Town of Targos
Summary:
Like Bryn Shander, Targos is encircled by a wooden wall, which helps to protect the town against orcs and other threats from the wilderness. The wall extends out into the lake, creating a safe harbor for the town’s boats. But now Auril’s long winter has frozen the water in the harbor, and many of Targos’s boats are trapped in the ice. Fishers must drag their smaller vessels across the ice to get to the unfrozen lake beyond the harbor walls.
Almost all the towns in Icewind Dale make their living off the lakes, but nowhere is that fact more evident than in Targos. The town has always had the biggest fishing fleet and the biggest fishing industry, and everything that goes on here revolves around hauling the knucklehead trout out of Maer Dualdon. Auril’s endless winter makes the work harder, but it gets done nonetheless.
Targos previously had a reputation for being fairly friendly, but the institution of human sacrifice and its associated lottery has unsurprisingly cast a pall over the entire town. Although certainly a backwater town by Faerun standards, it is the second largest town of Ten Towns and so the level of services here is relatively high, with a correspondingly higher availability of life's basic comforts.
Places of Possible Interest:
- 3 Flags Sailing - Zanborin has stayed at this clean and comfortable tavern/inn often, and knows it as a very friendly place where fishers come after a long day for a bowl of stew, a quick pint and loads of gossip. It is run by a diminutive, gray-haired widow named Ethen Yarbroul, better known to all as “Ma". She fusses over the fishers as if they were her children and has even broken through Zanborin's aloof facade. He holds a warm place for her in his elven heart as she was a dear friend of his mother and has acted as a surrogate mother to him since his mother's death. She still takes offense when Zanborin chooses to stay at the more quiet and private Wolf's Pelt Inn next door.
- Dockworkers' Guild - Headquarters of the Dockworker's Guild, and likely the most luxurious building in Targos. Zanborin wouldn't know for sure since it is open only to Guild members, is always heavily guarded, and its members are sworn to secrecy regarding what takes place within its walls.
- Frostsail Harbor - In addition to the harbor itself, this area includes shipbuilding workshops, seafood processing areas, and seafaring warehouses filled with timber, sails, rope and other construction materials.
- Gallaway Trade Depot - Zanborin's favored supply depot, this sprawling trading warehouse (now run by the kenku Tap Tap) was run by the now missing "Old Man Gallaway", a grizzled halfling widower, and sits adjacent to Frostsail Harbor. It boasts Targos' largest supply of ordinary supplies, adventuring gear, and natural supplies, including various herbs and other ingredients. It has only an odd smattering of weapons and cheap armor.
- Graendal's Fine Dwarven Crafts - This shop is run by Greandel Granitefist, the oldest living Targosian, who hoards his words as a dragon hoards treasure. He keeps no inventory at all, creating only custom-made pieces on commission, with a legendary quality renowed well south beyond the Spine...and prices to match.
- The Luskan Arms - The Luskan Arms is quite renowned for being the oldest public house in all of Ten-Towns, established back when even Bryn Shander was still just “the camp on the hill” and Luskan was still a thriving city. The Luskan Arms was built to look like an inn that might be found in the City of Sails. As a result, much of the decor is nearly two hundred years old, and it shows. It is a ratty little place and now serves as headquarters for Speaker Naerth Maxildanaar.
- Triglio's - Triglio takes its name from one of the sea shanties that the fishers of Targos sing when they are hard at work. While Zanborin has purchased from here before, his long purchasing relationship with Old Man Gallaway usually leads him there by habit, if nothing else. Triglio’s proprietor is Jestin Hunrae, a scarecrow-like fellow who fished the lake until his left hand was crushed in a collision with a boat from Termalaine. The only items he doesn’t sell are fishing and sailing supplies; all other common gear, including crampons, snowshoes, dogs and axbeaks can be purchased here.
- The Trip & Shuffle - The Trip and Shuffle is a rowdy tavern full of adventurers and men-at-arms of all types…except seemingly any of the town militia, whose insignia are found on none of the customers here. Despite its rowdiness and rough clientele, there is a remarkable lack of violence here, probably due to the imposing presence of the proprietor, Russel Knight, and his backup duo, a huge orc and a self-assured wizard.
- Winter's Breath - This shrine to Auril, the very one upon which human sacrifices are now made, was previously Zanborin's quiet refuge when he needed a break from the hustle and bustle of Targos. The statue of an Aurilean acolyte holds a bowl that usually contains coins and other offerings to Auril. Zanborin has seen for himself that it is protected by a magical layer of ice; offerings drop through the ice and within days magically transform to tiny, multi-colored ice crystals. Would-be thieves have rarely survived attempts to steal from the offerings -- and, in any case, Targosians would likely murder any such survivor in retribution for the vicious storms which are said to immediately follow any such attempts.
- Wolf's Pelt Inn - But for his unnaturally "human" sentimentality towards Ma of the 3 Flags Sailing next door, this very small tavern and inn would be Zanborin's naturally favored place to stay due to its relative quiet, limited guest rooms and beautiful view of the harbor. Its similarly quiet human owners, Theobold and Josie Winters, purposefully cater to an elven clientele. They often serve, if not elven food per se, delicious seafood dishes liberally flavored with elven herbs and spices. The interior is always filled with a pleasant haze of elven pipe smoke, and guests are tended to by the couple's three quietly competent daughters.
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