Fantasy Taverns Never Existed. But What if They Did?
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- čas přidán 28. 04. 2024
- So, the classic tavern from Fantasy Media is a romanticized notion based on coaching inns from after the medieval period. Does this mean we should stop using it? No. Here's how the Classic Fantasy tavern can be adopted into your worldbuilding, while making your world far more interesting along the way.
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A group of fully armed travelling warrior merchants walks into a bar, a restaurant, a hotel, a stable, a bathhouse and a fortress at the same time...
Also a brewery and a farm
They're bandits, probably.
And who doesn't love a good courtyard, maybe lined with some wide porches and balconies.
and a SHRUBBERY!
Exists in feudal Japan
Wow I hadn't even considered that. A bunch of fortified inns in the wilderness serving as pseudo-castles is such an awesome idea
Idk if you ever play baulders gate 1 but there is an important inn you go to early on. It literally is a walled small castle.
Thiers real world looks at this idea in the us west. Fur trade posts/forts. Same basic consept. In a points of light campaign, you would need them more or less as nighyly stop overs on the road for anyone in the wilderness between civilizations. And that is a grate place for adventures to ply thier trade.
@@Josh-ye9ol I think the old west had an influence on the fantasy tavern.
The "classic" saloon with room and food WAS a thing for small towns all over the west.
There just wasn't enough business to support the three individually, but enough to make it worthwhile if you had a more reliable sideline. The three just *fit* in that time & place
Nothing "pseudo-" about it, really. Most castles were almost certainly just fortified towers--usually wood, maybe with a stone bottom floor wall.
Just reimagine the innkeeper as a squire (the administrative kind, possibly a knight himself too), maybe with a couple men-at-arms (and their families too). Perhaps the master of the nearby countryside, including any farms or a village it's in.
Opening the great hall as a pub for locals and travelers, and a floor or wing of rooms as an inn could give such a humble peer an extra income stream when it's not needed for combat.
Edit: and he kinda covered that at 19-20 minutes in. :p
Honestly, depending on magic levels in the setting, any inn sitting at a crossroads might be safe. Especially if you have Archfey, gods of travel, or any amount of "Leylines" lip service in the setting.
"Oh, did you hear about the local Drow Assassin outpost? Apparently, the target of one of their purges was sleeping at the big crossroads inn."
"Not the crossroads that eight separate roads run through?"
"Yup. Whole placed burned to the ground."
"What happened to the drow?"
"Red Caps came right up out of the ground and chased them for miles. When they finally got home, they were ambushed by a few dozen goblins. Had a hag coven with them. Now the word is that two more hag covens are moving into the area, and some warlocks and other cultists are asking if adventurers want to collect drow ears."
"Well, there goes the neighborhood."
"I wouldn't be surprised if the Goblin King leads this year's Wild Hunt through that entire valley."
It’s strange how fantasy taverns resemble Wild West saloons more than any medieval establishment.
That's because they are mainly modeled on western (and latin) saloons and roadhouses.
Which sort of derived from the coaching houses of England with more utility.
The idea they are 1) on some sort of frontier and 2) it's justification for existing is economic. There us capitalism occurring at these "taverns" and "inns".
In Tolkiens work it's a little different. Less American and more English. He mixes modern English pubs with older versions of taverns with group sleeping accommodations (remember all the Hobbits in the same room?).
It's still commercial because he included the modern/Victorian pub angle.
The heightend degree of of capitalism is the anachronistic part of most of these fictional amalgamations
medieval fantasy actually takes a lot of inspiration form the late 17/early 1800's
The Shire feels like a place Tolkien could have visited in his lifetime. It wasn’t exactly modern, but it’s not that far in the past. It’s only once they leave the Shire and enter the “exotic” lands of the Men and Elves that it really starts to feel Medieval.
The real anachronism in Medieval fantasy is the bed. Most medieval people didn't sleep in beds. Beds were only for the sick and the dying. Healthy people slept sitting upright in chairs even in their own homes. The medieval tavern did kind of exist because taverns existed. If visitors got too drunk to travel home then they would just sleep in the Tavern sitting in the chair where they had their last beer. Travelers for the most part didn't exist. Most people in Medieval times never traveled farther than 20 miles from where they were born. The people who stayed at Taverns were locals who lived within a couple miles of the Tavern.
@@NovusodLol, medieval people did not sleep in chairs. Who the hell told you that? Medieval people, just like any other people throughout history, slept in beds. Beds predate humankind in fact (several species of primate also exhibit bed-making behaviours).
Medieval beds differ wildly in appearance and style based on the time period, region and social class you are talking about. The poorest beds were little more than a straw-filled matress on a bench or even on the floor, while the richest beds were fancy four-posters with silk, velvet and feather matresses. Beds could be very large, and were often shared by multiple people. The vast majority of medieval households (even wealthy ones) would not have had a dedicated bedroom, so it was common for beds to be convertible into benches or couches for daytime use. Maybe that is where the idea of people sleeping on chairs comes from?
Either way, most medieval people wouldn't have had any chairs, let alone slept in them. Chairs in the middle ages were very high status symbols, and incredibly expensive and rare. Only kings and the highest of nobility and clergy would have owned a chair, and their chair often was a direct symbol of their authority. Medieval people would have sat on stools, benches or couches, but virtually never on chairs.
It is only in and after the Renaissance that chairs start becoming more common, with the idea of a chair being an authority symbol fading and gradually becoming a general furniture item that anyone could own.
Alehouse = Lemonade stand
Tavern = Downtown bar
Inn inside town = Hotel
Inn out in the wilderness = Fortified shelter
👌
I tend to think off trading posts and trappers forts in the early days of North American colonies.
Inn inside town = hostel?
@@BlorkTDork Yup, If they were way out in the wilds then they would not be a fortified "inn". It would be a FORT'.
Drinking an accommodation would just be part of the fort. Trade and commercial processing would absolutely be the main endeavors of the fort.
And the commander of the fort, while being like a little king of his fort, ultimately works for 'the king'.
no no more like tavern=liquor store
Adventurers feel like a distinct type of yeomen.
Having a constant supply of looted goods would make fortified inns a great place for merchants & adventurers to trade goods that wouldn't be well seen in a town.
Because of that, this concept of the fortified inn also favours a type of game where equipment itself is treasure, as you can always sell the 20 scimitars you looted from all the bandits you killed on your way and back.
I have 20 chipped scimitars, 100 bloody daggers, 50 bent arrows, 5 cracked bows, a dozen dented helmets, one oddly pristine breastplate, and ring of unbearable stench to sell.
How did you come by so many daggers?
Bandits, man. each one had like ten of them.
@@BobMcBobJr most of it is either reparable or can be resold as raw material. Depending on where the negotiations are taking place, no one would really care. Now, how would you explain all that merchandise to city authorities if you aren't part of the merchant guild?
And that is why the kingdom turned them into forts to control the peace and keep trade safe. Also, to use them, you must be registered at a state approved guild which requires adventurers to obey the military in times of crisis.
@@gdragonlord749 nay adventures are always a separate organization from the military soldiers, it makes since even in war times the monster population has to be kept low and road protected so trade can happen. a king that drafts adventures is a king that has supplies lines quickly destroyed by burning farms and city's that can't talk to each other.
"Alright lads, good luck on yer way out into the Wilds. Oh, one more thing, here's a list of hunters and mercs who haven't returned yet from their missions. If you find any of 'em dead, whole or otherwise, you can get 50 silver if they can be brought back and identified. Here's a list of prices for any salvaged gear you find, too. And you probably know what you're getting into with all the beasties roaming out there. Happy huntn' boys
5:58 You know, I’d wondered where a medical hospital and hospitality got their seemingly clear root word from
Origin actually the Order of St John The Hospitaller which built Lodges for Pilgrims on Pilgrim Ways & in Jerusalem.
@@KevinWarburton-tv2iy I wouldn't say origin, but certainly a prominent example
as well as hotel and hostel, which retained their meaning in English for places for travelers to rest
To 'Host'
Take a person under your care/roof/ect.
Funny thing is, Chinese version of a Tavern/Hotel is a restaurant/place to stay for travelers in ancient times. Restaurants were develop for travelers. They also notice same travelers needed a place to stay. Hotel in Chinese today is called alcohol store.
So basically China had what the west only fantasizes about.
Could you elaborate more please!? That is so fascinating and I wish we had more information about Chinese culture/ history merged into DnD lore stories!
