Session 27: Last Days in Belleville
Recap
After an interesting evening at the Coconut Grove, the party headed to bed. In the morning you awake to the smell of eggs, bacon, and fresh bread. Cassidy Wren, the innkeeper, has breakfast laid out for you. You decided to visit Pip Knotwell down at the dock where he showed you a bouy carved with strange markings and making a humming sound. You encountered a disturbed Brine Stalker and some Needle Fish that you easily dispatched. You went to the library and learned a few things about Dagon, the Deep Choir, and a legend about someone called the Ledger-Keeper.
It is late afternoon as you leave the library. Tomorrow you’ll be able to pick up your items at the Canopy Forge. For now, you can go check on Sable, you could dine at the Coconut Grove Inn, or you could look for someplace else to eat. You can explore the Market Crown, or you can look for some entertainment elsewhere in Belleville.
The Coconut Grove
Beverages
Tide-Tamer Ale A pale, frothy brew distilled from fermented sugar cane and sea kelp. It tastes strongly of salted caramel and cool mint. Side Effect: Upon finishing a tankard, the drinker’s voice echo’s for the remainder of the day.
Sun-Kissed Nectar A thick, golden juice pressed from glowing star-fruit and crushed wild ginger, served in a chilled clay vessel. Side Effect: The drinker’s skin emits a gentle, warm luminescence equivalent to candle-light for the remainder of the session. Additionally, any mosquito or biting insect that flies within five feet of the drinker instantly bursts into a tiny spark of ash.
The Screaming Coconut A heavy local favorite served inside a fire-roasted coconut husk. It combines dark palm rum, spiced coconut cream, and a muddled pepper that only grows near active volcanic vents. Side Effect: The drinker must make a DC 12 CON save to avoid belching a three-foot plume of bright violet flame after every sentence spoken for the remainder of the day.
Entrees
Glitter-Scale Snapper with Ember Beans Freshly caught reef snapper marinated in citrus and crushed sea-salt, grilled whole over aromatic hardwood and served alongside slow-simmered crimson beans. The scales of the fish remain iridescent even after cooking. Side Effect: Consuming the dish grants the diner a sudden, undeniable compulsion to tell the absolute truth for the remainder of the day. During this time, their eyes glint with an unnerving, pearl-like shimmer whenever they speak.
Braised Boar in Marrow-Fruit Sauce Seared cutlets of wild island boar simmered for hours in a rich, dark sauce made from crushed marrow-fruit, native roots, and toasted spices. It is heavy, savory, and leaves a lingering warmth in the chest. Side Effect: The diner’s physical strength surges dramatically for the remainder of the session, allowing them to lift twice their normal capacity (and giving them a +2 to all STR rolls). However, their sense of spatial awareness drops, making them prone to accidentally snapping door handles or crushing light glassware.
Night-Bloom Mushroom Risotto A earthy dish prepared with wild rice, goat’s milk butter, and bioluminescent indigo mushrooms gathered only during the dark of the moon. Side Effect: The dish temporarily shifts the consumer’s vision into the infrared spectrum for the remainder of the session. While they can easily navigate total darkness and track living creatures by their heat signatures, bright sunlight or open flames become painfully dazzling.
Desserts
Whispering Mango Tart A delicate pastry filled with whipped coconut cream and topped with thin slices of ripe whispering mango. Side Effect: The fruit retains a residual echo of the jungle breezes. For an hour after eating, the diner can faintly hear the surface thoughts of the person sitting directly across from them, manifested as a soft, breeze-like whisper in their ear.
The Split Husk
The Split Husk Dockside Grill
The Split Husk occupies a wide platform at the low end of the Midwalk, close enough to the River Dock that porters, river-taxi crews, and off-duty Canopy Guild haulers make up most of its trade. It is loud, cheerful, and entirely without pretension: a long charcoal grill down one side, a dozen mismatched tables, and a counter cut from half a felled coconut palm, sanded smooth over time through use. Whatever the fishing boats bring in gets grilled, fried, or thrown in the pot before it can go off in the humidity. The name comes from the proprietor’s habit of splitting a coconut husk on the corner of the counter to settle any argument about the bill — loser buys the next round. A sign by the door reads: The Split Husk is not responsible for missing buttons, spoons, or jewelry.
