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PATRON TOPICS/AGENDAS

TALLY FELLBRANCH

• Introduces PCs to his brother, Melannor Fellbranch (representative of the Emerald Enclave).
• Offers his services to sculpt a wooden troll’s skull that could be displayed on the wall.
• She’s been commissioned to craft 8-foot-tall chess pieces for the Cragsmere Estate. It’s a major commission and she buys a round of drinks for everyone in the tavern to celebrate.

EMBRIC & AVI

• One of the Three Urchins has been shoplifting small metal trinkets from Steam and Steel.
• Ask for an introduction to Renaer Neverember. (Turns out Embric and Avi were stout supporters of Lord Dagult and expect his son to feel the same.)
• They’ve been hired to build a number of weapons of strange designs; serrated edges on odd surfaces, superfluous spikes, and the like. (Investigating this reveals that the commission can be tracked back to Grinda Garloth.)

FALA LEFALIIR

• Offers the PCs a sampler of foreign teas, in the interest of having them added to the menu.
• Introduces the PCs to Ziraj the Hunter, a member of the Zhentarim Doom Raiders (DH p. 201).
• Is interested in using the large oak tree outside Trollskull Manor as a place to grow silverbark, a valuable alchymical that they have otherwise been harvesting from the City of the Dead.

VINCENT TRENCH

• Meeting a client. (Either a simple member of the public, or possibly one of the other notable patrons in the tavern.)
• Looking to hire the PCs to contribute to one of his investigations: He needs a foppish young noble (Adric Thongolir, a half-steel dragon and youngest son of Lady Adiira Thongolir) followed.
• Vincent has been hired to investigate a series of petty thefts in Thundercross Alley (running perpendicular to Thunderstaff Way just north of Sashtar Street). A man named Irbyth Authamaun has had a particularly valuable gray jade statuette of a stone giant stolen from his house (which lies at the eastern end of the alley). (The culprit is a small, floating, magical skull named Mortaunto. The curious undead rapscallion has created a small nest of his magpie-like thefts in the Thunderstaff Villa, which lies just north of Thundercross Alley.)

RISHAAL THE PAGE-TURNER

• Sits quietly in one corner, sipping tea and reading an oddly titled book: Duke Avanice’s Vile Poems, Cults of Ancient Netheril, Umbral Reflections on the Kingdom of Man, The Journal of Captain Arienthil’s Journeys in the Moonshae Isles, Memories of Kara-Tur, The Seventh Codex of the Numinous Ascendants of Kaal, The Atlas of Forgotten Cartographies.
• If Lif has been pacified and is now part of the tavern’s culture, Rishaal will stop by with a copy of Richelle’s Poems, a book of elvish poetry which was once one of Lif’s favorites.
• His hands are bandaged. He came into possession of a cursed book that, when he touched it, caused his hands to burst out into boils.

HAMMOND KRADDOC (Vintners’)

• Dropping by to let the owners know about new spirits his guild has to offer: Blackberry seawine from the Nasaqh Estates on Mount Sar. Berg Brew, an alchemically frozen slurry that has ten times the alcoholic content of other beers. Entsap, brewed from the sap of treants. Storm Giant Ale, which is not actually bewed by storm giants but does have an electrical “tingle.”
• Chastises the owners for their current selection of beverages (even if he was the one who sold them).
• Discovers that Lif knew his father, Barbaros Kraddoc. Barbaros would actually stay at Trollskull Manor when he would come into Waterdeep to sell wines from the Elysium Fields. (Lif is saddened to learn that the Elysium Fields were destroyed.)

BROXLEY FAIRKETTLE (Innkeepers’)

• Asks the PCs to host the guild’s Leiruin Feast. (Extrapolate event from DH p. 162.)
• Offers to sell them a signatory license to the Fellowship of Innkeepers’ indemnification insurance for 20 gp per month: It covers the costs of any lawsuits held against them or their tavern due to injuries incurred during a stay. (He relates how the previous year a spice merchant nearly bankrupted an inn who didn’t have insurance when a magister held them liable for not only the magical healing of his injuries, but also for his lost wages during a period of physical and emotional recovery.)
• Dues for the Fellowship of Innkeepers are increasing by 5 gp per month starting on the first of next month.

