Black Dragon Inn
This is the largest inn in Clerkburg, offering 60 rooms for rent as well as good food. The Black Dragon Inn also has one of the city’s largest common sleeping rooms, where a traveler can rent a straw pallet, together with is supper and a pitcher of ale, for 2 sp. A good private room can be had for 5 sp, and the inn offers several comparatively luxurious suites for 1 to 2 gp.
A small stable is located behind the inn, with stalls for a dozen steeds and a courtyard large enough to hold several carriages. The inn employs many young men and women, mostly students, during the full 24 hours of the day. At any one time there might be two stable hands, four cooks, three bartenders, 10 or 12 servers, four bouncers, and four housekeepers here.
After Clerkburg’s bustle of young scholars shuffling from hall to hall dies down to the comfortable din of early evening, students, young professors, political agitators, and weary menials crowd the Black Dragon Inn for rest, food, and the strongest drinks east of the Processional.
Managed by a gregarious, bearlike retired adventurer named Miklos Dare, the Black Dragon boasts an unpretentious but skillfully delivered menu for breakfast, lunch, and dinner and all night, for that matter. More than the food or accommodations, however, the Black Dragon is known for being open at all hours of the day and night, and for the eclectic clientele attracted by such forgiving hours of operation. Miklos is a retired adventurer who loves to share stories of his experiences with interested listeners. A great red-bearded bear of a man, with an eyepatch and numerous scars, Miklos is affable but assertive in maintaining his establishment.
Students from the surrounding colleges serve as bouncers, severs, bartenders, and housekeepers, and make up the bulk of the Black Dragon’s customers. Traders from the Low Market, city watchmen , former students still caught up in the allure of intellectual debate, and Baklunish inhabitants of “Little Ket” augment the youthful atmosphere. Walking from the bar to the privy off the taproom, it’s possible to hear emotional laments over the latest raids by Iuz in the north, bitter complaints about unfair business practices in the Petit Bazaar, and rampant speculation on the whereabouts of the Circle of Eight.
Miklos Dare listens to all of this talk, and has established a significant body of lore and rumours, some of which happen to be more than the simple blustering of a young pedant striking an intellectual blow against a hated fellow.
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