| Fenna Kupp — Proprietor & Grill Cook |
| APPEARANCE: A broad, sun-browned human woman in her forties, forearms permanently pink from grill heat, hair wrapped in a faded red cloth that used to be a sail. She wears three knives at her belt and considers this a normal amount. |
| PERSONALITY: Fenna ran cargo on the river for fifteen years before her knees gave out and she traded a boat for a grill. She still talks like a boat captain — short sentences, no wasted words, occasional profanity she apologizes for exactly once per conversation. She likes people who eat quickly and talk slowly, and has no patience for the reverse. |
| SECRET: Fenna kept careful mental logs of every boat and every unfamiliar face at the River Dock for years, an old habit from her captain days. She noticed a man in the blue coat. He ordered nothing, paid for nothing, and stood exactly where he could see every gangplank at once. She has told no one but her sister — until now. |
| PLOT HOOK: Any party asking about strangers at the docks gets this, unprompted, over the grill smoke: ‘Fella in a blue coat, week or two back. Didn’t eat. Didn’t drink. Paid a boy two coppers just to point out which ships come in most recent — and the coins weren’t right. Too heavy for their size, and cold, like they’d been sitting on ice. I’ve handled a lot of coin. Never felt any like that.’ |
| Thistle Vane — River-Taxi Operator (Regular) |
| APPEARANCE: A wiry halfling woman, somewhere past sixty and daring anyone to ask exactly how far past, with a sun-bleached hat and forearms like knotted rope from a lifetime on the oars. |
| PERSONALITY: Thistle eats at the Split Husk every evening she’s in port and treats the counter like a stage. She collects river gossip the way other people collect debts — compulsively, and with interest. Half of what she says is true. She does not know or particularly care which half. |
| SECRET: Three weeks back, ferrying a load of timber upriver at dusk, Thistle saw a small figure moving fast and sure-footed through the jungle canopy, keeping pace with something large and shaggy loping along the ground below. She has decided, and now insists to anyone who’ll listen, that it was a boy raised by wolves. She is confident about the wolves. She is wrong about the boy. |
| PLOT HOOK: Thistle will happily repeat the wolf-boy story to any table that buys her a round of jungle wine, embellishing it further each time. A character who succeeds on a DC 12 Insight check notices she’s reciting a story she’s told many times before, and that certain details — small, quick, deliberately quiet — don’t fit the wolf-boy she’s built around them. She won’t budge on the wolves. She might, with patience, remember the details underneath. |
Also Known to the Regulars — Free with Any Meal
‘Everybody knows the Germonian queen’s dead. Word came through with the spice traders. Poisoned apple, they’re saying — some jealous stepmother business, glass coffin and all. Terrible thing. Nobody tells you who the stepmother was, though.’
The Slate — Whatever Came Off the Boats
| Item | Price | Notes |
| Fried plantains | 2 cp | Bottomless. Fenna forgets to charge for refills roughly half the time. |
| Skewered river prawns, chili paste | 3 cp | Chili paste is homemade and strong. |
| Whistling-kettle tea (pot) | 1 cp | Named for the kettle, not the tea. |
| Dockhand’s breakfast | 5 cp | Eggs, salt fish, fry bread. Served any hour; Fenna does not believe in breakfast having a schedule. |
| Glowcap chowder | 5 cp | Made with the lucky bioluminescent fungus off the platform edges. Lips and tongue glow faint green for two to three hours afterward — charming at a table, less charming for anyone trying not to be seen after dark. |
| Grilled eel, numbing-pepper glaze | 6 cp | The pepper numbs the mouth thoroughly enough that speech comes out several octaves lower and considerably louder for about ten minutes. |
| Bernard’s Own berry crumble | 4 cp | Recipe acquired, by means Fenna won’t specify, from something living in the jungle. Diners report a powerful urge to pocket small shiny objects for about an hour afterward. |
| The Whole Catch (fisherman’s platter) | 8 cp | Whatever the boats brought in, all of it, on one plate. Ask before ordering if you’re squeamish about eyes. |
| House palm wine (cup) | 3 cp | Fenna’s own. Stronger than it tastes, which is the whole business model. |
| Coconut water, fresh | 1 cp | Cracked to order. Non-alcoholic, mostly by accident. |
The Gilt Bough
The Gilt Bough — Heights Dining (Formal)
The Gilt Bough occupies a single, exquisitely engineered platform in the crown of a banyan just below the temple, close enough to the Heights’ green-roped walkways that the maître d’ can hear, and disapprove of, anyone arriving out of breath. The dining room is small — eleven tables — lit by hooded lanterns and the actual, unfiltered sky, a rarity anywhere else in Belleville. Its reputation rests less on the food, which is very good, than on who else is eating it: merchant princes off the trade ships, visiting guild masters, the occasional foreign dignitary working very hard to look like they aren’t checking who else is in the room. It is, without officially being one, the closest thing Belleville has to a place where business gets done over dessert.
