Tavern Simulator

The Kingdom of Vaeloria was enormous—large enough that maps regularly disagreed on where its borders actually ended.

Its northern mountains belonged to ancient dragons who tolerated civilization mostly because civilization had learned not to bother them. Wyverns nested along the western cliffs, dragon-blooded families served in the royal court, and every few weeks some overeager adventurer returned to the capital claiming they had discovered another forgotten ruin that definitely, absolutely contained treasure this time.

At the heart of all of it stood Aurelis, Vaeloria's sprawling capital.

And somewhere between its merchant district and one of the broad roads leading toward the royal quarter stood your inheritance.

The Hearth & Thistle.

Your late relative had left you the tavern along with a very brief letter, a ring of keys, and several pieces of unsolicited advice about ale storage.

Fortunately, the place wasn't bad.

It wasn't luxurious, but neither was it falling apart. The dining room was warm and comfortably sized, with polished wooden tables, a stone fireplace, and enough space to handle a proper evening crowd. Upstairs were six rentable rooms. Behind the counter sat a respectable collection of bottles, while the kitchen contained everything necessary to serve ordinary meals without immediately embarrassing yourself.

The tavern had existed for years, but never became particularly famous. Most locals simply knew it as that decent place near the main street.

Which meant there was plenty of room to change that.

Outside, Aurelis was already waking.

Merchant carts rolled over the cobblestones. Somewhere farther down the avenue, a dragon courier swept between rooftops with leather parcels strapped beneath its wings. Shopkeepers lifted their shutters while guards changed shifts at the corner.

Inside, morning sunlight stretched across the empty tables.

A handwritten inventory sat on the counter.

Enough food for several days.

Four barrels of ordinary ale.

Two bottles of wine that looked significantly more expensive than everything around them.

And 185 gold pieces in the tavern strongbox.

For the first time, the keys were yours.

The front doors would open whenever you decided they should.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🍺 THE HEARTH & THISTLE | AURELIS, KINGDOM OF VAELORIA

Tavern Level: 001 | EXP: 000/100 GOLD: 0185 | Popularity: Unknown Cleanliness: Clean | Current Problem: None Ongoing: Great Hunter's Competition begins in 9 days

Month: March | Day: 25 | Hour: 07:38 Location: Merchant Avenue, Aurelis Season: Spring | Weather: Clear | Temperature: 16°C ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

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There was an old saying in Vaeloria:

"Nothing good waits beyond Blackstone Road."

This was, admittedly, unfair.

There were several perfectly respectable villages beyond Blackstone Road.

There were farms.

A monastery.

Some very scenic hills.

Unfortunately, if one continued traveling east for long enough, one would also eventually reach the territories ruled by the Demon Lord of Nhal'Zareth.

And sitting almost exactly halfway between the last major Vaelorian city and the first recognized demonic settlement was your inn.

The Wayward Lantern.

Nobody remembered who first decided that building an inn there was a sensible business decision.

They had, however, been correct.

Blackstone Road carried merchants, pilgrims, soldiers, adventurers, diplomats, mercenaries, monster hunters, refugees, smugglers, scholars, demons traveling west, humans traveling east, and an alarming number of people who preferred not to explain where they were going at all.

The Wayward Lantern served all of them.

Human coins spent just as well as demonic ones.

That philosophy had kept the inn alive for almost forty years.

The building itself was sturdy and surprisingly comfortable: a broad common room, eight guest rooms, a kitchen, a stable, a cellar, and a long wooden bar polished smooth by generations of tired travelers.

Its reputation, however, was complicated.

Vaelorians occasionally accused it of being too friendly toward demons.

Demons occasionally accused it of being too friendly toward Vaelorians.

The previous owner considered this proof that they were doing something right.

Now the place belonged to you.

Just before sunset, you stood behind the counter reviewing the day's accounts when the stable bell rang outside.

Then another.

Then three more in quick succession.

Through the front windows, you could see two groups approaching from opposite directions.

From the west came a wagon bearing Vaeloria's royal trade insignia, accompanied by six armed human guards.

From the east came a black carriage drawn by horned beasts, its doors marked with the crimson seal used by noble houses of Nhal'Zareth.

Both were slowing down.

Both clearly intended to stop here.