We do get a lot of Samurai but not too many Chinese mythology besides the Metallic Dragons.
There are some Chinese wuxia movies available on CZcams like Inn at Dragon Gate or Longmen Town where a tavern is the central story location.@@bensantos3882
I'm wondering whether Eurasian caravansary of Silk Road fame would also align with the sort of complex described in this video.
@@bensantos3882 yes there are 酒楼 and 酒店
An unscrupulous merchant looking to build their town’s relationship with adventurers for cheap could recruit groups from other towns for jobs those groups are too green to handle to artificially create the “I heard these goblins are sitting on a *pile* if gold” situation
An unscrupulous merchant who is facilitating the employment of adventurers on the behalf of an anonymous benefactor who's motives are yet unknown
This is brilliant and I'm stealing this!
Patches is that you?
Consider also including the abbey church, which in the real medieval period often came with a temporal title to a county or even more powerful office. The abbot would have great vested interest in the whereabouts and purposes of armed travelers in his lands, and might be inclined (or required by hommage) to provide a place to rest, arm, and provision chartered pilgrims, adventuring companies, and the like.
This is interesting as a general concept; what other interested parties could fund support services for adventures? Organizing an adventurer's guild is a common but somewhat contrived trope, but government, religion, and existing guilds could all be sponsors; I suspect the kinds of forces that historically shaped educational institutions might be interesting to explore.
Also another thing to consider is that Free Charter Merchant Market towns would see value in attracting Adventurers to their Market town for Food, Supplies, Gear & to keep the Roads clear of Monsters & Bandits etc etc so might see it well in their interest to provide a Municipal Inn/Tavern/Lodge or Camp-Site reserved for adventurers.
This reminded me of a book about inns in Medieval France: the church offered free lodging to pilgrims (and to all travelers) along pilgrimage routes.
I'm fairly sure in the Brother Cadfael TV series this meant non gentry types would doss down on the church floor.
Make it a network of some kind of polytheistic individual diety that is specifically dedicated to travelers/commerce/a specific fued or rivalry with another god or nation that justifies a network of relatively well organized outposts that provide things typically considered to be at inns. Could be less commercial under these circumstances of one wanted to choose an angle that way, while still maintaining commerce as an ancillary to whatever mission or purpose
They could be shrines to the God of travelers where there are a few acolytes that upkeep a small inn like establishment. Semi fortified but mainly just well occupied and often hosting nearly a town worth of residents due to how well established they have become in the culture.
If you ask me, commerce feels very modern and anachronistic. Depending on how archaic one would want the setting to feel I would make it appear as if commerce was rare but for the few people capable of getting any coins.
I would have most characters offering services or goods for things they want.
You could recruit a party member by agreeing to help them fulfill a mission after or before doing tasks for you or accompany etc. Especially if those characters were of lower status
@@ForageGardener I love it. Pappa Legba would be a great patron of inns.
Regarding historical accuracy, you were actually quite right at this one. The only thing you mayhaps forgot to mention is that Inns were not small to mid houses like they are like to be shown when the "adventuring party" is down on their luck, and can't afford the "proper/good" Inn.
As you said, Inns were (very often) walled off, and they (often) had proper portas, not just a gate to the property, and in fact a lot of villas of ancient rome have become Inns throught history, which were obviously of the richer kind.
The rural Inns (along roads, not in towns or cities) were often run by freemen owning the surrounding land, and thus had made profit by selling their produce to travelers at a higher cost, since they are de facto monopolies (as long as the town or city is not close by to offer competition).
From historical records we also known that Inns were incredibly profitable as long as there was traffic in and out of the settlement (which in the age of walking everywhere is a given alongside trade routes).
In the Hodges list we can see that an inn in the 14th century has earned 27.25 pennies, or more than 2 shillings in one day after feeding and housing 3 men, 4 of their servants, and an unknown amount of horses. Even if we say the Innkeeper only earned 30% of it due to procurement and taxes (random low estimate, idk what they actually spent), that's still 9 and 1/12 pennies, which is 1.5 times the amount a well equipped soldier, or lowly officer would earn.
Now TAVERNS are also probably on the expensive side, at least from my research.
For example in the same source it's said that the collective rent for 138 shops on London Bridge was 160 pounds 4 shillings, whilst the collective rent for a measily 3 taverns with the exclusive right to sell sweet wine was 200 pounds.
I don't know the disparity between lower end Taverns and higher end ones, but the existence of Alehouses, or Kvass merchants (easter europe) indicates that cheap alcohol was rather procured from such establishments instead of taverns, so it may be the case that even low quality Taverns were still rather profitable (they were often selling wine, afterall).
Actually the Witcher 3 has a great take on this, one of the rural taverns you go to for a quest acts like a pub, something you would probably see in medieval taverns, you can sit down with your ale, get some bread and a bowl of pottage (literally whatever was in the pot) and this model is seen especially in England with taverns hundreds of years old keeping the same business model, and if you were a traveler as the dialogue says in game “ye can sleep in any bench” taverns may offer the space for travelers after curfew, a cheap place to sleep indoors with a fire. Of course it’s not a merchant inn with posh beds, but most people back then didn’t really have beds anyway
Witcher taverns in the game did not even have beds so in a sense they were historically accurate. In the books however there were the usual fantasy taverns simply because the book Geralt had to sleep sometimes.
@@kacperwoch4368 in the books some did, Gerald stays a lot using the laws of hospitality, but yea, my point being that a bench near the fire is a hell of an upgrade to camping outside with the monsters
This is important if you're using the 7 day long rest. You really need somewhere reliable to sleep so you don't get kicked out after day 3 and have to start all over.
I can't wrap my head around sleeping on the ground for half a night and being on watch the other half and getting all your hit points and spells back. Making friends with a lord and staying with him for a week while you recuperate seems more reasonable.
If you look into how the earliest editions of the game were played you find an obvious work around for this. Npc minions.
1st and early 2nd edition had no class specific mechanical uses for Charisma, even though it was an important stat for every class. That's because Charisma was the stat that affected the rolls you made to haggle with NPCs you wanted to hire.
PCs of a certain level hired between 20 and 80 NPCs to carry gear, make camp, hold torches, haul treasure, hold tower shields while standing in front of the wizard, stand in the back and fire arrows at anything out of the front line PCs' range, and a couple hound masters with a dozen dogs each for the nightly watch.
Charisma was the stat that decided if the two dozen NPCs you needed to take into the dungeon with you were each paid 1 gold piece a day or ten gold pieces a day.
It would be a terrible idea to require 7 day _uninterrupted_ long rests in any setting. I can see the value of requiring 7 day long rests in principle, but they should allow for interruption, giving you the benefits of a short rest, and only requiring that you make up the difference. So like if you got ambushed on day 3, you could fight them off using post-short-rest options, and then start resting again and only need to go an additional 4 days.
A good night's sleep fully healing you is a bit silly and only works in game logic. It's an area where good players can add a bit more realism.
@@AmoebaInk My feeling on "HP" in RPGs is that you CAN'T play it as though "HP" represents your complete physical condition, that if you are at 1 HP then you are a pile of meat barely holding together. Instead, HP must represent your "resilience," your ability to keep fighting, even though you are tired and in pain. If you reach 0 HP, then that doesn't mean that you have sustained horrible, gaping wounds, it just means that you can no longer stay fully conscious, and an enemy could coup de gras you, or that you _might_ fade away due to the accumulated pain and trauma, but you can also stabilize yourself and just chill at 0HP until you can get your act together.
A fighter at 1 HP is actually in pretty good health, all things considered, he's just very bruised, slightly lacerated, and can barely keep himself _upright._ This is why he has ways of "healing" that back, it's not knitting wounds, it's just gutsing through the trauma and continuing to fight. In that sense, a good night's sleep _can_ allow you to recover most if not all of that "damage," to the point that you have no problem doing the same thing tomorrow.
Now a DM might choose to call out certain attacks, especially crits, as dealing grievous physical wounds, and these should not heal up over night, those would be special story circumstances to deal with outside of the HP system. Some other RPGs do take physical trauma into effect, like the Palladium system, in which you have two health pools, one that rises and falls casually like HP, and another that is only touched by certain attacks or when HP reaches zero, and that is treated more as your absolute physical structure. If you take injury to this second pool, then it does take a long time and serious medical intervention to recover it.
@@timogul Yeah, I try to frame it that way, just hard to do when you're get chopped with swords and such.