| Iolanthe Sorrel — Maître d’ & Proprietor |
| APPEARANCE: An elegant, silver-haired elven woman of indeterminate late-middle age, dressed with the kind of restraint that costs more than ostentation. She carries a single slim ledger everywhere and consults it the way other people check a weapon is still at their hip. |
| PERSONALITY: Iolanthe is unfailingly gracious and misses absolutely nothing. She remembers every guest’s preferred table, every standing feud between two families that must therefore never be seated within earshot of each other, and every scrap of gossip traded over her wine list. She never repeats anything loudly, and never for free. |
| SECRET: Three weeks ago Iolanthe received a courteously worded letter, ostensibly from a Germonian trade delegation, asking whether a young woman of a particular description had dined at the Gilt Bough or been mentioned by any of her clientele. It was flawlessly polite. It was also, she is quietly certain, not from anyone who has ever actually run a trade delegation — the questions were about a person, not cargo. She filed it, and has said nothing to Mayor Highbrow, mostly because she isn’t yet sure who deserves to know first. |
| PLOT HOOK: A party that earns her trust — an excellent tip, a genuinely interesting story, or proof they already know something about ‘the letter business’ — gets shown the inquiry itself. (DM Note: this is a second copy of the same Deep Choir feeler that reached Mayor Barnaby, phrased almost identically. Two independent sightings should make the players suspicious of the pattern well before they meet the Resonant agent directly.) |
| Master Petrus Wain — Frequent Patron, Cloth Merchant |
| APPEARANCE: A stout, prosperous human man in his fifties, dressed in mainland fashion two seasons out of date and unaware of it. Rings on four fingers, opinions on everything, a standing table every third evening. |
| PERSONALITY: Petrus made his fortune in Germonian silk before the river trade soured, and he has not stopped talking about Germonia since. He is pompous, generous with wine, and genuinely well-connected — his gossip is usually two-thirds accurate, which in a city this far from the mainland makes him practically an oracle. |
| SECRET: None, really — Petrus’s only secret is that his business is doing worse than his rings suggest, and he is dining at the Gilt Bough partly to be seen dining at the Gilt Bough. |
| PLOT HOOK: Get him talking about home — a good bottle does it — and he’ll hold forth, unprompted and at volume: ‘Queen’s dead, you know. Germonia. Wasn’t natural, whatever the criers say — I’ve a cousin in the customs house, and he says the palace has been shut up tight as a drum since it happened. No state funeral announced. No mourning declared. That’s not how you bury a queen who died of a fever, my friends. And the throne just — sitting there. They’ve got some dwarf running things in the interim, if you can credit it. King Henry’s gone quiet as the grave himself. Something’s rotten in that palace, mark me.’ (DM Note: this is closer to the truth than the folk-tale version circulating at the docks, but Petrus doesn’t know about Sable, Dagon, or the pendant — treat him as a source of atmosphere and confirmation that something is genuinely wrong, not a source of hard answers.) |
The Heights Table — Prix Fixe & À la Carte
| Item | Price | Notes |
| Chapel pearl consommé | 22 gp | A rare mussel harvested near the sunken ruin the fisherfolk call the Chapel, off the outer reef. Silken, faintly briny. |
| Seared sunfish, saffron reduction | The saffron is imported and genuinely excellent. For ten or fifteen minutes after the last bite, the dining room — and occasionally one’s dining companions — takes on a faint, flattering gold tint. No lasting effect, though several proposals have been made under its influence. | |
| Canopy squab en croûte | Belleville’s answer to mainland game birds. Iolanthe will not disclose the source; the source is a very good relationship with a Wild Thing named Bernard, who is paid in buttons and has no idea what happens to the birds afterward. | |
| Moonflower sorbet | Palate cleanser between courses. The petals are harvested only under a full moon and have a mild, pleasant loosening effect on the tongue — diners report a brief compulsion to answer questions with unusual honesty. Popular with hosts who have something to find out. | |
| Mainland vintage (bottle) | Selection changes monthly. Ask Iolanthe; do not ask for her opinion unless you want it. | |
| Sparkling coral-fruit water | The ‘non-alcoholic’ option, ordered almost exclusively by people trying to remember everything said at the table next to them. | |
| Private alcove (per evening) | 8 gp | Screened by hanging moonflower vine for both privacy and, Iolanthe notes dryly, ‘ambiance.’ She will not discuss what she overhears from the main room while serving it. |
Cassidy and the Letter
As you discuss your plans, you may notice that Cassidy is hovering around you, offering coffee and tea, refilling plates, and listening to your conversation. If approached, he retrieves a flat, sealed envelope from behind the bar.
Found this slipped under the door this morning. It’s not for me, obviously. Thought it might be for one of you…
It is made of paper that has no weight — it sits in the hand as if it might float away. It cannot be bent, torn, or burned. The seal is wax but has no crest — instead it shows the impression of an open hand, palm up. The handwriting on the front reads, in a precise, antiquarian script:
‘For Presentation to the Bloodline of Germonia, in the Matter of Outstanding Debt, Instrument No. 7,441. — The Ledger.’
DM NOTE
The envelope is addressed to Sable’s bloodline, not to Sable by name.
If players attempt to open it: the wax seal resists any attempt (magical or mundane) until it is in the hands of someone from the Germonian bloodline.
