The Raging Lion
This little-known, fine old inn is highly recommended. Dominated by dark wood paneling, thick but worn carpets underfoot everywhere, and a strict rule against open flames of any sort including smoking, it is a quiet refuge from the bustle of the city being as close to the east wall as one can get. Light is provided by an assortment of glowing globes of different hues.
Dwarves and at least three bands of lady adventurers have adopted this place. Some live here permanently, helping the proprietor keep order, and others use it as a base between expeditions into the northern Sword Coast. The Swordmaidens in particular are an impressive sight as they stride through the halls or dining room in full armor.
All rooms have their own bath and garderobe, and all have doors that can be locked and barred from within. All have locking bar-grates on the windows that can be swung up out of the way from within only. All have canopied four-poster beds of the sort usually reserved for nobility or royalty.
The ground floor is given over to kitchens and to a dining room where one can choose between beef, pork, or goat stews nightly - each available either highly spiced as favored in the South or more moderately seasoned (which is more to my taste - I like to taste what I'm eating first, and the spices second).
During my meal, I found something that led to a very interesting adventure - about which I'll say only that in the better wards of Waterdeep, always check the underside of any chair or stool you sit in (if, and only if, you can do this unobserved by others!). Messages, coins, gems, weapons, and other valuable objects are often stuck, wedged, or fitted into recesses there for someone to pick up at a later time.
Two dwarves seem to live in the dining room, whittling little chains and lock mechanisms from various exotic woods, and sipping beer as they while each day away. I believe they take messages from dwarves, to pass on to other dwarves who come here to find them. Their names are Ilmairen and Jaerloon. They merely smiled when I asked their clan. They told me many interesting tales of the city in exchange for a tankard or two - including some things about a curious cult, embraced by some nobles of Waterdeep, that once used this inn as a place of worship.
Their temple still exists, as a cellar now crowded with casks, potatoes, mushroom frames and the like, but it was once a place of frenzied dancing and sacrificial offerings to Kambadlan, the Black Tortoise of Night. I must admit I laughed at this, but after I was shown the temple and the burnt bones still on its altar, my mirth left me hurriedly.
This is the origin of the seldom-heard Waterdhavian oaths: "By the Black Tortoise!" and "By the shell of Kambadlan!" The cult is now extinct - I believe. Yet something of its dark and dangerous mystery still clings to this old place - or perhaps some other plots lurk here?
Proprietor: The tall but stout proprietor of the Raging Lion, Lhaerhlin Masram, is impassive-faced but affable.