One of my DMs a couple games ago, let us describe our actions for most combats instead of rolling everything. It was nice to realistically strike a vital spot and have the enemy go down with a successful hit.
Tom, I really love these history-applied-to-fantasy type videos, really helps me flesh out my world-building. Will be integrating some of these concepts for sure! Btw, music volume was fine, imo.
I agree! I hadn’t actually noticed a music track, but I’m sure it’s there as the ambience is on point!
A big reason to take in travellers would be entertainment. Hosting a group of adventures could get you some news from the next town or city, new stories, maybe a song you haven't heard before. These things are pretty valuable.
Yeah, my group handeled it that way. We paid for the food and Entertained people who took us in. (We had so many singing and dancing and painting character's, we were practically a boy Band on tour)
Very well-thought-out video. There was no “adventuring class” in medieval Europe because of a distinct lack of dragons with treasure hordes, wizards with lootable labs and libraries, and goblin caves full of plunder for those adventurers to live on. There were dangerous beasts to slay - wolves, bears, adders and even lions in a few remote late-Roman areas threatened livestock and children - but not much reward in slaying them. The real monsters with treasure were all human - the Gilles de Raises and Elizabeth Bathories - and of course those people weren’t interested in keeping up adventurer bands who might put a stop to their wickedness. In a world where humans aren’t on top of the food chain, adventurers make more sense, as do inns catering to them.
The state-sponsored countryside inn-fort has precedent not only in Baldur’s Gate’s Friendly Arm, but in the US military frontier forts of the 18th and 19th centuries. They were expressly intended to protect commerce, and people might camp inside them or just outside the walls, trusting in the presence of the US Cavalry to deter robbers. Ironically, Native Americans were often as eager as anyone else to seek safety from robbers both European and Native by camping near a fort; part of what made the Sand Creek Massacre so infamous was that it was committed in sight of Fort Lyon (although by state militia, not by the US Cavalry), a place that had always before been a safe haven for friendly Arapahoes and Cheyennes.
And many of those "momsters" like Bathory were probably just slandered and libelled by their enemies.
The multi-faceted US frontier fort is a great parallel!
Some historians believe Bathory and Rais were innocent.
Medieval Europe certainly had travelling mercenary bands, on a sliding scale towards bandits and pirates. And there was certainly treasure to loot, though it was held by rich people, not monsters. Consider the Vikings, Magyars and Mongols.
@@satansjihad6353 Most don't.
I really like the idea of inns and such being owned or sponsored by local lords or groups, and needing a written pass to be allowed to stay. Gives it a real kind of touch, especially the Roman like fortified ones!
Yes Lords would find it in their interest to attract adventurers to clear out Monsters & the Inn would be great source of Income/opportunity to recoup expenditure on the Adventurers Jobs.
Two important facts about "inns/taverns" are that magic and the economics of adventuring shatter any hope of maintaining historically accurate business models.
The average conception of a fantasy tavern might be closer to a modern hostel or a Victorian/Renaissance era inn than anything that existed in the dark ages, but actual medieval inns never had sporadic visits from teams of mercenaries with no fubctional idea of the value of the coins they are dropping.
The average rural townsfolk will spend a couple of copper coins over the course of a month. At most.
The average adventuring party will walk into the town where these townsfolk live, pay ten gold pieces for trinkets and random trash the village grocers might have priced at one copper piece for anyone else, tip five gold pieces to any random person who lets the adventurers stop and interrogate them for forty-five minutes, and buy single apples from the local children for one gold piece each.
Adventuring parties that just slayed a dragon and ransacked its hoard display their wealth the same way the rulers of the Mali Empire displayed their wealth while on pilgrimages to Mecca. No local economy along their travel route was spared.
There's an old Order of the Stick comic where an ordinary village and its people are going about their day when a rider gallops through town screaming about adventurers coming down the road. Everyone drops what they are doing and runs around preparing. One child asks their father what's going on, and the man simply says they have to do what must be done and not to look down on the village adults for what's going to happen. The final frame of the comic is the party appearing on the edge of the frame while the townsfolk are standing on their porches holding signs and products for sale. Every single sign has listed prices in gold pieces and claims they are offering their goods at a special discount to celebrate the visiting heroes. The reality is that every single purchasable good in town has been marked up by at least eight hundred percent of what the locals would pay.
Small villages on the roads between major population centers and known ancient ruins would most likely maintain sizeable inns for a number of reasons.
Having a big hotel out by the road into town pulls in anyone who extracted piles of treasure from the dungeons. That's the entire business model for the Yawning Portal in Waterdeep.
The big hotel for mercs also keeps the dangerous and armed outsiders and anyone trying to assassinate them isolated from the rest of the town. At least at night.
As for remote inns at isolated crossroads. They'd be fine in most mid to high magic settings.
If there is a god of travel, horizons, pilgrimages, or journeys in the setting, that means everything from a roadside mile marker shrine to a full service tavern at a major crossroads point is holy ground.
Going around ancient Greek and Roman roads and taking hammers to the phallic parts of the statues of Hermes/Mercury at all the crossroads and mile markers is a sure fire way to earn the wrath of the god who could and would follow you literally anywhere. You just don't do it.
Even if there are no travel gods in the setting, there's still probably at least a couple archfey who claim to be "the lord of the crossroads." If you burn down a tavern/inn/carriage house located at a major crossroads layline, be prepared to dodge at least a dozen mid level warlocks and hag covens. Having multiple immortal tricksters with limitless magic gunning for you only ever ends one way. You'll eventually get what's coming to you.
Edit: "What's that? You're saying the lord of slumber had one of his Dream Walker Assassins tattoo a dick on your forehead while you slept? You need to leave our town. We can't harbor dead men."
Much like the Mali pilgrimage an adventuring party dropping gold on everyone would be rare. There wouldn't be any known ancient ruins with stuff still in them. Most adventurers wouldn't actually spend like that. They would pay taxes for legitimacy and safety. There is plenty to protect the economy.
@@yaelz6043 Your points assume a static world with little to no magic. Ruins are Dungeons. They get moved into by the peoples and factions that can't or won't take up residence in the "civilized" cities. Those groups gather resources. They stock up on weapons, gold, and goods.
And that's ignoring the possibility that several Dungeons might be sentient and actively restock their treasure hoards on a regular basis.
The existence of dragons with a stereotypical hoard breaks all concepts of a medieval economy just by itself. Even if we are assuming that the average dragon converts most of their hoard to copper coins just so they can fill a larger volume of lair space, the sheer number of coins it would take to make a nest/bedding for a creature the size of a dragon is astronomical when compared to the economy of a peasant village that frankly shouldn't be using coins in the first place. They'd still be on the Barter/Reciprocity system.
As for the fantasy of the "tax paying adventurer"... what the hell are you smoking and where can I get some? Once you get far enough into even tier two levels you get tax exempt status by default. A level 12 wizard isn't paying taxes for their safety. They are demanding a tithe from every being living within sight of their tower so that nothing more dangerous and unpredictable than that wizard tries to move into the region.
Edit: The point is that the existence of adventuring as a profession and the stealing of wealth hoarded by the enemies/targets of adventurers would drastically alter the economics of all surrounding civilizations. The average Murderhobo squad might not put out as much gold as the actual Emperor or Mali, but the towns and settlements frequented by adventurers would without question adopt the pricing models we see in modern tourist trap towns and destinations.
You think the town that springs up next to a mega dungeon with seemingly endless treasure hoards isn't going to set prices the same way resort hotels price the flip flops and headache pills they sell in their gift shops? You think peasant shop keepers will never figure out the trick that allows Dasani to sell water bottles in Disney World for upwards of ten times what they sell them for in any Kroger?
Design of inns would be affected by those that stayed there. .e.g. Centaurs, orcs, etc.
@@brodriguez11000 Sure, non standard customers that frequent the area would impact some of the offerings and facilities. Probably about as much as the need to harness local or leyline magic for protection would alter such things.
You know what's the funny thing?
Tourist traps nowadays are exactly like the comic you mentioned...
Selling an espresso in italy gor 8€ to americans... 400% price increase
Interestingly, the old meaning of hospital that you mention here is wjere our modern "Hostel" comes from.
Not to mention “hospitality” and “hospitable.”
@@HelotOnWheels very true. Hostel (and got that matter hotel) were just the first ones to pop to mind haha
Also Host & Hostage LOL.