Award players a DC 12 History check here. On a success:
DC 20: The phrase ‘The Ledger’ is a name, not a description. There are references in very old trade law texts to an entity called The Ledger-Keeper, a figure said to have existed since the first bargains were struck in Once. Most scholars consider it a myth.
DC 12: The open-hand seal is an old notarial mark — used in ancient contract law to indicate a debt that transfers between parties rather than being held by one creditor.
DC 16: The number 7,441 suggests a catalogue. Someone has filed this under an organized system. This is not a single debt — it is part of a collection.
Check on Sable
The players return to the jungle to find Sable. She is where they left her — or nearby. The Wild Things know the party now and do not threaten them, but they watch. Sable is sitting with the largest of them, a creature the size of a draft horse with horns and golden eyes, who she has named Maurice. She is braiding something into his fur.
What Sable needs (and what she won’t ask for)
- She knows the deal with Dagon didn’t fix anything. She says this first, preemptively, before anyone can tell her: ‘I know he’s not done. I’m not stupid. I thought — I thought if I gave him something he’d take it and stop. That’s not how it works, is it.’ She has already figured this out. She doesn’t need the players to explain it.
- She killed her mother. She does not regret it in the way people expect — she regrets that it was necessary, not that it happened. ‘She was going to give me to him. She sat there and told me it would be a honor. For Grimm. For the family line.’ A pause. ‘She wasn’t wrong about what Dagon wanted. She was just wrong that it was fine.’
- She doesn’t know what to do next. This is the real vulnerability. She has been surviving, not planning. She stayed with the Wild Things because they don’t want anything from her. She hasn’t thought past tomorrow.
- She has something. She produces it reluctantly: a folded piece of the same weightless paper as the envelope Cassidy found, sealed with the same open-hand mark. She found it pressed into the bark of a tree three days ago. It has her name on it. She hasn’t opened it because she doesn’t want to know what it says.
Opening the Letters
Back at the Coconut Grove Inn. Cassidy has given them the private room — no charge, no questions. The party and Sable have a moment of relative safety. This is where both envelopes — Cassidy’s find and the one Sable has been carrying — get opened.
The envelope Cassidy found opens when any Germonian bloodline heir touches it — meaning Sable. Sable’s own envelope opens the moment she picks it up. The wax doesn’t break; it simply releases, as if it was always open and only the expectation of a seal kept it shut.
INSTRUMENT NO. 7,441 — THE HOUSE OF GERMONIA Be it recorded that the following obligation, originally contracted between Dagon, Prince of the Darkened Deep, and a named heir of the Germonian bloodline, has been purchased, consolidated, and transferred in full to the holder of the present instrument. The debt remains outstanding. The terms remain unchanged. One daughter of the Germonian bloodline, freely given, in exchange for dominion over the fractured kingdom of Grimm. Notice is hereby served that this instrument is now held by The Ledger. Collection will proceed at The Ledger’s discretion. The debtor is advised that all prior arrangements with the original creditor are superseded. This debt is no longer Dagon’s to collect. Presented in good faith and perfect record. — The Ledger
PERSONAL NOTICE — SABLE OF GERMONIA You did not make a contract. You made an offering. There is a difference. What you gave Dagon was a gift, not a payment. Gifts do not close debts. The debt of your bloodline predates you, and it predates your mother. It is not your fault. It is also not resolved. I am not your enemy. I am also not your friend. I am the record. If you wish to know more about the nature of this debt and whether it can be voided, you should ask the people you are traveling with to take you to Neverland’s Pirate Council. One of its members has tried to void a debt before. — The Ledger
Pirate Council
Barnaby’s letter of introduction to the Pirate Council of Neverland is the mechanical hook into the next session. He gives it freely in exchange for the party’s help with the river problem. His exact words:
‘Pirate Council meets at Pegport once a month. They’re not — look, they’re pirates, so manage your expectations. But if the merfolk are causing problems in these waters, they’re causing problems for every ship in the area, and the Council cares about ships.’ Also — and I cannot stress this enough — do not tell them I sent you first thing. Buy them a drink first. Then mention me. Captain Hook especially. He’s been in a mood for about forty years.’
