The Sweet Dragon

Official Sweet Dragon logo by @CitricKing

*"Do we want to be the kind of establishment where crazy shit happens?" ~ Borky*

The Sweet Dragon was originally a tavern known as the Prancing Pegasus and was a known meeting spot of the Thieves' Guild before it was forced underground. After the Thieves' Guild left, ownership reverted to the City of Alivast until it was given to The Unexpectables by Abacus as a reward. It serves as their base of operations in The City of Alivast and is located in the city's Lower Crafting District. It opens up at around 9 in the morning.

The facility is not simply a tavern, but is the designated guild hall of the Unexpectables and serves as their personal residence as well as housing special facilities and employees that support their adventuring efforts. In theory, the facility could also support other adventurers contracted by the Unexpectables.

All construction and renovations have been done by Adric Metal-Mane and his crew, though Hammergnar has helped on recent expansions. It is mainly a wood and timber building with stone in some places and has a wood shingle roof. It is very well constructed and quite cozy.

## Facilities

### **Street Side**

From the street, the Sweet Dragon has a small front porch with steps leading up to it. By the steps is a doghouse usually occupied by Tarusk but occasionally claimed by Log as a temple of Oreyara.

### **Ground Floor**

The ground floor of the main building has a large common room, bar, and kitchen as well as a wing where each employee also has their own living quarters on the ground floor except Willow and Hassrad who have special accommodations.

#### **Common Room**

The common room is lit by simple chandeliers and at the west end has a small corner stage raised about a foot and a half above the rest of the floor. It is lit with four Iounge lights. The stage was built in about an hour by Adric Metal-Mane, Panic, and Hammergnar in a shirtless carpentry bonanza.

The common room also has a security feature in the form of an owlbear pelt that will animate and attack intruders when activated. It needs to be manually activated and will not respond unless commanded. This pelt was a gift from Brorc Bronze-Fang as thanks for the Unexpectables' aid in the Dullmar incident and was enchanted by Prof. Rumblefungus. The pelt has been nicknamed Waffles.

The Quest Board is also located in this area and magically populates with notices for The Unexpectables as well as other adventurers to find. The notices are magical and linked to the same magic that manages the magical contracts and are affixed to the board with pins that have the seal of the person or organization making the request.

* **Inn**

Is run by Ausphelos and two maids. Includes three rooms, one of which has a bed sized for larger customers such as goliaths and half-orcs; and step stools for gnomes and halflings.

### **Upper Floor**

Stairs lead up to a hallway with a door to Willow's Arcanium on the right and a magically locked door with a lion's head that leads to the party's private rooms to the left. Only the owners (The Unexpectables) can open this door.

#### **Party's Private Rooms:**

* **Borky's** **Room**

First door the left once past the lion-head door, Borky's room faces the street where he has a good view of Ben's smithy.

* **Panic's** **Room**

The second door on the left once past the lion-head door, Panic's room faces the street where people can throw rocks at his window to get his attention. Panic's room was the closest to the Arcanium and was greatly damaged, but has since been totally repaired.

* **Task's** **Room**

First door on the right once past the lion-head door, Task's room faces the rear courtyard, and overlooks the pseudodragon lofts.

* **Greckles'** **Room**

Second door on the right once past the lion-head door, Greckles' room faces the rear courtyard.

#### **Arcanium**

The arcanuim, consisting of a two-story tower, was built adjacent to the main building with doors connecting them. The ground floor is storage and supplies an accessible by a door next to the tavern's front entrance. The second floor is Willow's work space and small living quarters. The work space has several tables, a desk, equipment for making potions and scrolls and a huge chair custom made for Doros to sit in when he comes to visit. The tower and some of the nearby walls were destroyed when The Silver King entered the tower, triggering Willow's anti-polymorph enchantment and causing him to revert to full size indoors. The tower was recently rebuilt by Adric and his daughters. It is larger than before and has paint embellishments on the outside, presumably in the shape of arcane runes.

