Phalantar's Philtres & Components

Phalantar's Philtres & Components was a shop in the Castle Ward of Waterdeep that specialized in medicines, herbs, spices, rare substances, and spell components. The owner, Phalantar Orivan, was known to buy and sell items without questioning what they would be used for or where they came from.

Purpose / Function

Phalantar's Philtres & Components boasted the widest selection of herbs, spices, and rare substances in Waterdeep. In the review published by famed explorer Volothamp Geddarm, he had a minor criticism that the herbs were not always the freshest, but the broad selection more than made up for this. Ingredients for perfumes, scented oils, potions, and even poisons could be purchased here, no questions asked. If a customer (not associated with the authorities) inquired discretely, there was a chance Phalantar would have some minor magic items and scrolls for sale.
Phalantar Orivan was known to sponsor adventuring companies in exchange for a cut of their loot, specifically material goods that he could sell in his shop.[8][5] If inquiries were made in certain circles, Phalantar's Philtres was one place in Waterdeep where stolen goods could be sold for a little over a third of their street value.

Architecture

The building was two stories tall and had a large, circular front door.

Interior

The shop had a strong smell of many exotic odors mixed together. It was a crowded place filled with cabinets of many labeled drawers; shelves with shells, skulls, bones, stoppered jars, and vials; and dried branches of rare vegetation hanging from the ceiling. Just inside the front door, propped against the wall, was the stone figure of a man fleeing in terror.

Atmosphere

The proprietor was a quiet, graceful man that always seemed to be wearing a smile of comfortable contentment. He told anyone that inquired about the stone statue that it was a customer that rudely entered the shop while it was closed and tried to leave without paying. He would then ask for caution when near it, so as not to tip it over and shatter it before he decided to release the light-fingered gentleman.

Defenses

Various reports from supposedly reliable (noble) sources indicated that the shop was protected by traps that expelled gasses that induced sleep or caused paralysis. Of particular note was the assertion that some traps also employed dust of petrification, to which the life-like statue at the entrance could be attributed.

History

Phalantar's Philtres & Components was a fixture in Waterdeep since at least the Year of the Prince, 1357 DR, and through at least the Year of Wild Magic, 1372 DR.
In the late 1350s DR, on the night of Mirtul 15, twelve dinosaur eggs recently purchased from adventurers returning from Chult unexpectedly hatched in Phalantar's storeroom and the young tanystropheuses escaped into the sewers and reportedly killed one member of the Cellarers' & Plumbers' Guild and badly injured two others.

Type

Shop, Generic

Parent Location

Castle Ward