@@KevinWarburton-tv2iy host makes sense, I didn't know hostage though
@@Crits-Crafts in the old days (mainly antiquity, a bit in the middle ages too), a hostage would be treated like a host, it's just that they couldn't leave
hostages were usually noblemen given as part of peace or alliance treaties, so you wouldn't want to be treating them rough
it's often worth looking in to non-European sources when trying to do this kind of logistical worldbuilding based on historical precedent. The classic fantasy inn/tavern may be unhistorical in medieval Europe, but the oldest Ryokan in Japan is from the 8th century. Roadside inns, bathhouses, teahouses and even restaurants with rooms to let were fairly common in China and japan during Europe's middle ages, in part due to a slightly more mobile "middle class" of scholars, merchants, physicians, craftsmen, instructors, warriors, monks, and exorcists.
In a broader sense of imagining what adventurers might actually look like in a societal context, China's _youxia_ stories ("wandering hero/vigilante" stories, the predecessor of the also-quite-old _Wuxia_ historical fantasy genre) date back to as early as 200 BC, and the protagonists of those are pretty much cognate with D&D fantasy adventurers. They didn't really have to imagine a world where these heroes could somehow show up to a remote town and save the day from bandits/demons/tyrants/whatever, because they already lived in one that had the infrastructure to support itinerant specialists.
And of course, the wild west saloon is a similar location.
China is a history ripe for picking when it comes to historical fantasy, and with the massive proliferation of Chinese creative works, it's only a matter of time now before we start to see this sort of Chinese Fantasy genre rival medieval fantasy. I'm looking forward to it, D&D-style fantasy has really become stale these past few years.
@@yurisei6732 strong agree. The mythic pseudo history represented in Chinese fantasy is just so rich, and frequently internally consistent due to its grounding in historical reality. I’d really love to see more Chinese fantasy influence western media. They’ve been doing it for two millennia… we could stand to learn a thing or two.
I studied for a short while under a Taoist priest, and I was struck by how much the mystical aspects of the practice are just… a full-blown magic system. A lot of the stuff you see in Chinese “cultivation” style wuxia games and media are just straight lifted from actual spiritual practice.
I wouldn’t personally lift it wholesale to drop in to one of my fantasy settings or anything, (especially as an outsider to the culture, as it’s a living tradition with real belief behind it… that just feels disrespectful to me), but learning about unfamiliar real-world mythology, belief, and history just really makes your own world building make more sense.
@@spiritandsteel The magic is one thing I'd be happy to leave behind actually. I'm not really into the whole "self-improvement magic" thing, it gives magic a very particular style of implied alignment that heavily limits the kinds of stories and characters you can write. The nice thing about Hermetic magic is that it's turned into a skill like any other: you don't have to have a particular personality to do it, you just have to learn how. Buddhism has the same limitation, the nice thing about Christianity from a worldbuilding perspective is that it largely decouples "virtue" from "morality", giving ample space for evil people who are favoured by gods.
@@yurisei6732
That’s interesting… in my experience there’s actually a lot less “te” (virtue) intrinsic in some of the actual mystical practices, compared to modern fantasy that incorporates Daoist cultivation. Also, in general, the west’s understanding of eastern “virtue” is pretty poor. There’s no real cosmic morality in Daoism (as opposed to Buddhism, but even then it’s way more subjective), and there’s plenty of tales of effectively “dark magic” in Chinese mythology and folklore.
Even in some martial traditions, things like “Iron Body” training are considered dangerous or “dark” routes of qi conditioning/cultivation that must be balanced with gentler practices, as it’s believed to make you more aggressive and violent, and to make it difficult to feel anything including empathy.
The Daoist/Chinese Folk Religion angle on mystical practice seems just as much “skill” based as hermetic practice or even western alchemy, to me. And- just like those traditions- the “dark” arts are viewed as potent but self-destructive paths to power.
In Vinland Saga, season 2, the landowner has a small pallisade fort with a small stable and communal house and puts up so called "Guests" which are basically just landed bandits who protect his farm from other danes
Yes!
I want to consider: Why a party of 4? In my mind I think a world where it's a common superstition that all tasks need 4 people to tackle them.
Hypothetically, it's the minimum number of people who can have all the required skills. More people would mean smaller shares. Less people would mean eventually lacking some vital talent.
True, but I like to think that if you saw one lone adventurer about to set off from a tavern, the random people nearby would remind him or her that there need to be four people and possibly offer to join as one of those four. It would be like how we think of 13 as unlucky and maybe 7 as lucky.
Wasn't it the case in classic D&D that parties would often have multiple "hireling" characters around to carry loot and poke at traps? You might have four players and four "heroes," but the actual "party size" might be 8 or more.
Because getting 5 players to get together is exponentially tougher than 4
@@timogulYou can hire as many goons as you like. A henchman is like a junior apprentice adventurer. They got a class level and typically half a share of loot and xp. They do pretty much what a PC does. Hirelings includes mercenaries, level 0 caravan guards who guard your expedition on the road and secure base camp. They are more like second line spear-carriers.
I do like the idea of inns being sponsored by the local lord. Mainly serving as points for travelers to rest safely from the horrors of the nights. I imagine they'd also be resting and resupply points for soldiers that would be patrolling important roads to keep them clear of dire bears and goblin tribes. I think it would be also very fun to use the inns to indicate how dangerous the general area it. The inn is a few scattered buildings surrounded by a short fence? Not much more than wolves here. The inn it a bunch of buildings that are in a circle and the only entrance is through the central courtyard? Goblins, maybe some dire bears. The inn is a stone keep with patrolled walls and several towers with balistas? Might be some of beasties of the big scaled and fire breathing variety around here.
I've had the wayside Inns appointed by the king of the nation at that point, they were spaced at about 25 miles apart, around the same distance for Pony Express stations, though there were exceptions when there was something else that the courier system could utilize for their stations. Local nobility had to keep them stocked/provisioned to some extent. it also meant that the kings people could use them as needed for their business.
You mean a caravanserai. Like a designated waypoint and loading station on the trade paths or compound where loose sailors, teamsters and guards can stay without forming an unregulated slum.
This has been a pet peeve of mine for some time. Adventure's guilds have the exact same problem. Enter a place of business, grab a quest off a billboard, go to a receptionist to accept the quest... and dodge all the people eating and drinking at a combination bar and restaurant, plus the inn upstairs, and sometimes there is even more things here like an arena or an upstairs guild-only shop for adventurer stuff. Like, an entire town is crammed in this one building.
Thats because a place like that existed in pretty much every city in northern and central europe. with a very prominent one in London.
A Typical Hanse tradepost had a billboard, drinking halls, a restaurant and places to sleep for poorer traders and workers.
Also alot of gambling and whores..
If adventurers were real, that would kinda be exactly what happened though. You'd get these towns within towns, going wherever the rumours said monsters were. Same thing happened with nomadic traders historically, you got large buildings where all the traders would set up shop when they came into town, and it was more efficient for locals to go there to sell to and buy from nomads rather than have the nomads visit ten different shops dotted around the city. If you've got adventurers about, you're not going to just stay home and hope they visit your alley to stock up, you're taking a wheelbarrow of goods to wherever the adventurers are and selling whatever you can.
I generally divide inns as places for travelers to stay and taverns as neighborhood places where locals can gather to drink and socialize. If there are any lodgings in the tavern it will be reserved for locals to sleep it off as they would be known to the tavern keeper and not for strangers t stay overnight. Adventurers can go to taverns, but they may be given the cold shoulder and eyed with some suspicion as strangers similar to wearing your team's logo and going to a sports bar frequented by the fans of a rival team. The taverns will also serves as the strongholds of any neighbor organization or gang so enter at our own risk.
If there an adventure guilds why wouldn't they build an adventure inn and hall for them and take on quest.
Quest that Watchmen, reeves, guards and knight are put to the side, too busy to do, out of border, difficult terrain or things that want to keep secret. That doesn't interfere with the local law enforcement.
@@majesticgothitelle1802 The thing is, both can happen I think
A specialized guild or adventurer inn could be built in order to offer them special services, but I think it would only be localized on very highly frequented locations, such as big cities or important crossroads, since setting a specialized inn in a small town or on the road toward middle-of-nowhereshire wouldn't be financially tolerable due to lack of activity frequency, while the generalist inn could offer lower quality adventurer services while also being useful for townfolks and other types of travelers
Otherwise that would be like setting a castle in the middle of marshlands, there may be a lord for this castle but nobody would come to it since there is about nothing useful to find
@@pricel141l but you have to remember adventure are more temp, mercenaries and odd job workers. They would be less likely to be welcomed in by the locals due to being strangers. Adventure would be like nomad in real life.
