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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sanglorian" data-source="post: 6006475" data-attributes="member: 83822">Two more locations in the City of Shuttered.THE STREET OF SMALL GODS  The City of Shuttered Windows has no truck with divinities that rival or oppose Alberon. However, there is room in the faith for a celebration of the god’s helpers, lovers, progeny and saints. The Temple Indivisible calls this mile-long road the Avenue of Preternatural Agents, but to most it is the Street of Small Gods.  These small gods are of varied origin and mood. Some are local deities co-opted as saints or children of Alberon. Others are foreign imports, made tolerable to the Temple by a thin veneer of orthodoxy. Many, however, are legitimate historical figures or at least inventions of the faithful.  Preachers and altars line the street. Priests offer benedictions and heretics preach under the auspices of particular preternatural agents—with the futile hope that this will shield them from the wrath of the Temple. Mystics initiate visitors into their mystery cults and soothsayers read fortunes in the entrails of night cattle.    There is also food and entertainment to be had here: plays and musical performances, roasted nuts and baked goods, and the so-called handmaidens and princes of Alberon who offer services that cleverly avoid violating the Heresies.   Hooks:   Which small gods are prominent here?  What services do the handmaidens and princes offer?  What mystery cults operate in the City?  What radical messages are preached here?   THE GIANT AND THE GNOME The improbable coupling vividly depicted on the sign hanging outside this tavern is a reference to a bawdy folk song about a Pirate King and his alleged dalliance with a flirtatious gnome pirate whose ship he captured. How the gnome turned to piracy is unknown—according to some stories she was the last to leave the ruins of the stone giants after that devout race demolished their castles and took to living under the open sky.  The tavern is a popular landmark in the City because it is taller than—and casts a shadow upon—the Temple’s Central Cathedral.      The Giant and the Gnome is inaccessible from the street. Long-term lodgers lower rope ladders from their windows to fetch friends and lovers. A few aristocrats own adjoining buildings and charge for entry to the tavern. The truly enterprising can climb the cathedral’s spire and leap from there onto the tavern’s pitted walls.  Inside, the tavern is a den of strictly regulated vices. Only drinks bought at the bar can be consumed, and no money is allowed to change hands between patrons. Even idly challenging another drinker to a friendly wager will see one expelled; selling sexual services without a licence from the bartender is punished by defenestration. Crowfolk, chattering to one another, walk along the rafters watching for thieves and brawlers.  The tavern is considered the finest place to celebrate, seal a business deal, meet a lover or arrange an adventure. The bartenders look almost identical, with dark blue skin and white hair: they claim to be the sons of the fertile and adulterous founder of the tavern, though none can find a record of any time before there was The Giant and the Gnome.  Hooks  What is the story behind the bartenders?  How do they manage to employ crowfolk?  Did the gnome and the giant ever exist?  Why did the stone giants demolish their buildings?  How does the Temple feel about the tavern’s stature?  What will happen to you if you’re caught on the Cathedral’s roof?  What sort of trouble could you get into in The Giant and the Gnome?  No worries, Daztur—I knew you'd get back to it eventually (after all, you've committed to filling every hex! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":P" title="Stick out tongue    :P"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":P" />)The adventure sounds like rollicking great fun!</blockquote>

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