Roadside
Dangerous
Squalid prices
Last Coin Toll
the roadside post where the price is whatever they say
The Last Coin Toll squats where the road narrows between a ruined milepost and a copse of black pines. Lanterns gutter in oil-smeared glass; the light is low and chews shadows into the corners. On entering you first smell smoke and salted meat, then wet leather and the sour tang of old blood. Boards creak under boots, and the chatter is quick, clipped — punctuated by the clink of coins counted into closed fists. The crowd is a tense mix of tattered uniforms, road-worn traders, and travelers who look too tired to argue. A rough-hewn bar takes up most of the single room, backed by a row of bolted chests and a pegboard of mismatched weapons. A map, half-burned at its edges, is tacked near the hearth; a chalkboard on the wall lists 'tolls' instead of prices, scrawled and overwritten in several hands. Every table has a man keeping watch; laughter stops as newcomers are measured for how easy they are to bend. If you pay without protest, you'll get a cot on the floor and a slice of stew. If you haggle, you might get work — or a knife in your ribs.
A square iron token nailed to a splintered plank, stamped with a crescent and a single dot; rusted, offset, and hanging by a leather thong. No words, only a fresh notch cut into the wood beneath it whenever a 'new price' is declared.
Morrik Brand
human
Manner
Quirk
Stats
Tollkeeper's Bitter
2 spA thick, soot-dark shot of juniper and bitter root that numbs the tongue and steels the jaw for bargaining; drinkers get +1 to Intimidation checks for the next 10 minutes but suffer disadvantage on Perception checks as the acrid aftertaste clogs the sinuses.
Squalid (5e lifestyle: about 1 sp a day)
Gretk · cook
A one-eyed ex-sapper who seasons stew with scrap metal stories and occasionally drops a rusty nail into a pot as seasoning 'for strength.'
Hira · bouncer
A broad-shouldered deserter who sizes faces like coins and has a soft look for anyone carrying a child's token.
Old Brenn
A lean former lieutenant who washes armor every night and wants his name quietly wiped from the muster roll before the sergeant finds him.
Selvan Mark
A nervous wagoner who pays the Toll to 'guarantee safe passage' and keeps asking whether the back road is clear for a secret cargo.
Kessa Two-Brands
A scar-faced highwaywoman who trades rumors for a free bed and is hunting the trunk of payroll she claims was taken from her company.
1
Kessa Two-Brands says the payroll trunk taken from the old regimental wagons is buried beneath the ruined milepost two miles east — it still smells of coin to anyone with a shovel.
2
A merchant named Selvan Mark is smuggling a sealed crate labeled for 'Her Majesty's Quartermaster' down the back road; Morrik's chalkboard lists a 'special toll' for anyone who knows that crate's route.
3
Old Brenn whispers that a corporal called Jarin Wess holds the muster roll that names deserters and the map to the sergeant's stash; Brenn wants it destroyed before the sergeant follows the trail to the Toll.
Made with the free LoreKeeper Tavern Generator · Free to use at your table · Licence
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