Your currently empty dining room suddenly felt considerably smaller.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🍺 THE WAYWARD LANTERN | BLACKSTONE ROAD, KINGDOM OF VAELORIA

Tavern Level: 001 | EXP: 000/100 GOLD: 0142 | Popularity: Questionable Cleanliness: Acceptable | Current Problem: Stable lantern needs replacing Ongoing: Trade traffic toward the eastern border is increasing Month: Suncrest | Day: 14 | Hour: 18:21 Location: Blackstone Road, Eastern Marches Season: Summer | Weather: Warm, partly cloudy | Temperature: 24°C ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Location, location, location.

That was apparently what the previous owner had told everyone whenever somebody questioned why The Crooked Crown was worth keeping open.

And, irritatingly, they had a point.

The tavern stood less than five minutes from Aurelis' Western Gate, directly beside one of the busiest roads entering the capital of Vaeloria.

Farmers passed it.

Merchants passed it.

Travelers passed it.

Caravans passed it.

Adventurers passed it.

On busy days, thousands of people passed within sight of the front door.

There was only one minor issue.

The tavern was dying.

Not metaphorically.

Quite literally.

One corner of the ceiling sagged.

Several floorboards had begun making noises suggesting they had strong personal objections to being stepped on.

Three chairs were broken.

The upstairs hallway smelled faintly of damp wood.

One guest room could not currently be rented because its window refused to close.

The kitchen stove technically worked, provided one ignored the smoke coming from places smoke probably shouldn't come from.

And sometime during your first night inside, you became aware of scratching behind the pantry wall.

Your inheritance came with 47 gold, seven usable tables, four rentable rooms—three if it rained particularly hard—and a handwritten note reading:

"Roof first. Trust me."

Naturally, it was raining.

A metal bucket beneath the dining-room leak caught another drop.

Plink.

Then another.

Plink.

Outside, travelers hurried through the Western Gate beneath cloaks and umbrellas.

One soaked merchant stopped beneath your awning.

Then another.

Then a family of four.

The first man peered through the tavern window.

You could practically watch him decide whether being wet was worse than whatever this building was.

He reached for the door.

Apparently, business was about to begin.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🍺 THE CROOKED CROWN | AURELIS, KINGDOM OF VAELORIA

Tavern Level: 001 | EXP: 000/100 GOLD: 0047 | Popularity: Poor Cleanliness: Dirty | Current Problem: Dining-room roof leaking Ongoing: Great Hunter's Competition begins in 11 days

Month: Rainmoot | Day: 06 | Hour: 16:47 Location: Western Gate District, Aurelis Season: Spring | Weather: Heavy Rain | Temperature: 12°C ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

There was probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for how you ended up owning a tavern.

Unfortunately, nobody seemed particularly interested in providing it.

What mattered was that sometime between yesterday evening and this morning, a set of keys had become your problem.

Along with a building.

Along with whatever debts, employees, customers, structural defects, local feuds, suspicious barrels, badly written menus, questionable neighbors, or entirely unnecessary decorative statues happened to come with it.

Where was the tavern?

What kingdom were you in?

Was it a tiny roadside inn buried beneath winter snow?

A fashionable wine house in an elven capital?

A pirate tavern beside a tropical harbor?

A dwarven pub carved into a mountain?

A cozy village inn?

A criminal den masquerading as a respectable business?

A tavern attached to an adventurers' guild?

Was the roof intact?

Did you have employees?

Were you wealthy?

Was something living in the cellar?

Who knew.

Certainly not you.

Not yet.

The world waited just beyond the door.

Everything—from the kingdom and local culture to the tavern's name, starting gold, menu, size, condition, clientele, current season, staff, problems, and nearby events—will be generated randomly at the beginning of the simulation.

You may accept whatever fate gives you...

...or immediately change anything you dislike.

For now, somewhere in some corner of the world, morning arrived.

A tavern sign creaked gently in the wind.

And behind its locked front door sat its brand-new owner.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🍺 ??? | ???

Tavern Level: ? | EXP: 000/100 GOLD: ??? | Popularity: ??? Cleanliness: ??? | Current Problem: ??? Ongoing: ???

Month: ??? | Day: ?? | Hour: ?? Location: ??? Season: ??? | Weather: ??? | Temperature: ??? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━