Party Stronghold — Old Administrative Quarter
A narrow three-story stone house pressed between a chandler's shop and a shuttered counting house, close enough to the canal road that you can smell the water on wet mornings. The walls are thick — solid work, older than the current city quarter — but the years show. Warped shutters hang off-true on their hinges. The iron lantern bracket beside the door holds nothing but rust and a bird's abandoned nest.
The Prince granted the building without ceremony, through his majordomo. A sealed note. A key wrapped in oilcloth. The message was clear enough: a place to work, meet, and recover, away from the court's eyes.
When you push the door open for the first time, a drift of cold air moves through the ground floor and something small skitters in the storage room. On the long table in the common room, someone has left a single tallow stub burned down to nothing — and beside it, a tin cup still faintly stained with old wine.
"The house has good bones. It only needs people who intend to use it." — Marik Feld, caretaker
The Building
The building is respectable enough that no one will bother you, but neglected enough that no one will envy it.
• Weathered stone facade, darkened by canal fog and decades of soot
• Rusting iron lantern bracket beside the front door — the lantern itself is long gone
• Narrow windows with warped shutters; most no longer latch properly
• Small walled courtyard at the rear, choked with dead weeds and cracked flagstone
• Collapsed stable shed in the courtyard — roof caved in, though the timbers may be salvageable
The ground floor is divided into two rooms.
• Common Room
◦ Long table, scarred from years of use, with mismatched chairs
◦ Cold hearth with cracked stonework — draws poorly if the wind is wrong
◦ Drafty front door; the lock is simple and the fit is poor
◦ Loose floorboards near the hearth — they creak, but one near the storage room is worse than creak; it flexes under weight
• Storage Room
◦ Empty crates, old shelving, and three locked cabinets from the building's registry days
◦ Marik has no key for the cabinets
Second Floor
• Three sleeping rooms — simple rope beds, worn but usable blankets
• The walls between rooms are thin; conversations carry
• One room has a window latch that won't close fully against the cold
• Meeting room with a round table and outdated city maps pinned to the wall
• The stairs creak loudly on the third and seventh step
• A tall standing desk and shelves of old scroll tubes, mostly surveying records
• Narrow balcony overlooking the street
• Quieter than the floors below; harder to observe from outside
• Leaks when it rains — a bucket is already positioned under the worst spot
• One section of floor near the balcony door feels soft underfoot
• Reached by stone stairs from the ground floor
• Cool, close, and damp — smells of old iron and canal water
• Mostly empty wine racks; a few bottles of something unlabeled remain
• Several old lockboxes, rusted shut
• A drainage channel cut into the floor running toward the canal wall
The Lantern House is liveable, but it is not fortified. Until repairs are made, it offers no defensive advantages.
What it does offer: privacy, legitimate cover as a residence, and a location that most people in the quarter regard as unremarkable.
Known Problems
• Door locks are weak — a determined intruder would not be delayed long
• Roof leaks during heavy rain
• Courtyard is overgrown and unusable
• Cellar is damp
• Furniture throughout is worn and mismatched
• Safe place to rest without paying Lifestyle cost
• Secure storage for gear and valuables
• Private location for meetings and planning
• +1 to Networking and Streetwise rolls when gathering information locally — the neighborhood knows this building as neutral ground
An aging man with the unhurried manner of someone who has stopped being surprised by things. He was left by the prince's majordomo to watch over the property. He keeps the cellar dry, notices when things are moved, and does not ask questions about your work or your hours.
• Quiet, polite, and observant
• Knows the neighborhood well — and is known in return
• Will handle basic maintenance and act as a point of contact with local tradespeople
• Not much for conversation, but not unfriendly either
He seems to have been here longer than the assignment strictly required. He has not offered an explanation for this, and seems unsurprised that no one has asked.
Basic enquiries around the quarter — a few conversations at the tavern, a word with the chandler next door — turn up the following:
• The building was a government surveyor's registry for many years. Tax records, property surveys, that sort of thing. Dull work. Nobody is surprised it sat empty.
• The registry closed some years back when the administrative quarter shifted toward the new civic hall. The building changed hands quietly after that.
• The locked cabinets in the storage room were there when the surveyors arrived. No one seems to know who they originally belonged to.
• The neighbourhood regards the building as respectable but unremarkable. A few residents remember lights in the windows at odd hours, years ago, but no one paid it much mind.
Further investigation — deeper contacts, archival research, or pressing Marik — may turn up more. The building’s history before the surveyor’s registry is not common knowledge.
The house has clear potential. The following improvements have been identified as viable, pending resources and time:
• Reinforced Door and Locks — proper ironwork and quality locks; Marik knows a locksmith who works quietly
• Courtyard Clearance and Training Yard — clear the rubble, re-lay flagstone, add a weapons rack; requires clearing the collapsed stable first
• Cellar Vault — secure hidden storage for valuables
• Arcane Study — convert the third-floor office into a proper workspace; +1 to Occult and Research rolls
• Servant Quarters — proper staff accommodation; would allow a hireling to live on-site
• Library — reference materials and contacts; bonus to information-gathering rolls
• Ward Sigils — protective marks worked into the thresholds; requires finding the right caster
• Secret Exit — the cellar drainage channel runs toward the canal; the stonework suggests it may have served a secondary purpose before