Tavern Thursday: Shield Matrons' Hall (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 a CLASSIC FANTASY tavern designed to be set near a dangerous area rich for adventure.

For my weekly paid-member-excusive article, I'm considering swapping from taverns to doing some Horrifically Overpowered Class Features for hybrid and/or occult classes, which would otherwise take forever to get to. I'd keep doing core and base classes as posts free members could access, it would just be hybrid and occult classes would be exclusive, to allow me to do more total HO class features each week. So, if anyone has thoughts about that idea, now's the time to let me know!

The Shield Matrons' Hall

An all-wood structure nestled inside a small walled enclosure, the Shield Matrons' Hall is found near a region where mercenaries and adventures have ample opportunity to work, and dangers are common enough that no one travels entirely unarmed.

Appearance: The Shield Matrons' Hall is a long wooden building made with thick, well-dried boards of hard wood. It has stout pole holding up a narrow awning that completely surrounds the lower floor. Heft iron-bound wooden doors give access in the front of the building, and similar doors can be opened along the sides if ventilation is needed. Two round shields adorn the front of the hall, and it's largest crossbeams are decorated with stylized wolves heads facing each other. A hole in the room is covered by a raised section of wooden shingles, allowing smoke from cooking fires to exit while keeping rain out.

(Art by EllerslieArt)

Though the building is two stories tall, it's main interior space is is a single large, long hall that runs from the fron doors 2/4 of th way through the building. Smaller roms line the hall to either side, and a small set of chambers are walled off in back. The main hall is brightly lit by a large cooking pit and tallow candles set into hanging iron candelabra. Benches and long tables run the length of the walls, and some are set into the middle of the room as well. Thge center third of the hall has a hard-packed earthen floor, with either side covered in hardwood boardwalks. Round shields hang on the walls, each with a different pattern on the front.

(Art by IG Digital Arts)

Origin: The Shield Matron's Hall was built by a conquering wolfshead raider, who brought a small band of warriors with him and claimed to rule all villages within two days walk of his hall. He was young, and brave, and skilled... and hot-headed, and rash. His declaration of being in charge got everyone even vaguely able to fight within a week's travel to band together and attack him. These attacks coincided with raids from the most dangerous wilds nearby (whatever it is the GM wants to be a closely adventuring threat, be that wights from an old barrow, cultists from an evil temple, or giant frogs from an abandoned moat house). This double threat resulting in the entire band of raiders being killed, along with many of the local fighting men.

When word of the death of the raiders reached their homeland, the sister of one of the raiders, Gunvelk Raveneye, decided to go prove she could succeed in gaining power and riches where her brother had failed. She went (along with several of her daughters), took over the hall, and send emissaries to the local towns. But rather than claim she was their ruler already, Gunvelk's people offered trade, training, and a safe place to retreat to if necessary.

Soon, Gunvelk and her daughters were training women and children who had lost too many warrior-men in the battle with Gunvelk's brother, and setting up patrols and hunting parties to help cover the whole region. Gunvelk offered a single, secure place for outside traders to come to make mercantile deals with multiple villages, and the biggest building she had available became known as the Shield Matrons' Hall, acting as mercenary guild, training facility, warehouse, intervillage arbitration court, and inn.

(Gunvelk Raveneye. Art by IG Digital Arts)

Owner: Gunvelk Raveneye is the owner of the Shield Matrons' Hall, as well as the walled enclosure around it. Less than a village, it is more a business-owned thorp where employees of the Hall can live, and people with long-term or highly-profitable relationships can store goods and stay for however long they need to make business deals. Gunvelk is the unquestioned authority within the walled area that includes the Hall, but carefully makes no claims about the lands beyond it. However, the fact she is brutally honest, quick-witted, cunning, and a skilled war leader and combatant have lead nearly all the nearby villages to turn to her for advice and protection, and generally encourage hr to patrol as large an area as she wishes.

Gunvelk is satisfied with the way things are, for now. She makes significant money as a mercenary leaders and the only trading post and public hall for days travel in any direction. She sends her daughters to patrol, and negotiate with nearby villages, and scout out local threats. She assumes one of more of her daughters will forge stronger alliances with the locals, and actually become a local noble. Which Gunvelk looks forward to, but doesn't do anything to encourage. She's set the stage for SOMEONE to forge a more powerful alliance.

She looks forward to seeing who takes up the challenge.

Food: Food at the Shield Matrons' Hall always includes a fresh hunt turning on a spit in the center cooking pit. That's normally accompanied by fresh bread and a soup or porridge made from dried grains and vegetables. Gunvelk makes sure to have a huge store of dried rations in case of famine or siege, and cycles through it my offering the oldest dried goods cheaply to accompany fresh meat. There's a small kitchen in the back of the Hall where all cooking other than the spit-roasted hinted beast occurs.

Sometimes there are imported ingredients or even entire dishes brought in my visitors from nearby villages or traders. Gunvelk accepts payment in food for her mercenary company's services, or her warehousing service, and if she ends up with too much food she sells it cheaply to visitors to her Hall.

(Art by IG Digital Arts)

Drink: The Hall almost always has mead and honey wine available, as they are favorites of Gunvelk. Tea and herbal mead are the next most common. The Hal doesn't offer water unless someone specifically asks for it--Gunvelk considers tea to be a safe drink, and plain water to be iffy. Althing else is likely to be something accepted in trade for Gunvelk's various mercantile and mercenary ventures.

Lodging: Anyone who buys food or drink at the Hall is welcome to roll up in a cloak and sleep overnight in a corner. Anyone pregnant or sick is offered free lodging in one of the smaller rooms off the main hall. There are also campsites inside the wooden wall around the collection of buildings near the Hall. However, Gunvelk reserves the right to kick out anyone she doesn't like the look or sound of, and she doesn't allow large groups of warriors she does not know stay inside her wall at night.

Stabling: There are 2 large stables inside the wall that surrounds the Hall and it's support building. Gunveld tries to keep one empty to use as an emergency shelter, but that's a preference, not a hard rule.

Clientele: The Hall has a mix of travelers, traders, hunters, adventurers, and swords-for-hire. It's not unusual for traders and sellswords from other regions to come to the Shield Matrons' Hall looking for opportunities. Gunvelk keeps a list f the needs of people in nearby villages, and of local folks with excess goods or young folk looking to become mercs, and directs people to good matches as she feels is wise.

Rumors: Another band of raiders from even father away than Gunvelk's people are coming to this region, and want to conquer it. ne rumor claims they plan to destroy the Shield Matron's Hall first, and another claims they plan to avoid the Hall for as long as possible, instead raiding surrounding farms.

Adventure Seed: The above rumor is true in broad terms, but the band of raiders haven't decided what to do about the Hall yet. So they have sent a spy to the Hall, posing as a down-on-her-luck sellsword. The PCs may realize she is not as he seems, or she might kidnap one of them to weaken the Hall's defenses.

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