it yourself is taboo. His typical manifestations, according to the tavern's regulars at least, are an invisible wind, or a masked individual indistinguishable from anyone else in the establishment.

On Tap: Red wine, or cocktails of myriad exacting specifications. Food is provided on demand, to its orderer's specifications, dumped out the door of an iron dumbwaiter - however it's bound to the same baroque bureaucracy as everything else - if you order anything fried or basted in butter, you will be exiled, never to be allowed re-entrance. Olive oil seems fine however.

Hooks:

• The mysterious proprietor keeps the devil himself trapped under the floorboards for heating. The condition of his binding is that he's told a joke he's never heard before that makes him laugh. Go and wrangle up jesters and jokesters so the place doesn't get too chilly.
• A merchant in a nearby port city is withholding a shipment of premium olive oil amphorae. Sail out there and convince him by any means necessary, and thereafter receive a commission.
• There's a cloggage in the delivery-pipes of the tavern's provender - delve into its seemingly-infinite array of hydraulic and pneumatic distribution systems to sort it out.
  

Throne of Salt

Aesthetic: Rustic and utilitarian - save for the flares of red, swatches of penants and banners taken from battlefields past swaying over the crowd. Laid out like a squashed horseshoe - letting those who just need a hot meal come in and out, with room to the side for those looking to put their feet up, and to the back for those needing a place to sleep for the night.

Regulars: Anyone and everyone who can respect the space and each other. The place is run more like a charity than a business - pay if you can, but still help yourself if you can't. On more than one occasion an aristocratic would-be freeloader has been tossed out into the neighbouring alley. Regulars back each other up in the establishment and in the streets, sharing resources, education, and cracking the occasional head that's asking for a cracking. Conversation within tends to turn fiery, only to be defused by the profusion of free booze.

Proprietor: A stout and scarred man called "The Dandy". Veteran of a dozen revolts and revolutions - uses the spoils and salaries he won from those conflicts to fund the place. Often overheard griping about something or other, but drops his own complaints quickly to help those in need. Has a fondness for astronomy, and will let those he's warmed up to borrow his collection of telescopes and star-charts.

On Tap: Ale, moonshine, salty crackers, salt pork, salt fish, and heaping helpings from any of the pots of perpetual stew the tavern has kept going every day since its founding.

Hooks:

• The Dandy's war-chest is running low, and the Throne of Salt might struggle to supply all comers soon if it's not replenished. One of the regulars has let it be known that a corrupt and brutal baron will be shortly sending out a shipment of his personal stock of silver - the perfect score, if you're willing to risk the baron's retribution.
• A few of the Throne of Salt's rowdier patrons are getting entrapped in a scheme by a secret police agent to squash the place and its rebellious sentiment. Sort them out before they give the authorities an excuse.
  
• Oh shit - the revolution's actually happening! A crisis elsewhere drew off loyalist forces in the city, and rebel factions took the opportunity to seize control, at least for now. The Throne of Salt is the current, impromptu meeting place for the rebellion's squabbling leaders - forge a vanguard that can fend off the coming counter-revolution and maintain popular support, or fail like so many others who walked the same path before you.
  

Sheep and Sorcery

Aesthetic: Roomy woolen revival tents filled with delicious smoke from barbecue-braziers, wagons with bands and magicians performing circled 'round. A circus where the marvelous and unusual can show off, be at home. The tavern's nomadic - rolling it up and rolling out is the work of a morning. It can pop up as a welcome sight just about anywhere, accompanied by its herd of singing sheep.

Regulars: Weary travelers stopping in from the road, pilgrims who aren't sure where they're going in the end, country folk dropping in for some novel entertainment.

Propietor: A gentle and gregarious halfling by the name of Smix Chael who can switch on his larger-than-life preacher-man voice in an instant. Smix is a former adventuring cleric who gave up that dangerous life to spend more time with his family. He still performs exorcisms, turnings, marriages, and other such services pro bono.

On Tap: Clean, cool water and various juices - it's a dry establishment. Plates of mutton and veggies roasted over smoky wood-fires. There's also a boulder-sized hookah, the smoke of which takes the forms of its exhalers' dreams, but there's usually a long line for it.

Hooks:

• A great and mighty mage has retired and is now working at the Sheep and Sorcery under an assumed identity. If you can find and impress him, he'll teach you a few of his tricks.
• An old adventuring companion of Smix has come to the Sheep and Sorcery trying to recruit him for one last job - raiding the Catacombs of the Aurum Arachnoids, a legendary place, their white whale which they tried and failed to track down for many years. Smix is unwilling to go, but recommends you in his stead.
• The Sheep and Sorcery has become lost among the innumerable worlds and planes after wandering odd roads - are you bad enough to lead it back to its home-reality?