ULKORIA STONEMARROW

• Relates the history of Trollskull Tavern, starting from the time of her ownership.
• She comes in hauling the carcass of a rust monster.
• Shield guardian shows up, but Ulkoria isn’t with it.

MATTREM “THREEESTRINGS” MEREG

• Looking for employment; or just permission to play for tips if that fails. (Yawning Portal is a little too intense for him this week.)
• He brings Bonnie the Doppelganger here to have a date. It turns into a complete disaster. (He might beg one of the PCs to help him salvage the night.)
• Sings “The Ballad of the River Chionthar,” an incredibly beautiful piece of his own composition telling of a young girl who slipped into the river and drowned. Each verse tells of some scene her body passes along the river, until the last verse speaks of how she passed through Baldur’s Gate and out into the sea.

JALESTER SILVERMANE

• Jalester is here to spy on the adventurers’ who made a rep for themselves rescuing Renaer. Once he’s assessed whether they (a) can be trusted or (b) pose a threat to Waterdeep, he’ll issue a report to the Open Lord.

YAGRA STONEFIST

• Challenging any burly-looking patrons to an arm wrestling competition, which she’s turned into a drinking game by taking a drink each time she wins.
• She claims a table in the corner and over the course of the evening she meets with a string of people – many of them sporting Zhentarim tattoos. She speaks quietly with them or slips them a piece of paper, and then they leave.
• She gets a crush on one of the male patrons tonight and does her best to take him home (or upstairs).

[FACTION CONTACT]

• Trigger the next faction mission.
• They’re here to meet with a different contact.

JARLAXLE

• If appearing as Captain Zord, he may bring along a number of Sea Maidens Faire carnies. They’ll bring strange creatures with them, perform a juggling act, do strange acrobatic tricks using the features of the tavern, and so forth.
• If appearing as a different fake identity, it’s more likely he’ll just quietly ensconce himself somewhere and observe the PCs, trying to get a measure of them.
• If appearing as himself, he’s here to negotiate: He wants something from the PCs in the Grand Game (information, a service), and he’s willing to bargain.

FACTION RESPONSE TEAM

• Keeping the tavern under observation from outside.
• Delivering a message from their faction (most likely to arrange a meeting).
• Staging a hit on the PCs, most likely in retaliation for their actions.
• Staging a heist, most likely targeting the Stone of Golorr and/or the Eyes.

PATRON TOPICS/AGENDAS – RENAER & FRIENDS

RENAER NEVEREMBER

• Requests an update on their investigation into Dalakhar’s murder (and the reasons behind it).
• Introduces them to some of his friends (roll on the “Renaer’s Friends” table).
• Invites the PCs to a party at Brandarthall.

VAJRA SAFAHR, THE BLACKSTAFF

• Lights have been seen in Kolat Towers, an old abandoned wizard’s tower in the Southern Ward. Despite everything that’s happening, she’s going to have to find time to check it out: Reoccupied wizard’s haunts are trouble more often than not.
• She knows uncomfortably too much about whatever the PCs’ last op was, although she doesn’t actually use their names.
• Tries to recruit the PCs into Force Grey. (Or, if the PCs actions have not distinguished them in this way, she sets a Force Grey member to keep watch on them.)

LARAELRA “ELRA” HARSARD

• She’s come to check out the “fiery-tempered temptress” who’s playing fast and loose with Renaer’s heart.
• Debriefing a Force Grey agent whose mission went disastrously. (Could be used to hook the PCs into doing a Force Grey faction mission – completing the failed mission – even if they aren’t members of Force Grey.)
• Her old friend Meloon Wardragon seems to be avoiding her lately and she’s worried about it. She doesn’t know what she could have done to alienate him.

OSCO SALIBUCK

• Has just returned from an expedition to the Tomb of Galari, an Archmage of Ancient Netheril. Young Harchan Roaringhorn led the expedition, clearly seeking something of import. (Osco does not know what; and it’s clear that Harchan was unsuccessful in whatever his aim was.)
• He has ordered one of every single liquor in the tavern, lined them up on the bar, and is working his way through them one by one. He is offering his (increasingly incoherent) critiques of each one at the top of his lungs.
• Lord Tylandar Roaringhorn is celebrating his seventieth birthday on the Roaringhorn estates in Amphail. Osco will be leaving Waterdeep for a couple of weeks (probably closer to a month), and he wants to have one last big party before he goes.

