Encounters at the Golden Phoenix

PCs could consider staying here, of course. Rooms have exquisitely comfortable goose-down mattresses and pillows, rich carpets and fine furnishings, running hot water (from a boiler and a wall of fire on which permanency has been cast), and 24-hour room service. Rooms with breakfast cost 10 gp per night (single) or 15 gp (double), but such luxury is not a bad option after weeks of adventuring! If PCs decide to stay here, they might find themselves embroiled in an adventure after their rooms are robbed. If they can't afford an extended stay or a big meal, then afternoon tea in the Velunese Grill (a mere 2 gp) is a more economical option.

Again, the Golden Phoenix is a place to be seen and to meet important NPCs. At Grand Feasts, in particular, the place will be thronged with upper-crust NPCs, and many such people take lunch or dinner here when they feel like having a good (and expensive) time.

An occasional hazard is the presence of rich, drunk, and rowdy students, but usually such persons are quietly but forcefully ushered out by the attendants-if a major NPC mage doesn't quiet them by simply going to their table and suggesting that either they leave now or he will polymorph them into something that the chef could work up into a nice specialty for the mage's dinner. Lady Valderesse Sharn, Tenser, Otto, Jallarzi Sallavarian (some times looking for Edwina, who is friendly with the pastry chef here and may be too fat to fly home), Nerof Gasgal, and Org Nenshen are among the place's regular patrons, so this is an ideal place to have PCs meet NPCs at the highest levels of political involvement-or even members of the Circle of Eight!