Tavern Thursday: The Winter House (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.

I've recently varied a bit from standard feudal fantasy taverns, and produced at cyberpunk fantasy tavern and related complexes, a cross-dimensional train club car, and a weird west mobile saloon. You can find them, and every other tavern I've done on Patreon, at this Tavern Index, which I keep updated.

This week I am doing modern-era horror fantasy... though the idea can be easily updated to nearly any magical genre. I plan to alternate between "classic" fantasy and other settings-with-magic at least for the next several entries.

The Winer House 

Appearance: The Winter House is a very large 3-story building with numerous wings and exterior entrances. It has stone walls for the lower floor and stone reinforcement throughout the upper floors, with sharply peaked roofs designed to shed snowpack. There are numerous large glass windows, but each ha a pair of interior wooden shutters.

(Art by Petrafler)

Origin: The Winter House was built to be a northern hunting lodge of a minor noble, Morozko Befana, who soon went bankrupt after spending much too much on its construction. His debtors turned his private hunting lodge into a resort for the rich and powerful, and retained his services as a host to give it an air of old-world legitimacy. Rather than be upset at this turn of events Lord Befana was delighted. He enjoyed hosting, and now had no money worries. He would often arrive well before the winter season began, and spend time preparing the massive building for the first round of servants, who would show up with supplies and tools a few days later.

Sadly, one year, a terrible blizzard set in and trapped Lord Befana before anyone else arrives. He died in the ensuing snow closures... but his spirit still wanted to play host. The house burned to the ground after he died and could not watch all the lanterns he has set in windows in case any travelers got caught in the snow storm. Both the lord and the very building itself had such a strong presence in the Ethereal plane that they became linked ghosts. So now, whenever anyone is lost or desperate in a snowy region, there is a chance the Winter House will appear to them and give them shelter and succor... as long as they don't try to leave.

Owner: Lord Morozko Befana is once more owner of the Winter House, now that he is a ghost, and it is his domain. He does not consciously control when or where the house appears, but it is his deep yearning to be a host again that drives the house. Whenever anyone arrives (usually being led by lanterns flickering in the ghost-building's windows), the Ghost of Morozko lays in fires in a lobby, leaves notes as 'the Desk Clerk" promising to check on the arrivals soon, and has keys laid out for them to enjoy freshly cleaned and warmed rooms with food and drink laid out.

Morozko tries to keep guests happy, leaving food, drink, notes, books h thinks they might like, classic games, and so on for them to find, but never lets them see or hear him. And, driven by his desire to have guests. the house itself keeps a blizzard going nonstop, which gets worse if anyone steps outside and cuts off all communication. Exloring the massive building reveals clues that it's hundreds of years old, not native to where the guests encountered it, and possibly even a journal or corpses of previous guests who died within its walls.

Food: Morozko puts out food for people in their rooms, or the dining room, or the front lobby, or any other room guests may come across but aren't in when he sets out food. His meals all tend to be lavish feasts with bacon, blood sausage, aspic, pickled eggs, stuffed fish, beets, candied nuts (especially almonds, chestnuts, and walnuts) and fruits (generally figs, medlar, and quince), and rye bread the most common food elements. If someone puts in a special request (like a bacon cheeseburger) Morozk tries to produce it, but has no experience with modern foods (possibly producing bacon on beef tongue in a rye bun with a cream sauce for a bacon cheeseburger).

Drink: For whatever reason, Morozko is better at producing desired drinks than foods, though it's always products in pewter or crystal pitchers. He can do anything that has been around for more than 100 years, and is adept at classic colas and older flavors of sofa, but not things like modern energy drinks. He he always produces beer at room temperature

Lodging & Stabling: There were originally 75 luxurious guest rooms in the Winter House, and servants quarters for twice that many. In the unlikely even more people showed up than those rooms can accommodate, the Winter House adds wings as necessary. Similarly it originally had stables and barns for enough animals to be independent for months at a time, and can add more as needed, and knows enough to add a barn to use as a garage of guests show up in modern vehicles... though it is likely to then remove the barn (and vehicles in it) when no one is looking.

Clientele: The Winter House keeps unexpected guests for as long as it can. A few die of old age, discovering they lack the drive to escape, or that they are content with a life of free food and lodging, and lifetimes worth of books in the buildings outdated-but-vast library. Their bodies generally free-dry mummify at some point after their deaths. Others are killed by members of their own groups going stir-crazy, or in genuine accidents or failed efforts to destroy the Winter House itself. Many eventually flee the house after realizing weeks-long blizzards cannot be natural, or concluding their mysterious, unseen host much have ill intent. The Winter House can keep the blizzard going for 2-3 miles around it, and does its best to disorient those trying to walk out so they return to the building. If a guest dies outside the Winter House, it's body does not go with the house the next time it moves.

Rumors: The Winter House is most likely to appear in places where people being lost and in danger in snowstorms is more common. In some regions with ski resorts and mountain storms, the Winter Lodge is a local urban myth. People speak of people who claim to have been within it foe days, or seen it in the distance in a storm, only to find there's no building by the time they reach it and the weather has ended. The most extreme mysteries are things like someone going missing in a blizzard, only to appear decades later, claiming to have been in a haunted mansion during the entire time they were gone.

Adventure Seed: The Ghost of Lord Morozko Befana just wants to be a host. If someone could find his skull (the only part of him left, and placed in a snowglobe by a previous guest who thought -- incorrectly -- that this would prevent the ghost from being able to control the building) and convince him they would visit regularly, he might be convinced to stay in one place and act as a base of operations with free food, free heat, and a free undead security system.

 (Art by Jiewsurreal)