They would have local warriors, shaman, priest and whatever class as the one part of the community doing the hunting, search in the Territory, and serving of the community and noble. You have to come up with a reason why they won't have a town wizard officer. shaman that deals with spirit and undead. a priest and church for the country god in a town. A scout that patrol and maintain the wild life population and hunting.
Adventure would be a special guild having wondered if long distance would require outside of the Territory for long periods of days. That would be needing an inn outside of town and village. While the guilds hall would be in the city and town where it is safer and the local government watches over and tax.
Interesting ideas, I already used a fortified inn once, makes sense in more dangerous areas.
Already worth the listen by the halfway mark.
I really like what you bring up in this video, especially in part of DnD party forming more connections by finding places to stay instead of just waltzing up to the local inn/tavern to get a room. I also like the idea of these "mini forts" that behave as inns on the road that could easily turn into castles.
In a world of monsters, every village has either a small castle or residents that are all level 5+ barbarians.
I love all of this!
RE: Punishing toughing it out in the wilderness repeatedley, I find the easiest method is to just take up the Gritty Resting Rules from the 5e DMG. 8 hours is a Short Rest, and a Long Rest requires 24 hours of little to no activity, iirc. If you take up One D&D's exhaustion rules in combination, then long travel and excursions into the wilderness slowly wear them down, and the longer they're away from civilization the longer they'll have to recover in it... and some lords might not be so patient with these ruffians staying here for the next week.
This is one of my favorite dnd Chanels I do more world building than minmaxing and re-examining tropes is such a pleasure thinking deeper on them and I often spend a couple hours mauling over the video maybe even researching the topic
I think rather than a fortified inn, what would make sense in a very fantastical setting would be an inn attached to a wizard tower or some other accommodation of a powerful magic user. This would likely be the greatest form of protection for travelers as magic users would likely be able to detect any kind of monster or shape-changer trying to sneak into the inn and the inn itself would be protected by the magic user themselves if it ever came under attack. The relative isolation of the inn would mean that if the magic user were ever to have some sort of disastrous or explosive complication in whatever magic research they might want to do, they would have it away from any densely populated areas. Having such an inn on a major travel route or between two large cities would allow the magic user to purchase common supplies from merchants passing through while also allowing them to commission adventurers staying in the inn for rarer objects or monster parts. The inn could also serve as a form of income for the magic user so that they could better fund whatever magical research that they may be interested in. The magic user could run the inn in any number of ways, from having apprentices work at the inn, to staffing it entirely with the undead or even making the building itself a living being.
Totally agree, especially on the last part with the forts. It makes so much sense in a world full of monsters. Do you have a video on how rural living conditions might be? By taking this thought further, in this type of monster heavy settings dispersed farms make no sense. Fortified villages would concentrate most of this frontier population. I think this is an interesting topic for a video
Have you talked about the idea of the city watch or city guard at all? If not, could be a good video topic.
It sometimes comes up in games where a player says "why wouldn't we go to the city guard and they can deal with it?" and besides the narrative reason of "it's boring" it can be a little difficult to come up with a verisimilitudinous reason that the guard can't or isn't willing to involve themselves where the adventurers should.
So like, going into how a city guard would operate, their interactions and relationship with adventurers, how big a town needs to get before they have a standing guard, etc..
The way I rationalize the one problem, by the way, is that the city guard reasons that instead of sending a squadron of 20 good men into cult-infested sewers to get potentially stabbed by traps or turned gibbering and inside out by eldritch magics, they can just make a deal with 4-5 insane but terrifyingly competent schmoes to go in and clear everything out, then send in the squad afterward to clean up the mess.
My players once got an abandoned warehouse at auction, and when they got there it turned out to be full of ghouls. I thought they would deal with it themselves, but they boarded it up and handed the problem to a previously mentioned Paladin order nearby.
Legitimate solution to the problem, but they missed out on the loot the undead had, and their new property was damaged in the fighting.
Any choice they make is valid, but all choices and non-choices have consequences.
In medieval times, most towns didn't have permanent street guards
Of course they had some militiamen employed to watch at the town's outer doors and walls making sure to spot eventual threats, but nothing even close to some sort of police force
So if you even wondered how could the guards be unable to take care of an affair within town just think about this : In reality, lords didn't usually paid full-time guards to watch the streets and take care of common folks problems, it's overwhelmingly expansive for people that are in fact not productive at all most of the time (and you NEED as many productive people as possible at this time)
As for intown monsters problems, I think your usual militiamen aren't fit for a fight against ghouls, mages of even, why the fuck not, full fledged vampires
They could keep them at bay for the time being, waiting for actual professionals, either true knights from a nearby big city, mercenaries or passing adventurers, to take care of the problem directly, which is also a way to avoid having to deal with the problem of dead or injured townfolks which the local lord then would have to take care of, instead of being able to simple send the adventurers fuck around once their job is done and their pay given
It's also worth noting that even a Level 1 player character is a cut above professional. This goes back to the stories of Conan the barbarian (who is often described as shrugging off things that would have killed three "lesser men"), Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (best thieves in the world-central city of Lankhmar), Errol Flynn's celluloid swashbucklers (fencing with three men at once) and so on. Player characters *start* as remarkable (at least in D&D and similar settings), and get tougher from there.
To use D&D 5th Edition as an example: a typical guard is CR 1/8 (that is to say, a squad of 8 of them are considered a modest challenge for a group of four player characters); a fully-trained knight or veteran is CR 3.
Quite often, the question of: "Why don't we call the Guard?" can often be answered by a wry: "Do you think they could handle it?"
Video request/idea: I would love to see how societies would form, given the adventurers existence as a social class/role, and how this role would come to be.
For example, army as an institution got established as means to protects the land from intruders and to conquer others, clergy - because people needed a place to gather and feel that they belong in the community, and later because places of people gathering created leaders who had political power. So I wonder where did adventuring should "historically" come from, if we assume that it had developed to the heights of adventuring guilds and such
Well it would have to revolve around monster hunting, catching powerful criminals and invading/counter attacking places the state didn't want to actually occupy such as the under dark.
@@yaelz6043 it could, but also why would the government want to hire adventures for this if they can have a regular army that is much more obedient and consistent? I have some ideas and a even fewer solutions, one of which I've implemented in my world, but they all seem pretty niche to me, so I'd like to see a deep dive into the topic
@@nin0f well the adventurers don't need to be hired, just told that a monster's horn or horde are valuable. You wouldn't just pay them to kill something, they would kill it and sell you something of worth that they got off it.
As for a regular army, losing population or even just farming time is really bad, no one will miss adventurers when they die in a cave somewhere.
@@yaelz6043 Yeah, but then why not send your own army of trained people to get the treasure if it's valuable enough? Of course some adventurers might go look for small-sized treasures, but that is not really sustainable, nor does it lead to development of adventuring as a stable institution
In my world the reason why the adventuring is cool and armies don't exist is because there are literally NO countries and states, because humans and monsters have mostly a predator-prey relationship. That means that if any settlement becomes big enough to become a state, it almost immediately gets overrun by hungry monsters. Because of this big settlements are much more akin to the ancient polis (Greek city-state) and can't afford a regular army, since they don't and can't exist long enough to create an army institution. That is one solution, but, obviously, it is very specific and can not be even remotely generalized for a medieval Europe type of setting
Adventurers are a special case indeed. Recently I was playing a 12th level (Pathfinder) Sorcerer and some yokel villagers were going on about the inn or whatever. My PC was horrified and teleported to the nearby city to stay in a nice hotel. Bunch of slobs. Call when you need me to nuke some fools. You have a good point about friars and tinkers being acceptable to locals and not adventurers. Our Barbarian was a giant, roaring maniac, our Rogue looked and behaved like a ninja assassin, my guy flew everywhere, breathing ice blasts, you get the idea. I've no idea if we'd be welcome at a roadside tavern, but the landlady was not in much of a position to say no.
We paid and tipped well, to be fair. Had to pay for an alarming amount of repairs too.
So, one idea I had for a realistic inn and tavern setup in a small village would be to have the inn and tavern close by, possibly next door to each other or across the street. Depending on the setting and if you wanted to get fancy, there could also be a thermopolium (ancient Greek/Roman take-out restaurant equivalent) close-by as well, and it could possibly be a food supplier for the tavern. Put this in proximity to a market square and you've basically got what would function as a "traditional" fantasy tavern.
