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Eyes on Neverwinter: The Clockwork Den Inn
Archived Post
Member Posts: 5,050,278 Bounty Hunter
Hope you'll enjoy reading. A little warning first: English is not my native tongue, so be gentle with criticism, please. 
"...
Eyes on Neverwinter (EoNW)
The Clockwork Den Inn
“By the Clocks of Neverwinter…”
Not few in the Realms know of this swearing words to mock one’s honesty.
The sad truth is fewer and fewer remember the water clocks of the City of Skilled Hands in the dark days we’re living in, the originators of the words above.
The city itself lost a lot of it’s famous clocks in the disaster of 1451 DR.
But one strangely outlast until today.
It’s what this scroll is about.
Near the north most point of Neverwinter’s Protector’s Enclave, settled between the House of Knowledge in the east and the destroyed Dolphin Bridge in the west, stand one of the mostly underestimated yet wondrous buildings of the Jewel of the North:
The Clockwork Den Inn.
Once a clock tower of nearly a hundred feet high, build under the patronage of the gone merchant house of Glintcoin; imagined, designed and crafted by the docil mind of the Lantanese gnome thinker Blimth the Soaking, the crumbled building beneath the now fallen tower houses a small yet enchanting tavern.
A calm, well-nigh peacefully place used mostly by the richer commoners of the Enclave, the Clockwork Den is a solemnly named insider tip of the many street guides creeping through the Lord Protector’s streets. While most of the traveling folk or returning citizens seldom gave the Inn a second thought, it is still worth a look for the seekers of astonishment.
Regarding art, craft, magic and knowledge the Clockwork Den Inn is a notable concentration point for the scholarly mind.
And board and lodging are not worse either.
Looking upon the ruined stones of the once mercantile establishment of the Glintcoins nobody would suspect a well constructed taproom within.
The entrance is unobtrusively set (sharp tongues would say well hidden) on the waterfront of the backside of the old house.
A small brittle footbridge guided the future guests into the ground near the waterline of the river.
To understand the awe and amazement of lots of former visitors you have to know two things about the Clockwork Den Inn:
Firstly the whole structure of “Ol’ Glintcoin Estate an’ Store” -as toppled and broken as it is- has been masterfully holed out and was rebuild inside only. Secondly does the whole construction of Blimth’s grand water clock still stand and work. The whole Inn is build around and within its magical supported but still by-hand created gadgetry.
Even as the huge clock display on the outside doesn’t count the time as it should (the owner use to tell all too-clever rubbernecks that the display “shows always the right time when the time is right”). The smaller displays within every room runs smoothly.
The bedrooms are carved deeper into the earth and well luxuriously filled with Calim-Slik bedclothes and Cormanthan Wood furniture. Bedrooms where only well-heeled sages may sleep well as the saying goes.
The taproom is huge compared to the other rooms, having place for almost twenty round tables for four to six guests. Drinks are often refilled by the staff and the chef tent to know his art well. The dishes are tasty and mostly local in nature, special dishes are made for regulars with bigger pockets.
Three separees are made for guest, who are not that willing to share the taproom with others.
Two of them can be appointed two tendays ahead: the “Basin” at the center of the clock and the “Gear” almost above it.
The third of the rooms, the “Droplet” is always reserved for a special group naming the Inn their headquarter: the Clockwork Den Scribblers, a group of likeminded scholars or wannabes of this profession with the Oghma- pleasing aim to write down the events unfolding in Neverwinter since the uprising of Lord Protector Neverember and re-rebuild the sealed library of the House of Knowledge from without. Head of this gathering every tenday is the last remaining Quill of Oghma and former foundling of Brother Anthus, Sevren Inkglee.
The most remarkable room of the Clockwork Den Inn is the so called “Timeless Garden”, the elitist heart of the Inn. It’s open only by invitation of the owner, the shield dwarf Dramnbel Diurik.
Based on all evidence collectable it’s a kind of closed, underground, free-aired, Neverwinter Garden of Old Skills where the most beautiful of flowers flourish. Whatever that means…
This are my two coins about the Clockwork Den Inn at Neverwinter so far.
More word may follow if you liked what you read.
Hereby I just like to remind you, dear readers, that there is more to Neverwinter than sinister plots and destruction on the streets.
There are beautiful signs too.
Or shall I say clocks?
Yours sincerely
Amen Vhasterdaiyn
..."
"...
Eyes on Neverwinter (EoNW)
The Clockwork Den Inn
“By the Clocks of Neverwinter…”
Not few in the Realms know of this swearing words to mock one’s honesty.
