The Inn of Lost Arms: The road that reaches The Lost Arms is never the road travelers remember taking.
It stands on a rain-dark stretch of old trade road where kingdoms once rose and collapsed over one another like burial stones.
The inn itself is crooked and broad-shouldered, built from black pine and pale stone scavenged from ruined keeps. Iron lanterns sway from hooks even when there is no wind. Ravens sit on the roof beams and seldom leave.
Most travelers believe the name refers to soldiers who lost limbs in war. They are wrong.
The sign outside depicts a severed gauntlet clutching a broken heraldic shield. Under it, in fading script:
"All banners end here."
Inside, hundreds of coats of arms hang from walls, pillars, rafters, and above tables. Some are painted shields. Others are stitched banners, signet seals pressed into wax, carved stone crests, engraved armor plates, silver medallions, and pieces of shattered throne-room mosaics.
Every one belonged to a house that no longer exists.
No kings remain.
No heirs survive.
No titles endure.
Some families vanished naturally.
Some were slaughtered.
Some committed sins erased from history.
Some were cursed.
And some were removed.
No one knows exactly how many relics the inn holds.
The owners claim they have never counted.
Roll or choose:
- "One shield in the back room bears a crest nobody can look at directly."
- "Every winter a new coat of arms appears overnight."
- "The owner never buys old heraldry. The heraldry finds them."
- "A bard once sang the full history of House Morcant and bled from his eyes halfway through."
- "There's a sealed cellar beneath the inn where the living coats of arms are stored."
- "Drink beneath the wrong banner and something remembers you."
- "A king once ordered the inn burned. Three days later his bloodline ended."
- "People who steal relics return them eventually. Usually missing fingers."