inns & taverns - the sweet hearth

At the southernmost point of a elven forest, the Sweet Hearth is a crescent-shaped elven manse, three stories high with a well-tended orchard.  The manse is built between two carefully tended pear trees and sheltered by a giant of a lemon tree, it's trunk is woven into an ornate lattice by careful grafting.  This tree is adorned with woven canopies, decorative banners and two types of fruit - fist-sized juicy lemons and green limes. Nearby is the hearth it is named for, a compass rose of bluestone and slate nearly twenty feet across part-shielded by smoke screens of woven branches,  tended at all times by two staff who keep watch over a serving area with solid logs for seats amid the scent of cooking and pear wood smoke.  Windscreens of woven cloth keep the serving area and hearth from being disturbed and afford some privacy.

The inside is well-appointed with evenly-spaced wooden panelled tables and ornate wooden chairs.  The oil lamps burn with a unique white-gold flame and sweet scent.  Fires of pear and oak wood burn bright in their stone hearths, warming those preferring to stay inside who may listen to local minstrels, study in nooks or seek conversation at a circular table decorated with an ornate compass rose and the inscription 'Seek conversation here, ask for directions if you are uncertain.'  Nearly every night, this table has at least eight guests talking and debates have been the most violent thing at the table.  This has led to certain elflords using the Sweet Hearth for political ends though the staff will change the subject politely if conversations take a darker turn or appear to be going nowhere.

Notable fare includes pear ciders served in a cup of hollowed lemon, honey ale, metheglin (spiced mead), wines and potent herbal cordials.  The food ranges from spiced boar sausage to stuffed vine leaves, pheasant pastries and venison stew.  A speciality in winter is stewed pears in honey served with mulled wine, much beloved by visitor and regular alike.  Most travellers use the common room, it's floor strewn with sweet broom and flower petals, partitioned by opaque drapes that deaden sound and dim light.  For discerning guests and nobility, there are six private suites with goosedown beds soft enough to please the most sensitive.  These are not cheap, offering amenities and discretion equal to the cost, to the delight of discerning elfmaidens and their suitors alike.  Steeds are kept in a nearby enclosure amid the orchard and tended by a talented half-elven stablehand.

The Sweet Hearth is run by an extended family group of thirty-six elves working three shifts, morning, noon and night.  The staff are elves clad in raiment decorated in saffron crescent moons and green-grey leaves and three half-elves who work the stables.  All are attentive, capable, polite yet informal.  There are also various working pets, all have a touch of the sylvan and interact with the elves like beloved family.  There is magic in the Hearth, yet it is subtle, much comes from horticulture, craft and alchemy rather than outright spellcraft.

The usual clientele range from wealthy nobles to artisans seeking finery and off-duty soldiers wishing to relax.  Aggression to the staff is not tolerated.  Violence is frowned upon, instigators find staff capable with sword, spell and stealth with devoted guardians.  Preparations for defensive magics are concealed and used if needed though the Hearth seldom sees trouble, it is ready when the worst happens.

prese prese!

This weekend is your last chance!

...to donate through the OneBookShelf Gamers Help Haiti program.
For your donation, you receive a huge amount of stuff including 3:16, Classic Spycraft, The Desire, No Dignity In Death: The Three Brides, Pathfinder Condition Cards, Serenity RPG, The Kerberos Club, Kobold Quarterly 11 (reviewed here) and lots of counters, terrains and tokens for any system you can think of. Obsidian Portal are also offering a $100 certificate prize if you re-tweet it.

...to go to the Helping Haiti Heal page. If you're a Harry Potter fan, you probably want to go here; lots of stuff (Potter and otherwise). Even if you aren't, the chance to get signed books by Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett and movie memorabilia is available.

In the words of the Governator "Go! Now!!"

finding the path

The route between landmarks or events is constrained by both space and time.  Charting these paths means you have considered the virtues of mapping and relative position between locations without handwaving it.  The last only needs to occur when you hit a tipping point of setting complexity.  There's a reason that every fantasy trilogy you've ever read has a map - the author needed to know where stuff was - with the notable exception of Terry Pratchett. 

"There are no maps. You can't map a sense of humour."
                        -- Terry Pratchett, Discworld author.

Eventually though the Discworld succumbed to cartography. 
Typically, there are three kinds of path:

Obvious - Taken by about 80% of your setting population. Clearly marked, maybe with milestones to show progress or landmarks to give navigational reference.

• Predictability - If you take this path, you will get to your destination.
• Ease of Use - This option is the most accessible (otherwise, why use it?) to the majority.
  

Obscure - Paths your environment allow that are less obvious.  These may require some exploration or even trail blazing.  Not all hidden paths are advantageous - for example the proverbial shortcut that takes twice as long. There are two reasons to go the road less travelled. 

• Opportunities - to reduce inconvenience (avoiding a toll) or reveals benefit (an untended apple tree).  This is one of the main reasons for adventure.
  
• Options - Where the obvious path is obstructed, you have an additional option. 

Least resistance - Favoured by liquids, winged things and the lazy.  Note the path of least resistance is not always rewarding or without hazard.

• Speed - Sometimes you're in a hurry.  You may not want to meet the travelling gypsies, find treasure or kill a dragon.  You might just want to go home.
  
• Safety - When you absolutely, positively have to get there.  Self-preservation is a concern raised in a number of blogs where heroism is tinged with pragmatism.
  

Designing with these paths (and their objectives) in mind enables you to anticipate particular strategies and can help build causality into your setting.  Including limited, minor choices on a particular path preserves a sense of choice without resorting to illusionism (a phenomenon in some games where no matter what you do you end up somewhere usually undesirable or divorced from causality) or railroading.

milestones

The milestone is a marker of progress.  The use of milestones to help navigation began in Roman times with  marble or concrete monoliths erected on the Appian Way.  They did not usually provide indication of distance to and from, preferring to inform you which Emperor commissioned it.  Later milestones included distances and this information increased their utility so that milestones and signposts are still used today.

Those familiar with the five room dungeon realise each room is itself a milestone.  This may seem obvious but is helpful in mapping out what is called in the writing trade as 'beats' and story arcs.  It can help to realise you have achieved certain objectives and how far you've already travelled - what you know getting here may be useful in helping determine what actions need to be taken.

In 4th edition D&D, a milestone is reached when you complete two encounters without a rest.  Rather than get into how that works or may potentially structure your sessions, milestones can be used as a resting point (or in some games a restore point) or basecamp to continue from. An interesting point, is it possible to capture the information from a game in play as a save point and would the game benefit? Hmmm.

Milestones can also serve as an indicator of how much further you need to go.  The five room dungeon is a useful metaphor.  You could be in a museum or railroad with many more stations.  If you know what you need to achieve the final goal (and if not, why not?) milestones indicate how much further you have to go - if you're on a time-sensitive plot, you may need to speed up or slow down.

Like the Appian monoliths however, the usefulness of a milestone is enhanced by giving additional information to the audience (if not the characters).  Milestones may be metaphorical or tangible.  Themed plots may indicate what kind of things lay ahead; not all cues may be explicit or encounters in their own right, a plot arc for undead may feature a skull by a milestone or fresh roadside grave for example.

As a navigational device, milestones are useful points of reference. While they are not as widespread as they were, the quality of information for your milestone can provide a sense of continuity and is helpful in the development of longer-term campaign play.