Donder's Dancing Masques

Donder's Dancing Masques, also known as the Tavern of the Masques was a hot, unruly, and loud tavern in Tharkar of the Free Cities of Parsanic. The tavern served strong drinks, comfort food, and was often filled with sailors and pirates.

"The Masques was a chaos of splintering furniture, screams, breaking glass, oaths, and flailing fists. Bunkmates and men who were utter strangers were pounding each other for no reason at all but the drink and the pent-up anger of desperate men who spend their days in danger and discomfort and see a ready foe to lash out at."

- The excerpt from The Mercenaries

Structure
The Tavern of the Masques had a swirling carved signboard banner that hung on top of the main entrance, the sign read "Donder's Dancing Masques".

The sprawling building of Donder's Dancing Masques stood in the overgrowth of tallgrass and had a spacious taproom with a copper-topped bar. A large smoky hearth took over one end of the taproom. The doors to the kitchen were wide open, radiating heavy heat, steam, and aromas into the taproom. The kitchen was filled with vats of hot spiced fat and countless chopping board.

Atmosphere
The hot taproom was often full to the brim, loud, busy with sweating rowdy pirates and regulars. The main room was roaring with cackling, loud voices, sea shanties, and arguments. The raucous could e defining to the folk who was not used to such places.

The smell inside the tavern was an interesting mixture of cooking food, spilled ale, pipe tobacco, and sweat.

Staff
Even though the place was called Donder's Dancing Masques, by 1377 DR none inside remembered Donder himself. The main gate was manned with muscular hired guards who tried their best to keep order and made sure the guests of the Masques left their arms in the weapon-check rooms. When very common bar fights broke out, the guards were ready to summon the Daggers of Tharkar, the group that passed for the local law enforcement.

The cooks in the hellishly hot kitchen wore only one article of clothing - a side-towel wrapped around their foreheads to stop the abundant sweating from getting into their eyes.

The waitresses wore thin leather strips with bells to announce their presence and skillfully dodged greedy hands, flirted with the clients, and balanced trays of foods and libations. They wore leather leg-bags to stuff with tipped coins. In 1377 DR one of that waitresses was a priestess of Umberlee who wore a garb of seaweed and was free from harassment of the sea-faring folks.

Services
The kitchen served deeply satisfying comfort fare, greasy sizzling stuffed boar, roasted almonds, fried mushrooms in herb butter, stagshead soup, and roasted poultry in rich wine sauce.

The main star of the Tavern of the Masques was plentiful alcohol served to the thirsty crowds. The guests could find the most exotic bottles from across the world, from the brewers of legendary and obscure names. The bartenders masterfully mixed drinks with various additives, dyes, sugars to quench the thirsty clientele. Most of the pirates and sailors were more than happy to drink anything that could be served to them.

Patronage
The Masques was infamous for its clientele that often consisted of pirates that called Tharkar their home port. Almost all residents and visitors of Tharkar came to the Masques to eat, drink, share stories, and boast about their adventurers. The locals tended to clear out when the sea dogs'ships came into the harbor.

History
In 1377 DR, Belmer Droon visited the Tavern of the Masques in search of a group of experienced hirelings to find and assassinate Eidola of Neverwinter for reasons he kept to himself. He was able to find a group of seven Sharkers, of the recently destroyed Kissing Shark ship of a known pirate Blackfingers Ralingor. Shortly after a usual brawl broke out, Belmer helped the Sharkers to avoid city guards and set them on their mission.

Appearances

 * Novels
 * The Mercenaries