Every town needs its watering hole. For Prizewater, that’s The Scurvy Stern. It uses the Seaside Tavern battlema, which was last seen as The Wake n’ Waves Tavern by Troy. This time, we’re introducing it as a slice-of-life tavern where folk of Prizewater come for a break from their day or play a dice game known all along the coast.

Right now, The Scurvy Stern has nothing threatening it. Here, you’ll find a cast of NPCs who are working or relaxing, some events that tie the community together, and some hooks to inspire your own short adventures that can begin from a barstool. Use The Scurvy Stern to begin a campaign in a location that evokes a coastal community vibe.

The Tavern

The Scurvy Stern sits on a salt-worn platform that extends over the water, propped on barnacled posts, with a rowboat bumping against a small dock below. The tavern seems made from the remains of a ship’s stern, featuring a faded S.S. nameboard above the open taproom door, where you can smell wood fire cooking something extraordinary.

The Scurvy Stern is built from the remains of a warship’s stern. Most of the name board is gone, a cursive S.S. on rotted wood is all that remains. Grott and Veld kept it, named the place, and turned the wreck into something worth visiting. A taproom and small kitchen sit on a wooden platform stretching over the shore, with a dock below for the tavern’s rowboat.

It’s the best view on the coast, and the least complicated place in Prizewater. No shady dealings. No trouble. Just salt air, the house chowder, and enough Kelp Ale to carry you through sultry days into pleasant evenings.

General Features

Atmosphere. Warm and unhurried with salt air and woodsmoke. 

Menu. Kelp Ale 4cp, House Chowder 2sp, Cook your catch 5cp/lb

Rowboat and Dock. The tavern owns a small rowboat used by Grott and Veld to harvest kelp.

The Crew

Two people own and operate the Scurvy Stern, they’ve recently decided to recruit more staff.

Grott

Role: Co-owner and cook.

Appearance: Broad half-orc with calloused hands and a permanently stained apron with pockets of herbs. He is rarely seen without a ladle.

Personality: Doesn’t say much and lets the food speak. Criticism of his cooking is met with immediate, disproportionate rage, yet he’s the first to feed a struggling traveller on the house.

Motivation: Keep the kitchen running. Keep the chowder recipe secret. Prove, bowl by bowl, that his chowder is the best on the coast.

Veld

Role: Co-owner and host.

Appearance: Lean half-orc with an easy smile and clothes one notch too fine for a coastal tavern.

Personality: Warm, attentive, and just hard enough to pin down. His hospitality is mostly genuine. Old habits surface when coin gets tight. Grott keeps him honest.

Motivation: Keep people comfortable. Keep certain dealings far enough from Grott that he never has to ask.

Wren

Role: Bartender.

Appearance: Young half-elf with ink-stained fingers and a slightly overwhelmed expression. 

Personality: Eager and earnest. Perpetually two steps behind Veld. Takes every task seriously. Yet to learn which ones don’t deserve it.

Motivation: Earn coins to pay for his ink and parchment as he studies to be a wizard. 

NPCs

Here is a list of characters that frequent The Scurvy Stern that offer the party a chance to meet other locals.

Adventure Hooks

You can expand these hooks into your own short adventures or simplify them into a skill challenge for the party.

Events

These events are signs of the community that gathers at The Scurvy Stern. Some of them might even lead to a larger adventure.

Conquer Minigame

Every trade route has a price.

Conquer was born in the space between merchant and pirate, in smoke-thick ship cabins where crews with nothing but time invented ways to settle debts and start new ones. It spread port to port the way rumours do. Fast, and slightly different every time. The dice are fate. The pot is the route. Lose enough ground and the route is gone. Lose it all and you’ll be too.

Conclusion

The Scurvy Stern can be dropped into any coastal setting. And with some minor adjustments, you could even place it along a jungle river. Whenever I write D&D locations, I keep people and culture in mind–it’s usually enough to inspire the entire table to collaborate on great ideas during play. Whether it’s from the cast of NPCs or the Conquer minigame, I hope you find something to steal from in this article.

Support the Creators

Ian Arguilles
What do Ian, a hydra, and a hat rack have in common? They all wear many hats. Ian freelances across copywriting, short fiction, and RPG design. If you’d rather just hear him ramble about telling better stories at the table, look for Unfound Fables on Instagram.

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