Shopping
The Hanging Garden
- NPC: Xochi, a gentle Firbolg with colorful orchids woven into their mossy hair. Xochi speaks softly and is always misting the plants.
| Item | Price | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Glow-Moss Basket | 5 sp | A woven hanging basket filled with bioluminescent moss. Emits a soft, greenish light in a 10-foot radius. Must be misted daily. |
| Pitcher-Catcher Plant | 2 gp | A small, potted carnivorous plant that actively snaps at and catches annoying jungle insects like mosquitoes. |
| Sap of the Ironwood | 5 gp | A small vial of thick, amber resin. When smeared on a wooden object, it grants it the durability of iron for 1 hour. |
2. Vine & Line Outfitters
- NPC: Brissa “Three-Toes” Thorpe, a weathered Halfling rogue who retired from swinging through the trees after a nasty fall. She smells like hemp and sap.
| Item | Price | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Canopy Harness | 3 gp | A sturdy leather and rope harness designed to keep climbers secured to safety lines while navigating the high branches. |
| Silk-Vine Rope (50 ft) | 10 gp | Lighter and stronger than standard hempen rope, woven from rare jungle vines. Grants advantage on checks to tie secure knots. |
| Spiked Tree-Grips | 2 gp | Strap-on iron spikes for boots and gloves. Adds a +1 bonus to Athletics checks made to climb living trees. |
3. The Feathered Nest
- NPC: Krr’k, a flamboyant Kenku who mimics the sounds of exotic birds to get customers’ attention. He wears a cloak made entirely of discarded parrot feathers.
| Item | Price | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Exotic Plumage | 1 sp – 5 gp | A wide variety of brightly colored feathers used for fashion, quills, or fletching arrows. |
| Macaw Messenger Whistle | 8 sp | A clay whistle that perfectly mimics the call of a local macaw, used by locals to signal across the canopy. |
| Hat of the Canopy Cockatoo | 15 gp | Magical. A flamboyant, feathered tricorn hat. Once per day, the wearer can cast Feather Fall on themselves, but they must loudly squawk like a terrified bird during the entire descent. |
4. Canopy Crunchies
- NPC: Bram, a hyperactive Goblin chef who manipulates heavy woks over a suspended, well-insulated charcoal brazier.
| Item | Price | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Dried Banana Chips | 2 cp | A small pouch of sun-dried, honey-glazed banana slices. High energy trail food. |
| Roasted Grubs on a Stick | 5 cp | A skewered trio of plump palm grubs, seasoned with spicy jungle peppers. Surprisingly nutty and crunchy. |
| Suicide-Pepper Jerky | 5 sp | Strips of dried boar meat cured with the hottest peppers in the canopy. Requires a DC 12 Constitution save to eat without crying and losing your voice for 10 minutes. |
5. The Thirsty Toucan
- NPC: Malia, a cheerful Half-Elf barkeep who operates a stall built into a massive, hollowed-out gourd suspended between two branches.
| Item | Price | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Fermented Coconut Milk | 4 cp | A refreshing, mildly alcoholic beverage served in its original shell. |
| Monkey-Fruit Nectar | 1 sp | A thick, sweet, neon-pink juice that provides a massive sugar rush. |
| The Tree-Toppler Ale | 5 sp | A heavy, dark brew made from fermented roots. Tastes like dirt and molasses, but hits like a falling log. |
6. Sunder & Sap Weaponry
- NPC: Korag, an unusually calm Half-Orc smith who uses a unique, low-heat forge fueled by volcanic coals brought up from the island’s floor.
| Item | Price | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Obsidian Dagger | 3 gp | A beautifully knapped blade of volcanic glass. Incredibly sharp, but if you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll, the blade shatters. |
| Blowgun & Dart Quiver | 6 gp | A polished bamboo blowgun accompanied by a quiver of 20 wooden darts. |
| Chameleon Leather Armor | 120 gp | Magical. Soft leather armor treated with the oils of a giant chameleon. It changes color to match the surrounding jungle foliage, granting a +1 bonus to Stealth checks made in the canopy. |
7. The Curiosity Cocoon
- NPC: Madame Zola, a mysterious Tiefling with wide, unblinking eyes who claims to read futures in the patterns of moth wings.
| Item | Price | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Perfectly Round River Rock | 1 sp | A completely smooth, gray stone. Madame Zola insists it possesses “immense grounding energy,” but it is just a very nice rock. |
| Monkey-Paw Backscratcher | 2 gp | A dried, taxidermied monkey paw attached to a bamboo stick. Cursed. It provides an incredibly satisfying scratch, but every time you use it, a minor, highly inconvenient itch develops somewhere else on your body 10 minutes later. |
| Vial of Jungle Mist | 50 gp | Magical. A sealed glass jar containing swirling grey fog. When broken, it replicates the effects of the Fog Cloud spell centered on the broken jar for 1 minute. |
8. Bark & Bite Apothecary
- NPC: Dr. Thaddeus Finch, a human wearing a plague doctor mask filled with dried mint leaves to ward off “jungle miasma.” He is highly paranoid about tropical diseases.
| Item | Price | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Antidote Salve | 5 gp | A bitter, green paste made from boiled roots. Applying it grants advantage on saving throws against jungle poisons for 1 hour. |
| Leech-in-a-Jar | 1 sp | A plump, medicinal leech. Good for extracting venom, bloodletting, or just keeping as a very low-maintenance pet. |
| Mosquito-B-Gone Incense | 3 sp | A stick of pungent, smoky incense. Keeps mundane insects away from a 10-foot radius for 2 hours. Tastes terrible if it gets in your mouth. |
9. The Weaver’s Web
- NPC: Arak, a quiet, multi-limbed Thri-Kreen (or an enterprising Elf using a loom) who works with silk harvested from giant canopy spiders.
