Two Minute Tavern: The Green Wand

Another fun Kickstarter, the Two Minute Tavern is a nice way to create a tavern on the fly. And then I can use the Remarkable Inns and Taverns if I want to expand it, but the 2-minute thing is a "roll on these tables" and takes, as it says on the tin, 2 minutes. It showed up in my in-box this morning, so I thought I'd try a quick run-through,

My first run through the tables and we have the Green Wand tavern. Surrounded by trees, it is hard to find and usually found by accident. A big tavern that is rundown, visitors can feel a suspiciousness in the air. There is a major insect problem which helps explains why it is rundown: termites have been busy eating holes in the walls and floors. Its signature drink is the Bouncing Breath: with a creamy taste, this murky-looking drink has an exotic aroma that wafts throughout the tavern. Best served with the Salted Pig Tart, their specialty. Frank Crawing rules the tavern from behind the bar, ordering everyone around. His blood-shot nose is the most noticeable thing about him. Off in a corner, staring resolutely straight ahead is Stiff Beatrice, the tavern's regular. With the large floor space available, there is a local drama group that puts on plays and historical reenactments. Outside, between the trees, the lawn clubs grid has been cut into the ground, a set of the clubs leaning up against the outside wall.

The tables let you generate the name and some of the attributes. A signature drink and food are nice to have as it makes each tavern a more unique place (and I always have a hard time coming up with this on the fly. Why I have a few printed out pages of random foods and things when I run games). A proprietor and regular are quickly generated with some interesting quirks or physical oddities, along with what is entertaining and games that may be played.

Poking around for taverns in woods (and there are some nice real-life taverns in woods apparently), found something that evokes where I think this quick tavern came from.

Not sure this belongs in my growing Windemere collection, but now I have a handy little tavern I can stick someplace as needed. And the game of lawn clubs: what could go wrong there?

I do like the regular: Stiff Beatrice. Why is she called that? I of course stuck her in a corner and riffing off the stiff part, have her staring straight ahead as she drinks her Bouncing Breath, slowly eating the Salted Pig Tart. Has she lost someone special? Is she a social recluse who comes out despite not wanting to be around people? Does she have any quests for the players: perhaps she has heard things at her house, and needs the shed checked out as she is afraid to go in herself. Does she live nearby - as a regular I would assume so. How is she dressed - fancy, plain? Old or young? The whole age question brings out different responses in players quite often. Some possible versions of Beatrice here, each which could evoke an entirely different feel for the NPC. I may add the Green Wand as a nearby location for Windemere (along with the salt mines & its adjacent village) and have some ideas for Beatrice and our Frank Crawing. Perhaps one or the other is a jilted lover? Or perhaps siblings? Or complete strangers other than Beatrice showing up regularly. And that drama group could be fun to do as well. I need to drop in some easter eggs for various things, and a troupe of actors could be a good way of doing that (and here is the story of Tuvano, city of the liche king!) I really need to get better at using rumors and things to help the players have choices and make it feel like a living world, where things are going on even without them.