The sad truth is fewer and fewer remember the water clocks of the City of Skilled Hands in the dark days we’re living in, the originators of the words above.
The city itself lost a lot of it’s famous clocks in the disaster of 1451 DR.
But one strangely outlast until today.
It’s what this scroll is about.
Near the north most point of Neverwinter’s Protector’s Enclave, settled between the House of Knowledge in the east and the destroyed Dolphin Bridge in the west, stand one of the mostly underestimated yet wondrous buildings of the Jewel of the North:
The Clockwork Den Inn.
Once a clock tower of nearly a hundred feet high, build under the patronage of the gone merchant house of Glintcoin; imagined, designed and crafted by the docil mind of the Lantanese gnome thinker Blimth the Soaking, the crumbled building beneath the now fallen tower houses a small yet enchanting tavern.
A calm, well-nigh peacefully place used mostly by the richer commoners of the Enclave, the Clockwork Den is a solemnly named insider tip of the many street guides creeping through the Lord Protector’s streets. While most of the traveling folk or returning citizens seldom gave the Inn a second thought, it is still worth a look for the seekers of astonishment.
Regarding art, craft, magic and knowledge the Clockwork Den Inn is a notable concentration point for the scholarly mind.
And board and lodging are not worse either.
Looking upon the ruined stones of the once mercantile establishment of the Glintcoins nobody would suspect a well constructed taproom within.
The entrance is unobtrusively set (sharp tongues would say well hidden) on the waterfront of the backside of the old house.
A small brittle footbridge guided the future guests into the ground near the waterline of the river.
To understand the awe and amazement of lots of former visitors you have to know two things about the Clockwork Den Inn:
Firstly the whole structure of “Ol’ Glintcoin Estate an’ Store” -as toppled and broken as it is- has been masterfully holed out and was rebuild inside only. Secondly does the whole construction of Blimth’s grand water clock still stand and work. The whole Inn is build around and within its magical supported but still by-hand created gadgetry.
Even as the huge clock display on the outside doesn’t count the time as it should (the owner use to tell all too-clever rubbernecks that the display “shows always the right time when the time is right”). The smaller displays within every room runs smoothly.
The bedrooms are carved deeper into the earth and well luxuriously filled with Calim-Slik bedclothes and Cormanthan Wood furniture. Bedrooms where only well-heeled sages may sleep well as the saying goes.
The taproom is huge compared to the other rooms, having place for almost twenty round tables for four to six guests. Drinks are often refilled by the staff and the chef tent to know his art well. The dishes are tasty and mostly local in nature, special dishes are made for regulars with bigger pockets.
Three separees are made for guest, who are not that willing to share the taproom with others.
Two of them can be appointed two tendays ahead: the “Basin” at the center of the clock and the “Gear” almost above it.
The third of the rooms, the “Droplet” is always reserved for a special group naming the Inn their headquarter: the Clockwork Den Scribblers, a group of likeminded scholars or wannabes of this profession with the Oghma- pleasing aim to write down the events unfolding in Neverwinter since the uprising of Lord Protector Neverember and re-rebuild the sealed library of the House of Knowledge from without. Head of this gathering every tenday is the last remaining Quill of Oghma and former foundling of Brother Anthus, Sevren Inkglee.
The most remarkable room of the Clockwork Den Inn is the so called “Timeless Garden”, the elitist heart of the Inn. It’s open only by invitation of the owner, the shield dwarf Dramnbel Diurik.
Based on all evidence collectable it’s a kind of closed, underground, free-aired, Neverwinter Garden of Old Skills where the most beautiful of flowers flourish. Whatever that means…
This are my two coins about the Clockwork Den Inn at Neverwinter so far.
More word may follow if you liked what you read.
Hereby I just like to remind you, dear readers, that there is more to Neverwinter than sinister plots and destruction on the streets.
There are beautiful signs too.
Or shall I say clocks?
Yours sincerely
Amen Vhasterdaiyn
..."
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No. Really. Far.
- the history of Blimth's original clocktower
- the foundation
- the opening
- the staff
Aderfred Worthlyn
Zzeben, the silent guardian
- the regulars- the Scribblers
Beside the dwarven owner, who is not as good an innkeeper as he thought he would become, there are a few others worth mention.
Aderfred Worthlyn
The old geezer, somewhere in his sixth decade, is the last remaining descendant of the Waterdavian servant family Worthlyn, who had a highly prized contract with the Glintcoin family in the days before the Spellplague.
The strange rebuild of the Glintcoin Estate and the occurring reconstruction of Neverwinter as a whole drew Aderfred back into the streets of his forefather’s employer.