| Item | Price | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Spider-Silk Hammock | 4 gp | An incredibly lightweight, compact hammock that can be folded into a pocket. Dries instantly and can hold up to 500 pounds. |
| Gossamer Veil | 1 gp | A delicate, breathable face covering that filters out heavy pollen, spore clouds, and dust. |
| Glider Cloak | 75 gp | Magical. A cloak woven from fine silk and rigid bamboo ribs. If you fall from the canopy, you can use your reaction to deploy the cloak, allowing you to glide horizontally 2 feet for every 1 foot you fall. It does not stop vertical damage if you hit a wall. |
10. Tik-Tok’s Trinkets
- NPC: Tik-Tok, a rusted, malfunctioning Warforged who was abandoned in the jungle decades ago. He thinks he is a biological native and speaks of the trees as his “ancestors.”
| Item | Price | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Petrified Wood Carving | 5 sp | A small, heavy figurine of a canopy beast carved from wood that turned to stone eons ago. |
| The “Infinite” Matchbox | 1 gp | A small brass box containing a single match. Humorous. The match never burns out, but it can only be lit by striking it against another already-lit match. |
| Compass of the Lost | 10 gp | A brass compass where the needle spins wildly in circles whenever you are actively lost, and points directly to the nearest tavern when you aren’t. |
The Nine Shells
The Nine Shells — Game House
Somewhere between a tavern and a temple to bad decisions. The shells are rigged only some of the time, which the house considers scrupulously honest.
The Nine Shells occupies a low, shadowed platform just off the Midwalk, deliberately harder to find than the Coconut Grove Inn and proud of it. Inside: beaded curtains, cushioned booths, the click of shell against table and the slap of cards, and a permanent haze of pipe smoke that the proprietor insists is ‘atmosphere.’ A long, polished counter runs the length of the main room for the house’s signature shell game; side tables host cards and a nautical strategy board called Reef & Ruin, which has ended more friendships in Belleville than any actual war. A curtained doorway at the back leads to a room most patrons pretend they haven’t noticed.
Activities
• Nine Shells — the house game. Quick, cheap, and rigged just often enough to keep things interesting.
• Reef & Ruin — a two-player strategy board game of trade routes and sea monsters, played seriously by a small, fierce community of regulars.
• Blind Captain — a bluffing card game; small stakes, big reputations.
• The fortune-telling booth — run by a rotating cast of ‘seers,’ mostly charlatans, occasionally not.
• The Back Room — invite-only, high-stakes, and the only part of the Nine Shells Odalys Quill takes personally seriously.
Game Mechanics — Playing the House
Nine Shells: the player wagers, then picks one of three shells the dealer has shuffled across the counter. Resolve with a hidden d3 — a correct guess pays 2:1. A player actively trying to track the shell (rather than guessing cold) may make a Wisdom (Perception) check contested by the dealer’s Dexterity (Sleight of Hand +6); success grants advantage on the guess, and beating the dealer’s roll by 5 or more lets the player call out a cold read on exactly how the trick works, which the dealer will not appreciate.
Reef & Ruin: resolve a match as a best-two-of-three contest of Intelligence (Investigation) checks (reading the board) or, for a table that wants to actually play it out, hand the players a real board game and let them go. Winning a match against a named regular is a small but real reputation gain — Odalys keeps a mental ledger of who’s beaten whom, and it opens doors.
Blind Captain: each player is secretly dealt a hand including one ‘Captain’ card; players bet on who’s holding it. Resolve as a Charisma (Deception) vs. passive Wisdom (Insight) contest for anyone bluffing or reading bluffs. A good vehicle for a party that wants to pump an NPC for information without looking like that’s what they’re doing — several regulars talk more than they mean to when they’re trying not to give away a hand.
