Tavern Thursday: The Brewster Stall (Patreon)

Each Thursday I do a quick sketch of a new fantasy tavern as a paying-members-exclusive post. Each post includes an illustration and just enough tavern details for a GM to drop it in their game wherever they need a place for adventures to gather and quest to start.

The Brewster Stall

Appearance: This is a semi-permanent stall with a prime location front-and-center at the edge of a large open market. A wooden frame holds up a sturdy leather tarp forming a back wall and the roof. Barrels of various sizes are stacked neatly to either side of the stall, and a wooden counter running along the front has numerous bins, some with clay and wood cups stacked in them, others with bottles of dark liquids.

(art by onay)

Origin: The Brewster's Stall was originally just a place where several locals who brewed ale and various herbal teas in their home gathered to sell their wares to their neighbors. As the popularity of their drinks increases, they began making simple lean-tos for better comfort while selling. When the town began to develop guilds to control all crafting and trade, the home-brewers refused to be forced to pay guild-dues or follow rules established by formal brewer and fermenting guilds. The guilds responded by using political pressure to pass laws forbidding the "home brewsters" from setting up a tavern or shop, but they could not convince locals to outlaw the sell of brewster goods entirely. The Brewster Stall has developed as the biggest, best structure the brewsters can set up without violating the rules against having a non-guild shop.

Owner: The Brewster Stall is owned by the Circle of Brewsters, a collective of home-brewers who refuse to bow to guild control, but do have their own rules and standards. Most of the brewsters are people without a shop or farm outside their small home, including housewives, laborers, and retired folk. They keep track of who makes what brews, take turns manning the Stall, and split their profits according to the amount produced by each Brewster.

The current Senior Brewster is Heismonde Algera, a no-nonsense mother of 7 and grandmother of 5 who is a retired adventuring alchemist. She has helped the current generation of Brewsters remain organized and steadfast in their independence from guilds, and while she is far from her adventuring days physical fitness, she remains as cunning and skilled with alchemy as ever.

(art by sharpner)

Food: The Brewster Stall doesn't offer food regularly, but if a Brewster's home has too much of something, such as berries threatening to go bad, or more honey than needed for a given run of mead, they may cook baked goods and offer then for sale the same day at the stall. Honeycakes, berry muggins, and herbal breads are most common, sometimes wirth fresh-churned butter.

Drink: The Brewsters offer a variety of drinks, and what's available often depends on what was brewed the previous day. Ale and mead are common, but the brewsters are best known for Arusa (a reddish-gold ale made with a proprietary recipe of herbs), medicinal bitters (believed to help settle ailments of the stomach and liver), and dandelion tisane (a dark tea that refreshes, promotes alertness, and can ease headaches).

Lodging: While the Stall itself obviously has no lodging, someone from the Brewster's Circle is always present, taking turns sleeping in the stall (often with a guard animal), and in rain or cold weather may allow a trustworthy-looking traveler to join them for a copper. Some Brewsters have spare room in their homes, sheds, or barns, and will lease these out (if in their home, often with meals included) to someone they take a linking to, and are often willing to do so in return for simply labor (such as cutting wood, repairing wood, or sharpening tools).

Stabling: As with lodging the Stall has no stabling of its own, but individual Brewsters might grant stabling to travelers they take a liking to.

Clientele: Much to the annoyance of local Inn and Brewing guilds, the Brewster's Stall has a large collection of locals who buy a gallon of Arusa every day, or five-gallons once a week. Travelers passing through also often grab some drink from the Stall, and several households consider its bitters and dandelion tisane crucial staple remedies.

It's not unusual in the early evening to find a collection of folks standing around the Stall, buying individual cups of drink and using the Stall's collection of ceramic and wooden cups.

Rumor: There's always rumors about the Brewer's Guild trying to burn down, or accuse Heismonde Algera of illegal witchcraft. Some of them are even true!

Locals can be overheard claiming the local lord is sick and needs dandelion tisane to recover, but his strong ties to the town Guilds is preventing him from asking for any.

Adventure Seed: Heismonde Algera's familiar, a cunning cat named Softuron, has gone missing, and was pregnant at the time of her disappearance. Heismonde is beside herself, and fears a Guilderman took the familiar to blackmail her, though she does not know who, and she has not received any ransom demand.

In fact a traveling wizard, Guiguss Hurtran, has had his imp familiar kidnap the cat, as he knows Softuron's kittens are going to be extraordinary. But he has had to rent a barn far out of town to make sure no one hears Softuron's mews, and is suddenly buying up cream, cheese, and small salt fish.

If the PCs rescue Softuron, each PC may be adopted by one of Softuron's kittens, which include a Drakonne (a cat-sized dragonne), a chimerette (cat-sized chimera), a Griffling (cat-sized griffon), a felicorn (cat with unicorn horn), and a blink kit (cat with blink dog powers). A PC who embraces the adoption may end up with one of Softuron's children as a familiar, regardless of their training.