I tried to tackle this problem myself when I was coming up with various fantasy styled stories, and discovered that when you look into the historical ways people traveled and needed accommodations, you really do see where various types of inn might be necessary. In my story, I came up with something called a Wayfarer's Inn; the entire thing is on thick stilts in the form of stables, and a larger area for storage of wagons/carts with a dedicated stable hand there to brush down the beasts of burden, care for their feet, get them some food, clean water, and a place to bed down for the night. The area is blocked off after nightfall, but the inn above is a place of respite, and a trading hub. If you have barrels or boxes of food, linens, extra weapons you don't need, or anything that might fetch a nice price, this is the place for you.
With the building on stilts, and with its fenced wall (albeit of treated redwood) any creatures/bandits/monsters attempting to attack will find themselves quickly taken out by archers (the family who owns these types of inns are former adventurers or have guards on hire from the local militia) or the owners themselves. Every type of item, weapon, good, and service can be purchased from the wayfarer inn - including a bath in their open air bath house. Aside from these, I've done the same with temples, hospitals, and random inns across the world, with some being sanctioned only by the local lord, baron, earl, duke, or king.
The Roman predecessor to a medieval inn would be a mansio. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansio The mansiones were state-sponsored and intended for the use of people on official business, who were expected to provide a passport to identify themselves.
There existed also privately-owned similar venues, but they were somewhat disreputable, frequented by thieves and prostitutes. They would surely be visited by adventurers as well, if Rome had any.
I'm pretty sure a fantasy equivalent of the roman empire would have adventurers for 2 reasons :
- One, they had rampant corruption problems among official guards, so the average politician would be very pleased to be able to pay some shady guys to "take care" of their opponents
- Second, if there were a roman empire equivalent in a fantasy world, it would have passed through the same monsters and races problems as its medieval counterpart, thus creating an untiring need of adventurers to take care of those issues as well as maybe explore some untouched lands rumored to be plagued by monsters guarding huge treasures
The lowest ranks of titled lords in europe were watch tower lords. A lot of them were just that. But those who operated inns are the ones who were able to transition into the bourgeoisie. They often wpuld become richer than their liege and force a wedding favorable to them.
In actual history fortified caravan rests were common along the Silk Road. They were essentially small fortresses with lockable gates; you had to arrive before curfew to get in, after which the gates were locked. This served to keep people out as well as ensure guests paid the overnight fee instead of trying to leave before daybreak without paying. These were typically built with around a day's travel between them at typical caravan speeds so that you always had a safe place for your animals and goods for the night due to the constant threat of bandits and thieves
sweden did have something fairly similar to fantasy taverns, although it should be noted they werent nearly as expansive in scope as what tabletop games portray. They were fairly simple establishments meant to provide food, beverage, a bed and a change of horse. Often they served as a local gathering spot as well but this wasnt universal and a crucial detail being they were 'rarely' found in larger settlements, seeing as they grew out of simple horse stables intended for couriers to have a place to rest for the night. They still exsist to this day and are interesting places to visit as a tourist
Some people have mentioned it but we have more recent real world examples that still exist. Taverns come from Roman Tabernas which still exist in Greece as taverns, a place to sit and have a meal and drinks. A fortified Inn is a caravanserai. There is one next to the castle near me. It was a walled enclosure with rooms for rent for merchants and goods. They were specifically built, not just converted villas.
If it was full, camping was available inside as well. You were paying for the security of the walls, for the most part. And its not in the castle for safety reasons but right next to it so the local lord can shop and levy taxes without having to go far. Lords are just as involved in commerce in their lands as anything else.
Love your deep dives into aspects of Lore and world building, Tom. Keep it up :)
Music is pretty loud in this one, it's kind of distracting (still watchable though)
I think it's just at the very beginning it bothers me, actually. I think it's okay after the 3 minute mark. Will stop commenting about it until I finish watching now.
Always looking for feedback! If it's an issue for a few people I can make changes. Thanks
Just finished it (great stuff, as usual)
It does get less distracting, save for a very few specific spots (which might as well be read as me having primed myself to pay extra attention to those after that initial perception, so maybe it's not even that bad)
Agree
Idk, I'm into it
Lovely video! I would love to do such research into how things actually functioned back in time, where do you source your research?
This is, by far, one of the best made and we'll thought of videos on this subject I have seen.
From beginning to end it is informative and thought provoking.
Thank you so much for making this video.
Amazing video, thank you for bringing this up and putting it together.
So many of your videos have superb ideas that I will take as inspiration. I am now imagining an order of Hospitality, fortified inns and healers on routes for every major settlement.
We were asking ourselves this with a friend of mine literally yesterday: really glad this popped up. Awesome work.
this video is so inspiring, your different examples were planting seeds in my head for potential campaigns that could be potentially very grounding and engaging in my opinion. Awesome
I have been looking for something like this for months
In the summer of 2008, I drove to Spain with a friend on holiday. After spending one night in Denmark, we drove south and came into a small German border town close to Belgium. Everything was closed there, so we decided to head straight into the Ardennes, prepared to sleep in a tent if need be. We came into a small Belgian town with a WWI memorial in the centre, and there was a pub/inn right next to it that was open. They had a room, we got a meal, and some excellent Belgian beer, and it remains one of the fondest memories I have of a journey that took me to Bastogne, Bouillon, Paris, Bilbao, Lugo, Santiago de Compostela, Leon and Burgos.
The Prancing Pony is referred to an an inn and not a tavern in the Lord of the Rings . . . Just sayin' . . .
The JRPG Another Eden has both inns and taverns as separate establishments with few exceptions. Because of the time travel plot, these institutions exist even in the distant past and the future. There even is a tavern beyond time and space named Time's Forgotten Stop which is a key recurring location. The inns serve as a common way for player to heal their party of companions and can get an expendable package of food for a total restore in the field. Taverns primarily serve as gossip points, locations were quest events occur, or (beginning in part three) bounty postings. Time's Forgotten Stop also includes a equipment blacksmith's shop, bards that retell the events of earlier adventures of the player (i.e. replay cutscenes), and a person that can that can upgrade character classes or unlock parallel versions of characters from parallel timelines.
I enjoy all of The Grungeon Master videos
A good example of the day's ride apart concept is the California Mission Chain on the El Camino Real from San Diego to Sanoma. Only a handful were walled, relying more on a handful of soldiers stationed there to dissuade those with bad intentions. For my world the ground floor of my Taverns or Inns have a Hostel style common room with the upstairs for for small groups (party sized). These Taverns and Inns are the primary way information is spread (and plot hooks dropped) as they rely on travelers to share what is new "down the road". Consider the local Lord that collects a bed tax in exchange for protection from the outside baddies. Everybody wins.
How is this the first time Im seeing your channel?! THIS is the fantastic kind of DM inspiration content Ive been looking for! Well thought out detail, and reason behind each decision.
So I have had in the past, not sure if I still do, several terms for various types of places offering various types of reprieve.
The regular "play to stay" list was
1. Hotels
2. Inns
3. Taverns
4. Hostels
5. encampments.
Places like staying with monks or peasants were also options
The idea is that the nicer you go, the better treatment you get and therefore the more of your stats get replenished and less likely you are to be attacked.
You can do this with other things too.
Is it a Vineyard? A distillery? A brewery? A bar? An alehouse? All of those are different levels of (pretty much) the same thing. Vineyards make wine and so they are the most expensive, but best for your soul. Alehouses are rolling the dice (literally) on if this new drink will help or actually hurt you
Huh! Great video, my mate. Got it randomly recommended and watched the whole thing. I don't have a lot to say but I want to leave a comment for algorithm to feed on. I might add that I really like your tone of voice and choice of words, on top of the matter obviously. I'm leaving a Sub so see you next time and GL out there because this channel seems to be deserving more attention surely.
Just as a thought, perhaps the inns would actually be slightly closer (or trying to fill in), and have it be something like the Pony Express where it's basically the distance to run a horse to near exhaustion as a messenger system there as well. While there's magic for faster communication, it's more difficult to send packages and similar or deal with some things that might be needed that way.
I love how well thought out this is! It makes me want to run a game with this in mind.
I very much enjoyed this video. may I ask about the music used?