| Odalys Quill — Proprietor |
| APPEARANCE: A sharp-featured elven woman, ageless in the way elves manage to be inconvenient about, dressed in dark, well-cut clothes with no jewelry except a single ring she turns constantly when thinking. |
| PERSONALITY: Odalys is precise, unhurried, and impossible to read — which is, professionally, the point. She treats every conversation as a negotiation already underway, and she is very good at making people forget that. Unlike Cassidy Wren at the Coconut Grove, she trades information for coin, not honesty. |
| SECRET: A regular who lost badly and welched on his debt three weeks ago came back the following night babbling about ‘voices under the water, counting.’ He hasn’t been seen since. Odalys wrote it off as a man who’d had too much jungle wine — until a second, unrelated patron mentioned the same phrase, unprompted, days later. |
| PLOT HOOK: Coin loosens Odalys considerably faster than honesty does. For the right price, she’ll describe both incidents in detail, including a rough description of the first man — last seen heading toward the River Dock at night. (DM Note: this is a soft, deniable thread toward the Deep Choir’s presence and the counting sound in the water; it does not require the party to have encountered either yet.) |
| Yeva Rooke — Back Room Regular |
| APPEARANCE: A composed, precisely dressed human woman in her thirties, mainland posture in a jungle city, with the kind of stillness that suggests she spent years learning not to react to things. |
| PERSONALITY: Yeva is courteous, controlled, and an excellent Reef & Ruin player — good enough that regulars quietly avoid her table unless they’re trying to prove something. She deflects personal questions smoothly and has clearly had a great deal of practice doing it. |
| SECRET: Yeva served in the Germonian court as a minor lady-in-waiting until shortly before Queen Snow White’s death, when she left the mainland abruptly and has not gone back. She does not discuss why. She does not know how the Queen died — only that the court’s last months were thick with a fear she couldn’t name, and that she left before she had to find out what it was. |
| PLOT HOOK: A party that earns real trust — repeated visits, a favor done quietly, or simply losing to her graciously enough times — gets a version of the truth she doesn’t share for coin: in Snow White’s final months, the Queen stopped sleeping, started meeting with people Yeva was never introduced to, and once, closing a door she thought was empty, Yeva heard her say something that was not a prayer, in a language that was not any she recognized. (DM Note: Yeva does not know about Dagon, Sable, or the pendant specifically — she is a source of atmosphere and confirmation that something was deeply wrong at court, not a source of hard answers. Keep her account emotional and fragmentary rather than expository.) |
Stakes & Admission
| Item | Price | Notes |
| Nine Shells (per round) | 1 sp minimum wager | House pays 2:1 on a correct guess. |
| Reef & Ruin (open table) | 5 sp buy-in | Winner takes the pot; house takes a cut. |
| Reef & Ruin seasonal tournament | 2 gp entry | Held during festival season; the winner’s name goes on a plaque nobody can read anymore. |
| Blind Captain (per hand) | 3 cp–1 sp typical | Informal, sociable, dangerously easy to lose track of. |
| Fortune-telling (one question) | 5 sp | Results vary. Odalys makes no promises and several refunds. |
| The Back Room (buy-in) | 10 gp and up | Invitation required. Ask Odalys. She will decide if you’re serious. |
The Long Vine
The Long Vine — Canopy Racing Course
Somewhere between a sport and a religion, and Belleville has never much cared to specify which. Ask any local for directions and they’ll just point up.
The Long Vine is a looping racecourse strung between six of the largest banyans on the upper Midwalk, marked out in the same red-blue-green rope code as the rest of the city’s walkways, plus a fourth color — a garish orange — reserved for the course alone. It uses rope bridges, swaying cargo nets, timber platforms, and, on the Championship Circuit, the same two zip lines mentioned in every visitor’s guide to Belleville as being ‘installed by someone who clearly had confidence to spare.’ Races run at dawn and dusk, when the light is good and the heat isn’t. A bell system at each checkpoint, rung on the same pattern as the Canopy Guild’s coded whistles, tracks every runner’s progress for the crowd below.
Activities
• The Green Line (Novice Loop) — four legs, safe, open to anyone who can climb a ladder. Popular with visiting adventurers who want to show off without dying.
• The Red Line (Championship Circuit) — six legs, including both zip lines. This is what people mean when they say ‘the Vine.’
• The Night Run — the Red Line at dusk, lit only by bioluminescent fungus markers strung along the ropes. Beautiful. Also considerably more dangerous.
• ‘Beat the Bell’ — a solo time trial against the current course record, run any hour the course is open.
• Spectator wagering — a standing crowd, a betting board, and Squall Windle, who will take almost any bet almost anyone offers.
Game Mechanics — Running the Vine
A race is broken into a series of Legs. Before each leg, the racer chooses an approach — Speed, Balance, or Nerve — corresponding to a Strength (Athletics), Dexterity (Acrobatics), or Dexterity saving throw, made against that leg’s DC. Track successes; whoever has the most successes at the finish wins, with ties broken by fewest complications (below). For a quick abstraction, treat each leg as a single check rather than tracking distance or turns.
| Leg Type | Check | Green Line DC | Red Line DC |
| Rope bridge sprint | Athletics | 10 | 15 |
| Swaying net crossing | Acrobatics | 10 | 15 |
| Zip-line drop | Dex save | — | 16 |
| Platform leap | Athletics or Acrobatics (racer’s choice) | 10 | 15 |
Night Run: apply all Red Line DCs, and impose disadvantage on any check made without darkvision or a light source (most racers carry a small jar of glowcap fungus for exactly this reason, available from Squall for 2 sp).