### **Rear Courtyard and Grounds**

The property includes a substantial amount of land where additional structures can be built. The courtyard behind the tavern is a weedy vacant lot with a boarded-over dry well, a few random pieces of broken furniture, and an increasing selection of broken barrels from job interviews. There are also some unkempt breezeways and a shed claimed by Hassrad. Zenis Oki sits on the front porch, placed there by Panic to serve as a "guardian spirit" and good luck charm.

* **Bathhouse**

At the beginning of their first winter in Alivast the party had a bathhouse constructed, much to the relief of the live-in employees who previously had to make do with only small washbasins. Considering the group's history of trekking through the sewers, this is a wise investment for both employee morale and future diplomacy checks.

The bathhouse is accessed by the rear courtyard and its entry is a small stone shed attached to Willow's arcanium. Inside, a staircase leads down to separate men's and women's changing areas next to their respective sides of a single pool separated by a large partition; men on the left and women on the right. The pool is roughly hourglass shaped, narrow in the middle where the partition divides it and rounded on each end. It is made of smooth stone, has a brass trim, and is 5 feet deep at the middle. The bath house is also equipped with beach chairs and labeled cubbies for every employee. It is not equipped with showers however, to Greckles' dismay. According to Hammergnar, the bath is heated, cleaned, and protected by a water elemental, and is of a new design by a man named Nicholas Kimber.

* **Garden**

This expansion has since been completed and become a rather lush mini forest, due to Anje's influence.

* **Pseudodragon Lofts**

Behind the Tavern are lofts for pseudodragon messengers that service the Sweet Dragon. The diminutive dragonkin carry letters and parcels to and from the tavern. The lofts are elevated off the ground and accessible by a short flight of steps. The pseudodragons have boxes where they can nest and mailboxes for incoming messages. In a brilliant marketing move, Panic suggested the party pay an additional 100 Alivastian credits so that their messengers are outfitted with collars featuring a lollipop, but the practice was discontinued when children began catching the pseudodragons with the intent of eating the candy. It is part of Meryl's duties to clean out the lofts and feed the pseudodragons, though they are actually quite proficient at finding their own food, such as when they (possibly killed) ate half of a husband.

* **Shed**

Hassrad has claimed a shed in the courtyard as his abode. One of his snakes calls it "the haven". Hassrad has a simple bed, table, and chair, and lives there with a large number of snakes of various types. The shed is not heated, so during the winter Hassrad spends a lot of time in the tavern proper. Has since been replaced with a proper two story house, so Hassrad has less need to use the tavern; but still conducts business in said tavern.

* **Fight Pit**

*"Like a lifeguard, but instead of the pool, it's fists." ~ MontyGlu*

A simple, circular hole dug into the courtyard outside the bar with short walls around the edge. With this fight pit installed, Sweet Dragon patrons are able to engage in combat legally, and with the oversight of resident cleric Log. They took on Pitch as their bookie so they can officially take bets within the pit.

* **Well**

While it used to be skeleton of a well, it was rebuilt while the Unexpectables were in the Realm of Discord. It is now a fully functioning well.

#### **"The Caves"**

Dirt tunnels and caves dug into the foundation of the building by Scarbles. These subterranean lairs are considered to be Scarbles' domain and are rarely ventured into by the owners, and never without express permission. They can be accessed via goblin-sized holes in the walls and floors of the building and contain various repossessed items like a high tech sled and a handmade puffer fish lamp. The tunnels have been plagued with giant rats because Scarbles has been trying to breed the biggest one she can. She also dug too deep and too greedily and burrowed into some place that was previously thought to be ghosts, but was in fact a *Major Image* spell, and that particular tunnel led to the Chamber of Oakenlock.

#### **Training Room**

While construction has finished, the Unexpectables have never been in this room

#### **Temple of Oreyara**

A beautiful, carved whitestone, 2-story temple to the construct goddess, Oreyara. A huge, bronze gear lays atop the entrance, with statues lining the upper parts of the temple. Inside is a standard looking church, with an aisle in the center and pews on either side. In the front of the church contains a podium for the priest to talk and present. In the back, there is a place for holy documents and books to be placed, though as of now, only Log's pamphlets are contained within.