Love the focus on inns! It was a big sticking point for my current world building to get these right! For a resting mechanic, I’d introduce fatigue back as a mechanic (perhaps retooled) that requires players to make checks/saves when resting rough. Such checks are helped/hindered by supplies, weather, condition, etc. or outright negated with certain things like special items, comforts, food (to encourage cooking/cooking classes if allowed). On the topic of hospitality, when inns aren’t available, things like favors or helping with chores like cooking would be a great way for adventurers to find accommodations.
Someone with leatherworking proficiency can more easily score room and board with a local tanner, or be put up in a large family home when a cook, or even nab a room in the alehouse if a brewer! And the more artisanal skills might offer one extended stay at a local lord’s manor in exchange for an art piece or restoration or appraisal!
The more academically minded might be able to house in the local wizard’s tower in exchange for swapping spells or scrolls (though for price that would be an extended stay or guaranteed hospitality on future visits). Or perhaps universities offer room and board for varying reasons. Students might have be charged to their grant or their own school foots any bills (if perhaps they’re adventuring for semi-academic purposes like archeological digs and delves), or are welcomed on standing for graduates, or in exchange for guest lectures on niche or highly specialized topics like ruins, spellcraft, runework, potions.
Of course a world might give special titles to especially famous and successful adventurers and their parties for services rendered, and as a way to bridge (or keep control over) their social class as very wealthy and skilled people. Thus at some point said adventurers might simply impose on lords directly, or be granted hospitality by even royals! But before even that, if someone like a fighter is a military veteran room could be provided at forts, guardhouses, or barracks. Mercenaries might have a code of hospitality to friendly companies.
And of course established adventuring guilds may be the ones tasked with operating these remote, rural, and wayward inns. Such groups might require constant communications and run vast networks, thus their letter & parcel runners need guaranteed lodging. Such in s might also be joint ventures with merchant guilds for the shared purpose of travel safety, and might even double as factories, farms, or ranches given sufficient land. Even without a direct investment from a merchant guild these things might still be found among rural inns simply as a vast revenue source, a way to keep up food supplies both for normal patronage and for emergencies. Some of the best vintage might come from such places disconnected from the density, grime, and waste of urban centers.
Many of these inns can also be villas that are owned (if not also operated or lived in) by local or distant lords. Perhaps even royals invest in villas that double as inns for revenue, with separate accommodation for the owner. Perhaps these are even operated by the manor lords as real resorts on beaches or hot springs!
The possibilities are endless!
Very interesting stuff to hear, especially as someone trying to conceptualize a fantasy world in a more modern setting. How I've thought of it is a set of guilds that are privately owned but part of an organization, licensing adventurers & handing out quests. Most guilds also house inns, bars/restaurants, maybe an emergency clinic for the injured, and sometimes an info broker to sell valuable intel. They could even help out with things such as currency exchange, travel guidance, translation, or the search/distribution of equipment. Essentially an almost all-in-one fantasy tavern with a bit more structure.
Excellent work, as always, Tom!
What a fantastic video. This is such a fascinating perspective, I can't wait to steal the idea of fortified inns for my own games.
So, in a campaign I'm currently writing, I'm actually adopting something similar in the sense of noble sponsorship.
It's gonna be a massive dungeon crawl, so heading back to town isn't really gonna be much of an option, although the party themselves is merely a forward expeditionary force to clear out the way ahead so that the main camp can reposition deeper into the dungeon. As a result, money isn't really gonna be useful or easy to spend, so, before they go off to the dungeon itself, each party member is given a chit worth 50k gp to gear up and be ready for the dangers ahead. This is a large part of the budget of the entire expedition, but it's the most important part because, without that group, it would be very hard to explore. The party members are also meant to be experts in their respective fields (think Oceans 11 or any heist movie you've seen), so they're not gonna come cheap, and they're further incentivized to do the job with a greater reward upon completion. A "proper" adventure.
Except it's a horror campaign where each party member has a history and grudge against at least one of the others so they have to either let go of those grudges for their common benefit, even if it means benefitting someone they hate, or struggle to survive with constant infighting and shifts of group dynamics, all while exploring an impossibly huge structure built more than 10,000 years prior that is basically trying to eat them at every step.
It is with great love and interest for this specific content that i can not help connect the dots between past videos, their information and the very potentials they breed forth. With here a potential government investing in inns, there an adventurer guild becoming governmental on it's own. even the change in farms as those to bless growth pass by. would this not cause a metric butt load of tiny countries ruled over by those deeming themselves king? or giant courts found by the magically inclined, as those with the idea to enchant golems with a potential to bless grounds to promote growth to do the rounds around adventurer inns. around which farmers could gather bringing wealth to create larger inns and bigger centralised castles. with every seperate "Country" at this point having one mage-city and many still fantastical castles... Or dwarven mountains...
The more i listen, the more i think. the more i think, the more i add, the more i add, the more i need to know... The more i need to know, the more i want this content... addictive if anything.
This said. for a campaign of my own set in the world of Azeroth, i am breaking my absolute head over the thought of what magic, engineering and the combination there in actually brings to camping gear. there are many channels and people speaking on this, perhaps you, Tom, have touched on this aswell, even if i could not find or remember it. Still i would adore to hear your thoughts on the matter in full, should you ever get around to it.
What's that blue dragon stuffy on your shelf? Is it trying to eat the orange frog or is it merely conversing?
I hadn’t thought of that in my world. But it gives me ideas.
One country of my world is highly magically developed and has a main road that runs between most towns and cities and has guard posts, but the towns can be days or even weeks apart on foot. Thematically, the army and adventuring guilds are used to dispose of any “aggressive” creatures found near this road or any villages. This leads to many adventuring-type guilds each having their own theme that leaves them unique in either a type of magic or in the type of jobs they take. Some a para military while others are effectively just hired guards for traveling merchant and crafting guilds.
This leads me to the idea that there would also be another guild within all of those, a type of travelers guild. They build small inns within a day’s travel of each other along this main road. And these inns would generally have a shared room or two along with a private room or two and a small stable and even a special barn for special cargo. Anyone using this barn would be given a special necklace with a key on it. This barn would have a special lock that would only open to that key and the inn keeper’s master key. However, if anyone was to open the door or get into the barn without that special key being present an alarm would be set off that would alert the inn keeper, wielder of the key, and nearby guard’s post.
Along with all of this these inns would have nightly prices. Though, most guilds pay for reduced prices by paying a weekly or monthly fee for certain individuals to always have certain privileges.
For example: the special barn may cost a gold for per night, making a week long trip cost a whopping 7 gold. Which is too expensive for those traveling to only make a low amount of gold overall, but for those selling fine silks and magical wares is fairly cheap for the nightly protection of guards and a warm bed. So a guild might pay 5 gold per week to the traveler’s guild for special medallions that they give to their highest profiting merchants, to ensure their safe travel. With of course multiple options for those needing only stables and a bed or wanting private rooms.
Thoughtful talk-out of a tavern essay. After listening to your points I would now imagine that the 'inn/tavern' that is welcoming 'adventurers' would most likely be in a mercantile district as opposed to a jovial residential situation. Along with that they may even have a writ restricting them to that portion of the city.
My friend had An Inn And "Tavern" in our main city the Inn was essentially a large hotel near the cities public bathhouse, across from the castles gates within the walls, the tavern was outside the walls in thr village, and was only open select days while the Inn was always open, they didnt serve beer until after around 6 pm equivilant, the rest of the tavern acted as a gathering hall for the guilds to post jobs, where as the upstairs had the rooms for rent spacous enough for each to host a part of around 4, it was the central building aside from the proper castle/fort and the church happened to be next door closer to the gates, the bathhouse nextdoor close to the docks where merchant ships and the fishermens guild was setup, behind it was the crafts guilds marketplace, each of the actual craftsmen had thier shops proper outside the walls. I really liked thebserup it felt like this Inn was the centeral hotel and town somewhat an extention of the town square between it and the gatehouse leading to the inner walls and castles moat, you entered the city via the gates passing the church before encountering the Inn and the townsquare infront of it, the docks led straight to the town square, and you could see the bathhouse just off to the corner of the Inn, was always odd having to go around the inn for the marketplace, he should ofnset it up on the docks
When I did the West Highland Way in Scotland there are a few of these wilderness taverns still in operation. It's a great way to put yourself in the shoes of a fantasy adventurer
I see so many fantasy settings have an adventurer's guild whose base is a fantasy tavern. Apart from fantasy taverns never existed, adventurer's guild also never existed. Some things that come close to an adventurer's guild would be pilgrims or crusaders but in fantasy an adventuring party usually consists of the typical trope: an attacker (usually swordsman), a healer/spell caster (usually wand/staff), a support (usually archer/rapier-style), and a tank (usually full plated armour).
