T12: City Orphanage

Old Mother Grubb's House of Fortune

This run-down building stands by itself, as if the neighboring places have leaned away in outrage ... or fear.

Mother Grubb's is lively nearly every night, and it has the reputation of quite a funhouse. The doxies are pretty and young, though a customer had best keep a hand on his purse.

More sordid details concerning the House of Fortune can be gleaned from Ch5 FFF.

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T12: City Orphanage. The site now occupied by the new orphanage was formerly Old Mother Grubb’s House of Fortune, a gambling parlor and bordello that was discovered to have been operated by a vampire. A holy knight of Pelor was murdered here by Mother Grubb, the undead monster who ruled the place, and out of revenge, the inhabitants of the place were slain and the House of Fortune burned to the ground in the fall of 582 cy. Frightening tales of Mother Grubb still circulate among the children in the orphanage.

The two-story orphanage is operated by clerics and lay followers of Pelor. About three dozen children up to the age of 14 are housed here; older children are apprenticed off in better parts of the city when possible. Some children arrived in Greyhawk as recent refugees ot lost their parents to short-lived outbreaks of disease in the Old City, but most were simply abandoned by poor parents no longer able to care for them. These children are rather lucky, as many more children run wild through the chaos of the Old City, hiding from authority and stealing food.

Following several incidents in which some of the human slime of Old City attempted to kidnap or prey on the children here, the clerics of the orphanage have become very militant and aggressive. Clerics and followers of Mayaheine have begun working here, and the staff is more heavily armed than they appear. Most of the clerics blame the Thieves’ Guild for these incidents.

DM's Notes: The orphanage staff is actively seeking weapons, potions, spell scrolls, and other devices it can use to defend the orphanage against outsiders. The workers are slowly turning the place into a minor fortress, isolating it and its children from the rest of the world. On the surface it is difficult to say if this is a bad thing, as they are in a bad part of theThieves’ Quarter, but they aren’t making many friends. Many neighbors dislike the staff and resent its heavy-handed way of keeping people away from the children there. The Thieves’ Guild resents the staff's attitude as well, because it is not responsible for any attacks against children. (See the Richfest section in “Annual Events in Greyhawk”)

The most dangerous enemies facing the orphanage are several local evil cults (Nerull, Iuz, and Incabulos), that have their eyes set on capturing some children for purposes that the clerics of Pelor could only imagine in their maddest nightmares. The clerics have no idea that they are facing such awful opposition, but pethaps their heightened defense of the orphanage is not such a bad idea. Characters who aid the orphanage will find it a quick ticket to popularity, though Pelor worshipers receive the loudest praise.