The contract between Bennson Worthlyn and Etheen Glintcoin, set in 1371 DR under the sigil of a Tyr cleric by the name of Vesdan Justhand, is still in place. Based on the records found in the Worthlyn Mansion in Waterdeeep’s Trade Ward (nowadays home of a small attendant guild) all three died while the Wailing Death stroke down hard on the Neverwintans.
Nevertheless the contracts of the Worthlyn family were costly and are still lifelong lasting.
Nobody truly knows how Dramnbel Diurik got his hands on the old parchment and made Aderfred accept to honor the old family bound to the Glintcoin Estate, but it worked grandly.
For roughly a dozen years now Aderfred act like the true innkeeper while Dramnbel more or less provide only the coinage to run the establishment.
He’s in charge of the staff and their shift schedule as of the regualars’ well-being.
His mannerisms set the code of behavior on both sides of the counter and he is not willing to accept fraud, crudeness and abuse in “his domicle”. A few had to learn it the hard way that it’s best not to tangle with him.
The aged majordomo seems always to be present at the inn and likely to correct some smaller mistakes made by the rest of the staff if any occur.
There’s a mocking smile hidden in the corner of his mouth, a calm tone in his smooth voice and –as some tend to tell- always another trick up his flouncy sleeves to astonish visitors and staff alike.
The 5’ 9’’ tall man often wears a tight black leather waistcoat over a white linen shirt with ruching and an also thigh leather trousers bound by a small, highly decorated belt with a silver buckle in form of deer antlers, beset with an ever-empty dagger sheath.
Asked of his own history and not the Estate’s one (which he knows by heart) Aderfred become a jesting storyteller for those who are willing to hear stories of a travelling hero’s servant rescuing his masters as often as he impossibly could had. His tales got popular over the years by staff and visitors, but were early discovered as fairy tales. Only one thing all stories have in common: they all tell how Aderfred lost his greatest gift given, his dagger.
A small monocle and his greased grayish hair rounds the picture of the scrawny, well-able host for the visitors of the Clockwork Den Inn.
Zzeben, the silent guardian
Even with little trouble expected at an unbeknown, small tavern like the Clockwork Den Inn, it never can be a bad idea to have some hired muscles around to throw out the unwanted, the trouble-makers or worse (there is a common dislike of obscure memberships in any larger organization by the Clockwork Den’s staff).
Beside the seldom seen fighting abilities of Aderfred or Dramnbel, there is one more man in the Den, that is used to fight: Zzeben.
The young male, not hitting his third decade yet, is tall and muscular. He reach 6 ‘ and is shaven-headed beside his well-trimmed whiskers and thick black eyebrows.
His sunburnt skin and his few, rarely shown possessions marks him a southlander. Some visitors claimed he said he is from Crimmor in far away Amn, but they obviously lied.
Zzeben can’t talk, he’s mute.
A very friendly lad in addition to it, almost polite towards all other folk entering, leaving or being at the Clockwork Den.
He uses a fairly uncommon sign language to communicate with Aderfred (who seems to understand him very well) or his unintentionally funny, yet quite understandable body language and mimic to talk with visitors (beside that it is easy imaginable how to throw someone out with an evil grin and gesture like Zzeben do it).
Showing off his trained body he only wears a simple black waistcoak (said to be a present from Aderfred), under which his massive breast hair growth is viewable, and as simple black shorts.
His ears, neck, wrists and fingers are overloaded with all kinds of amulets, rings, talismans and other warding hotchpotch. Seldom he can be seen without it. And as a sign of his disordered worries about evil possibly done to him, Zzeben changes the bits and pieces very often.
He had been seen in different stores with shady offerings of magical or clerical wardings of all trades against evil in all of Neverwinter.
For reasons unknown he doesn’t trust spellweavers and watches them with eagle eyes until they leave the inn.
The Scribblers on the other hand are friends to him since they gifted him a bracelet against bad dreams.
Behind his muscles and his superstitious oddities Zzeben is a loyal hand to the Clockwork Den Inn, a friend to Sevren and Aderfred and a romantic calligrapher, whom’s poems for the timid half-elven waitress Reejah were able to melt even the author’s heart of roughish demeanor (for just an evening of cause!).
Now and then in moment he felt unobserved Zzeben daydreams about times long gone, perhaps of his days in the south. Touching a small ring he always is wearing, showing an engraving of a domino mask pieced by a stiletto on a stone of onxy, and his smile left for a bidder cutthroat’s stare.
But only for a wink until his almost featherbrained smile returns.
As long as he’s not going to talk about his past, nobody will understand his motive to let himself be hired as the Clockwork Den’s guardian by Dramnbel.
And to him silence is golden…