A small stone keep that acts as an outpost with a walled yard and a stable, with attached inn and dining hall would probably be sponsored by the local lord and placed in a small town that is profitable enough to warrant a small permanent garrison of gaurds but not enough for any other form of defensive structures outside a small wood fence.
A large town or small city would probably see the old small keep/inn become entirely dedicated to barracks and the city gaurd and would develop dedicated facilities for an inn, stable, and local food stalls would take the place of the former dining hall, small offices or guild branches would be found here.
In large cities if the old multipurpose keep still exists it would either have been sold off and became a guild hall, or probably has been refitted to serve as a jail with a small constable garrision, but large guild headquaters and other advanced buisness or structures now are the primary places of gathering and many small inns, hotels, or boarding houses are found all over .
These are primarily for caravaners, merchants, people of hire (guards, blacksmiths, masons, ect.) Mercenarys would be expected to stowe away weapoms in these locations, as would they post wanted posters, and message boards, often used by those seeking help or offering services.
Well that was very informative, got a bit of a history lesson/camping guide to go along with future campaign ideas.
Making a really good argument for murder hobos, adventurers closest proxy in medieval society would indeed be bandits.
That being said imposing upon your own social class for hospitality might be very difficult depending on just how free that social class were. In an actualy medieval setting you would likely be restricted to monasteries if you weren't travelling with a retinue of some wealth, even a farm owner probably too high on the pecking order to put up with you.
I love this! It is bice to have idea to bring travel to life and bring ppl into the heart of the world. I would love to hear more about your mechanical set ups and other world building to make finding good places to stat nore important, raising the stakes!
This gave me so many good ideas for my campaign. Thank you very much.
Our local area had a classic traveler in where it was part restaurant, part inn, part repair shop back when we had wagons they were the only thing on the road and you either stopped or camped cuz the towns it sat between took 2 days to ride to for another in. They'd only serve meals to those staying and they'd sell the room before the nightly cerfew meal.
thanks again tom. brilliant channel you’re running here :)
Its also very interesting because traveller's resthouses and feasting halls were very much a part of Irish history, which was very heavily based around the hospitality offered to those travelling between the many kingdoms
I don't know what the requirements for a "fantasy tavern" are to you but even a wild west saloon feels pretty close... 200 years ago and for quite some time before, taverns/saloons were built as hotels and drinking/eating spots and towns were literally built around them. The tavern was the community forum of its day, the US Marine Corps was born in a Tavern, men were recruited in taverns. So minus the elves, and I guess middle-earth movie styling, fantasy taverns aren't all that "fantasy".
Could you imagine an inn on a well traveled and protected road. Giant pot of food simmering, local beer, and small rooms available to rest under a roof. I can't imagine these didnt exist. Its seems like such a no brainer.
I think its because most people didn't travel much at all and stayed in their villages.
I finally did it! I made the channel. Thank you for inspiring me to take the first steps. I couldn't have done it without you.
In my campaign 43 years ago, my NPC ruler made considerable political use of the adventuring party when they became powerful. There was a powerful lich who controlled half of the kingdom as it had existed a century earlier. The remaining state was rule by three warlords one of which was the King. In theory, the other two lords were vassals of the King, but one of the other lords, a rival to the King, ruled lands containing just over half the population of the kingdom and so was more powerful than the King.
The King formed a relation with the party on their way up and when they had taken out the lich, offering lordships to three of the party members in exchange for their funding the immigration of people from the civilized lands to the South into the empty land that had been under the control of the lich. The party spent much of their loot on this project and on building their keeps. One of the players was an architecture student and he made drawings of the keeps. As a result of their efforts the area of the country doubled and its population rose by 2/3's over a period of 15 years. This created three vassals loyal to the King and reduced to population share of the King's rival to 30%. The King's faction was now by far the stronger and he was able to rule the kingdom in more than just in name.
These are really great ideas. another is the roman period mansio. they were specifically stops placed about a day's march apart, for messengers, couriers, and the higher ranking members of society. basically anybody involved with the government or military other than common soldiers, and paid for by government tax, as long as you're from the government or military, or by donation, if you just want a place to sleep the night and have cash on hand. it matches your fortified inn description quite well.
I really think having a calibration of rest periods account for the need of such a proper resting, within a safe-ish structure is something very enriching for fantasy RPGs
The 16th minute about the inn in the wilderness being hard to maintain, because monsters would want to get their hands on all the stuff in there, gave me an idea for a plot twist: the innkeeper is the monster and travelers are the "stuff in there".
I really would recommend you check out 1st and 2nd edition.
Because that thing you talked about about the fortified Manor houses possibly being gifted to adventurers. Once they are famous enough.
Remind me quite a bit of a feature that fighters had until 3rd edition.
Copied from the aD&D 2e player's handbook
When a fighter attains 9th level (becomes a “Lord”), he can automatically attract men-at-arms. These soldiers, having heard of the
fighter, come for the chance to gain fame,
adventure, and cash. They are loyal as long as
they are well-treated, successful, and paid
well. Abusive treatment or a disastrous campaign can lead to grumbling, desertion, and
possibly mutiny. To attract the men, the fighter
must have a castle or stronghold and sizeable
manor lands around it. As he claims and rules this land, soldiers journey to his domain, thereby increasing his power. Furthermore,
the fighter can tax and develop these lands,
gaining a steady income from them. Your DM
has information about gaining and running a
barony
The most realistic medieval tavern/inn I've seen was in The book of the new sun by Gene Wolfe, which is strange, because it's sci-fi. Nowhere else I've seen unacquainted people sharing beds in an inn
As an extension of this you could go over how a small community would be setup in fantasy
One thing about the renting a bed you left out was that it was also common for places to not even give a bed. Just the right to curl up in a corner on the floor.
This is really thought-provoking. I'm world-building a setting inspired by the migration period (500-1000 A.D.), and this makes me think that in a world where D&D-style adventurers exist, feudalism would develop both much more quickly and in a very different way. Castle towns wouldn't so much grow around the seats of aristocratic warlords and their families, like they did in the real world, as around the settlements of adventurer guilds.
Where have you been all my adventuring life?!?! You have a new subscriber.
The fantasy tavern seems most related to a midcentury Howard Johnson's. Hot food and lodging on the same site from the same ownership establishment, offered separately or on the same bill. Both travelers and locals coming to eat are expected to arrive by car so ample free parking is part of the business model (fantasy taverns offer stable for horses but this is usually glossed over in such a way that the reader isn't in on the additional complexities vs. shutting off a machine they'll be switching back on in the morning to continue the journey).
Excellent info! I knew some of this, but not much.
I first came across this concept about 10 years ago in a warhammer fantasy book. (Gotrek and Felix) and thought it was cool and sensible enough that I have been using it in my fantasy tabletop games ever since.
Yes tavern was added on like something and tavern I think at one point steak and ale restaurant chain had something like that food and tavern or something like that but I could be mistaken.
Enjoyed the video. You may want to turn the music down in the mix, it's a little loud.
In the story I'm writing, there aren't any taverns and my characters don't do much traveling (Its actually illigal for one of them to leave the temple he lives in), but a lot of people come to this temple and it becomes somewhat known locally as a freindly place to gather. Similar to like a church. You go there to worship and socialize a bit with people who are maybe similar in some way, but not nessicarrily. I have one scene planned where the temple is running low on funds and patrons, so to increase both, they deside to host a sort of winter festival. Usually this isn't really done in their religion, but there is a large christian influence in the area, so a lot of local buissnesses will host something similar. The temple has theres a few weeks after everyone else and advertizes it towards families with small children. There is snowball fights, a snowman building cometition, and hot chocolate mixed in with a religious service. It ends up being a hit and other temples in the area take note once they catch wind of what was going on. Idk why exactly, but I felt like this sort of setting and the taverns in your video were sort of similar? Nobody is getting drunk or staying the night though unless they live at the temple already. My story could be desribed as low fantasy as monsters don't really exist, all the characters are human, and the only sort of Magic is the special ability you were born with. Almost everyone has one. However, I peg it more in dark/historical fantasy. It takes place in a fictional version of 1800s China, my Main character has the ability to heal people (from illnesses, hes not great at healing injuries). But, he has to take on those illnesses himself.