## Potential Expansions

These expansions can be purchased by the owners with Alivastian Credits for construction by Adric and his crew. They can take the form of simple quality-of-life improvements to entire new wings built onto the property. Most require the employ of specialists to function.

* Chicken Coop
* Horse Stables [Requires Druid]
* Library [Requires either Wizard, Sorcerer, Warlock or Researcher]
* Small City Barn
* Storage Room
* Trophy Room

## Owners

* Tarrask "Task" of Oath-Iron
* Greckles Birdman
* Panic Grimtongue
* Borky the Orky

## Employees

The employees of the Sweet Dragon can improve in their class levels (if any). The rate at which they improve is affected by their mood, daily activity, and development.

* Adric Metal-Mane (general contractor, non-resident)
* Alice (server/waitress, resigned after spring of year 1)
* Anje (druid, goat and elf herder)
* Arlo (guard, sour dragon, non-resident)
* Ausphelos (head of housekeeping for the inn rooms)
* Enceladus Anclad (Researcher)
* Fluffy (Blacksmith)
* Frank (unofficial guard)
* Hassrad (information broker)
* Helga (bartender/general manager)
* Iggy (Middle Crafting District contract worker, non-resident)
* Kiwi (Server/Waiter/Messenger. Replaced Alice after the Boat Incident)
* Log (fight pit cleric)
* Luistrog (guard, ray of sunshine, deceased)
* Meryl Quiltin (maid/pseudodragon care)
* Neragen (guard, former eggsitter)
* Ol' Teapot (housekeeper for inn rooms)
* Opal (housekeeper for inn rooms)
* Pitch (bookie)
* Scarbles the Mistress (server/waitress)
* Skinny (maid/cook)
* Tai Borpington (chef)
* Uromajister (former guard, returned to Ruba)
* Vel Rock-Fist (bouncer)
* Willow (enchanter/potion brewer)
* Zotira (dragon nanny, waitress, sweet dragon, non-resident)

## Pseudodragons

       To keep in line with the bar's theme, it was decided that they would purchase pseudodragons to use as mail-carriers. The dragons previously wore collars with ornaments that resembled candy, but those were replaced with metal tags after children tried to catch them with nets to take their candy. The pseudodragons have also displayed intelligent behavior, playing cards with each other while the owners aren't looking. Meryl cares for the pseudodragons in addition to her other duties.

### Named Pseudodragons

* **Chunk**, named by Panic. Reddish and big boned.
* **Rook**, named by Task. Black and sleek.

## Trivia

* The first half of the tavern's name comes from Marcus Sweet, a city guardsman and comrade of The Unexpectables.
* Task commissioned Timber to make a sign for the Sweet Dragon. However, as the sign took so long to finish, many people had trouble finding the establishment. The sign was delivered and installed shortly before the Harvest Festival.
* Sweet Dragon branded merchandise can be purchased at https://www.designbyhumans.com/shop/TheUnexpectables/
* The "Library" upgrade option would allow the hired wizard (with a successful check and any necessary materials) to research and provide any commonly known non-secret information so the party wouldn't need to seek out NPCs at temples or experts for detailed knowledge.
* If the Sweet Dragon includes a Temple for a cleric, that same cleric can oversee the Fight Pit.
* Greckles hung the stained glass panel Solly made him in the front window.
* Greckles has lamented that the tavern's sweets theme is not accompanied by the sale of candy. Panic responded with insinuation that he intends to enter the candy business, but Task was quick to insist the name is ironic.
* The Sweet Dragon is the only bar in the lower districts that sells wine from Outreach Vineyard.
* The tavern is exceedingly popular with gnolls from the Ripjaw Pack who make up a large portion of their current clientele.
* The owners get a small cut of the profits from performances there.
* Employees get room and board as part of their employment contracts in addition to their wages.
* Other than performances, the tavern is essentially cash neutral and profits are turned back into the business.