1.5e Smilin’ Boar Tavern

Table of Contents

GM Note: The Smilin’ Boar Tavern is found in the Baldur’s Gate Gazetteer on DIA page 193 – however it is listed as being in the Bloomridge District of Lower City. For our purposes, the whole inn has been relocated to the Outer City area between Norchapel and Stonyeyes. It’s worth looking at the entry, as it formed the basis for the Outer City Murders… but obviously it makes no sense that in the book the Hamhock Slaughterhouse cult smuggles dead bodies into the city to dump them behind the Smilin’ Boar. As such, we have moved it!

A large tavern, surprisingly empty despite its prominent position in Norchapel. Business has suffered since the Murders in Outer City started, as the bodies are being dumped in the alleys out behind the tavern.

The owner, Jentha Allinamuch is a cheerful halfling woman, chubby and yet constantly moving and filled with energy. She has a soft spot for Mad Morgane, who she treats like a crazy old grandparent and provides her free food.

Rumours of Elturel: Jentha has heard there is some sort of civil war occurring in Elturel. Forces from Fort Tamal to the north of the city were led by a dark rider… perhaps a knight from beyond the grave.

Murders in Outer City: She is desperate for “The Sickle Man” (a supposed supernatural killer the locals blame for the murders) to be stopped as it is causing her business to suffer. She will pay 100 gp to whoever stops the killings and offers them free food at the Smilin’ Boar for life.

Jentha knows a few things about the Murders:

• The bodies started being dropped in the maze of alleys behind the tavern 7 days ago, starting with Laurens Ulin. The elf had been a resident of Norchapel for as long as anyone could remember and while they weren’t friends, she did know him and knows he was a famous Hellrider from Elturel centuries ago.
• There are never any eyewitnesses to the murders, or the bodies being dropped. The residents say the alleys are now haunted, as they hear footfalls but never see anyone.
  • GM Note: This is due to Corian being under a darkness spell as they move down the alleyways to drop the bodies. She can’t be seen yet her footsteps can be heard.
• Mad Morgane claims to have seen “The Sickle Man” but her brain is addled and Jentha does not really believe it.
• The Flaming Fist did some investigations before, but now barely do more than make sure the body is picked up by the corpse carts from Candulhallow’s Mortarium.

Smilin’ Boar Alley

The alley is wide and with many turns, nooks and blind spots.

Outer City Victims

The bodies are always dumped here by Corian Khee using a darkness spell at night, so she can put the body down out of sight.

DC 10 Wisdom (Perception) check to notice she is moving about. Corian is not being particularly stealthy and is mostly relying on the darkness spell to keep her and the body hidden.

Mad Morgane

Morgane Tal, better known as Mad Morgane, is a destitute halfling woman. She wears little better than filthy rags and mismatched oversized clothes and has a crazed look about her. One of her eyes was ruined as a young woman working on a farm outside the city when an ankheg spat acid at her.

Despite her madness, she’s actually rather pleasant. More than anything she misses talking to people and hearing about what is going on in the world.

Jentha looks after her though and often gives her a free breakfast at the Smilin’ Boar Tavern. The rest of the time Morgane wanders the Outer City districts, mostly looking for dead pheasants ran over by wagons. These she takes to the Hamhock Slaughterhouse to sell for a few coppers.

“After all, Hamhock’s takes anything… squished pheasants, dead rats, even ankheg!”

Rumours of Elturel: Mad Morgane thinks Elturel was the second city to be destroyed. She heard travellers from the east say that Scornubel, further east along the Chionthar than Elturel, was attacked by a fleet of flying ships, which erected a field of black-and-purple energy around the city. No one knows what is going on inside now.

Outer City Murders:

• Morgane knows that the Hamhock Slaughter House is the only business in the region that will take ankheg corpses to butcher.
• She claims to have seen The Sickle Man twice now, dragging people out of the refugee camps and into the alley behind the Smilin’ Boar Tavern.
• “Everyone else is mad of course, for The Sickle Man is no such thing – SHE is actually a devil woman with purple skin and a blade made out of pure darkness.”
• The devil woman kills people silently in the night and drags them away from their beds, only to dump them a few hours later in the alley.
  • GM Note: Morgane is thinking of an Assassin Devil known as a Dogai. An Intelligence (Arcana) DC 15 check would recognise her description as a Dogai, however Morgane is just wrong and insane – what she has been seeing is Corrian Khee wearing a purple hooded cloak.

Inappropriate Food

The Smilin’ Boar is famous for its “downright ribald menu of salaciously named breakfast foods”… forgive me for my sins but here are some ideas I came up with:

• Sausage in a Hole 1 sp
• Fantastic Pair of Bangers 5 cp
• Love Sausage 3 sp
• Dry Rubbed Meat 1 sp
• The Spit Roast (feeds 3) 1 gp