LORD TORLYN WANDS

• Lord Terras, who has had a feud with the Wands ever since Torlyn’s sister turned down his proposal of marriage, has filed yet another civil suit claiming that guests staying at the Wands’ ancestral hunting lodge have crossed over onto his property. He filed the suit in the Court of Amphail, just to make it more of a headache for Torlyn to defend it.
• Recently acquired an alchemical concoction that was supposed to counteract the effects of strong drink… and got himself into rather a spot of trouble at the Grinning Lion (a tavern in the North Ward). He drank far too much zzar (a fortified sherry with an orange color and an almondy scent), ate far too many fried eels, and woke up in an alley in the South Ward next to a snoring troll.
• Quietly reading The Salt of the Abyss by Ableworth Dirkley while sipping tea in the corner.

EIRUK WESKUR

• One of the journeyman under his watch had a teleport spell go awry. If anyone happens to visit an interdimensional pocket and happens to see the poor fellow, please let him know.
• Looking for Vajra: She was supposed to be here tonight and he’s concerned that she isn’t keeping the appointment.
• He’s gained a nasty scar across one cheek: One of the apprentices of the Order of Magists let a spell get out of control.

HARUG SHIELDSUNDER

• Has brought half a dozen dwarven tunnel workers from the Cellarers’ & Plumbers’ Guild to check out the new tavern.
• Malaerigo Harsard, Guild Master of the Cellarers’ & Plumbers’ Guild, has announced a steep rate hike in the guild’s dues. There’s a great deal of discontent in the rank-and-file, particularly among the dwarves.
• It’s the anniversary of his nephew’s death: He orders six dwarven ales (one for each year since Dorn’s death) and drinks them one by one. (Others who knew Dorn – like Laraelra, for example – may join in.)

PARLEK LATERIFF

• Recently acquired Sister Argutara’s Telestic Tome of the Draconic Tribes. Waxes rhapsodic about it.
• Comparing recent acquisitions with Lord Torlyn Wands.
• Arguing with Rishaal over the inconsistencies between Arturo’s Moonsea Atlas and Arienthil’s Journeys in the Moonshae Isles. (Parlek is convinced that Arienthil edited her accounts in order to gloss over or conceal various sites of importance she had encountered. He has an elaborate conspiracy theory suggesting, for example, that she was aware of a huge vein of black gold, a rare Feydark ore which is found in deposits throughout the Moonshae Isles and sparks intermittent “black gold rushes” when they turn up.)

MELOON WARDRAGON

• Challenges patrons to an arm-wrestling contest.
• Under the influence of the intellect devourer, asks probing questions regarding the Grand Game hoping to glean actionable intelligence from the PCs or their associates.
• PCs might notice he has a little purple fluid leaking out of his nose. (Potentially revealing the presence of the intellect devourer.)
• Speaks of how his hometown, Loudwater, has come under the control of the Zhentarim. The current High Lord, Telbor Zazrek, is a well-paid puppet of the Zhentarim and, through him, the Black Network maintains a stranglehold on the town. Any supplies not provided by the Zhentarim are punitively taxed and the cost of living in the town has skyrocketed.

FLOON BLAGMAAR

• He came here to meet with a pair of lovely brunettes, but now he needs help: They’re sitting over there in the corner – don’t look! I’m supposed to just be ordering drink, but I recognize one of them as being the wife of Lord Elamyr Belabranta. If Lord Elamyr finds out, he’ll send a griffon to eat Floon. (The Belabratas breed griffons for the City Watch.)
• His friend Bruzmyr Seerambra can offer a much better deal on the cost of liquor and ale than the Vintners’ Guild.
• His friend Riklyn Harvester has been transformed into an orange tabby cat by an irate sorcerer who was upset that Riklyn was trying to pick up a girl at the Old Skull Tavern. He’s got Riklyn with him (meow!) and he’s hoping the PCs can help turn him back. (Floon is mistaken: The cat is just a cat.)

Go to Part 5: Trollskull Patrons