Complications: on a failed check, roll a d6. The Vine has been maintained for three hundred years and its safety nets have caught far worse than a party of adventurers — a fall costs time and dignity, not blood.
| d6 | Complication |
| 1 | You fall into the net below the platform. You’re unhurt, but climbing back up costs your next leg — you sit it out. |
| 2 | A startled hornbill flock scatters directly into your path. Disadvantage on your next check. |
| 3 | The rope you’re on tangles with another racer’s. Both of you re-roll this leg’s check, taking the lower result. |
| 4 | You catch a lucky handhold on the way down. No further penalty, but the crowd definitely saw that. |
| 5 | Your gear rental strap slips. You lose any bonus from rented equipment for the rest of the race. |
| 6 | Nothing but a bruised ego. Continue as normal. |
Betting: wagers are placed with Squall before the race and paid out immediately after. Odds are set by reputation, not by any careful mathematics.
| Racer Standing | Odds | Typical Stake |
| Longshot (unknown or new) | 5 to 1 | 1 sp–1 gp |
| Even Odds (solid local) | 1 to 1 | 2 sp–2 gp |
| Favorite (a name people know) | 1 to 3 | 5 sp–5 gp |
The Records Board hangs at the finish platform, chalked and re-chalked. Current entries include Bram Tallow’s Red Line time (unbeaten two years running) and, underneath it, the Night Run record — held, the board simply notes, by ‘A girl. No one caught her name.’ (DM Note: this is a light, optional thread — a night, some months back, when someone extremely fast and extremely quiet ran the course once, beat every existing time, and vanished before Squall could get a name for the board. Useful as a breadcrumb toward Sable if your party is investigating the girl in the jungle; otherwise it’s just a good piece of local color.)
| Squall Windle — Race Caller & Bookie |
| APPEARANCE: A small, wiry halfling man with an enormous voice for his size and a coat covered in more pockets than Delphine’s apron, each one holding a different denomination of coin. |
| PERSONALITY: Squall calls every race like it’s the most important sporting event in the history of Neverland, regardless of who’s actually running. He’s fast with numbers, faster with a crowd, and genuinely loves the sport — the betting book is how he affords to keep running it, not the point of it. |
| SECRET: Squall shades the odds a few percent in his own favor on every race, quietly and consistently. It isn’t quite cheating — the house always takes a cut somewhere — but he’d rather the Guild not audit his book too closely. |
| PLOT HOOK: A well-dressed stranger paid Squall, very generously, to describe in detail whoever currently holds the Night Run record — and looked visibly displeased to learn nobody knows her name. Squall thought it was odd enough to remember, and will mention it to a party that buys a round of drinks or wins a race convincingly. (DM Note: this pairs naturally with the Deep Choir’s inquiries elsewhere in the city — use it to reinforce the pattern rather than as a standalone reveal.) |
| Bram Tallow — Reigning Red Line Champion |
| APPEARANCE: A rangy, sun-browned human teenager, all elbows and confidence, permanently barefoot on the theory that boots slow him down (they do, slightly; he doesn’t care). |
| PERSONALITY: Bram is cocky in the specific, forgivable way of someone who has genuinely earned it, and generous with advice to anyone who asks nicely. He treats the Vine as the most important thing in his life, which is both true and a little sad. |
| SECRET: Months ago, running the course alone before dawn to practice, Bram was beaten — badly — by someone he’d never seen before and has never seen since. Small, fast, gone before he could catch his breath, let alone her name. He hasn’t told anyone. He’s a little bit obsessed with finding her again, purely as a matter of sporting pride. |
| PLOT HOOK: A party that earns Bram’s respect — beating his time, or just listening well — gets the story of the dawn race, told sheepishly. He remembers she moved like she’d grown up doing it, and that something large and shaggy was waiting for her at the tree line when she finished. He assumed it was a dog. (DM Note: this is the same figure as the Records Board rumor above and, if you’re running the Sable arc, the same figure Thistle Vane half-remembers as a ‘wolf-boy’ at the Split Husk. Use as many or as few of these breadcrumbs as your table needs.) |
Course Fees & Rentals
| Item | Price | Notes |
| Green Line entry (single run) | 2 sp | Includes a safety harness. |
| Red Line entry (single run) | 5 sp | Waiver required. Squall reads it aloud, quickly, every time. |
| Night Run entry | 8 sp | Includes a jar of glowcap fungus for visibility. |
| ‘Beat the Bell’ time trial | 3 sp | Beat the current record and win the pot, currently 4 gp and climbing. |
| Private course hire (per hour) | 3 gp | No public racers, no wagering board, still no refunds if you fall. |
| Harness & gloves rental | 1 sp | Recommended. Squall will say it’s required. It technically isn’t. |
| Spectator admission | Free | The betting is where the Vine actually makes its money. |
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