The Red Aurochs

The Red Aurochs

Innkeep:	Baris and Karya
Barkeep:	Norbert
Servers:	Janyce, Sarella
Cooks:	Una, Jaemis
Guards:	Tovyn, Allard
Staff:	{{{staff}}}
Stablehands:	Feltyn
Rooms:	Common (4p/night), Shared (5p/night), Private (8p/night)
Meals:	Simple (2p), Good (3p)
Drink:	cheap ale or beer (1p), cheap wine (2p), red lager (2p a cup, 8p a pitcher), fine wine (3p a cup, 8p a pitcher)
Stabling:	yard stabling, including feed (2p/night), stable space, including grooming and feed (5p/night)

New Town One of the newer buildings in town, and certainly the newest inn, the Red Aurochs maintains an air of rural elegance. Run by a merchant from the Westerlands and his wife who was once a lady-in-waiting to a minor noble's wife, the inn attracts the vast majority of the merchants and travelers with coin who come through Wisenwood, and those locals who have taken to the air of sophistication in the place. Many of the other locals claim it is simply pretentious and avoid it.

The inn is one of the few buildings in operation in the New Market area. Baris uses his friendship with Lord Wisent to occasionally lobby to have the New Market finished, including offering to help finance it in return for a portion of the Lord's take. Norbert tends to the bar, pouring drinks and managing the girls as needful. He also keeps a thick elm cudgel behind the bar should it become needful, but the Red Aurochs isn't exactly the sort of place that sees bar fights.

First Floor

The Red Aurochs Inn

• Tap Room: The tap room has five finely crafted round oak tables, all clustered around the fireplace, and a pair of long trestle tables. By unofficial tradition, the finer tables are reserved for the better-dressed customers who spend more coin, such as traveling merchants; most of the locals tend to congregate at the trestle tables. During the days, either Janyce or Sarella works the taproom; at night, the other works, with Karya pitching in when it seems needful. Norbert tends to the bar, overseeing the girls and pouring drinks; he maintains an elm cudgel behind the bar, in case of rowdies, but the Red Aurochs rarely sees such. Just in case, on nights where there are lots of guests getting drunk, however, one of the yard guards is sent inside to watch every half hour or so. Unlike in many inns, guests are not permitted to sleep in the tap room.
• Kitchens: Una is the unquestioned queen of the kitchens, with the young man Jaemis on hand to lend her help with lifting, fetching and chopping when necessary. The kitchen is sparse, with a table, a set of alcohol barrels and a large stone-floored hearth where most of the cooking happens. There is also a set of stairs down into the cellars.
• Stables: Feltyn sees to the care of the guest horses. The stables have space for five horses, though there is also room for others to be tied up outside in the yard as well. Feltyn's own sleeping space is in the hay loft; he has been known to allow others to share space in the loft for a penny or so, if they don't frighten him too much.
• Yard: The Red Aurochs' main draw to merchants is the fact that they have space for multiple merchant wagons, and guards to watch them in the evenings. They also do not charge anything to allow the guards and workers with the merchants to camp out in the yard, either.

Second Floor

• Baris and Karya's Rooms: The owners' rooms are kept locked securely. They are lavishly decorated, a haven of sophisticated wealth, from the fine rugs and tapestry on the wall to the well-made furniture and elegant possessions. The bed is a large four-poster bed with light airy linen curtains for summer, and heavy woolen ones for winter.
• Private Rooms: There are three of these rooms, each with a small bed with relatively freshly laundered linens. These rooms all bolt from the inside, and a good meal is included with each night's custom. If there is one of these rooms unrented by night's end, Baris and Karya allows the serving woman who isn't tending to the tap room overnight (and thus sleeping at the hearth) to use that room.
• Shared Rooms: There are two of these rooms, with beds large enough to be shared by two. A customer may choose space in one of these beds, but that sometimes means sharing a bed with a stranger - which can be awkward to say the least. Of course, both "shares" of a bed may also be rented by a single person, and each night's custom for the room includes either a single good meal or two common ones, as they choose. These rooms also bolt from the inside.
• Common Room: There is a single large common room, with five small beds in it and a door that does not lock. A simple meal is included with the price of custom on one of these beds.

Cellars

The cellars are a storage area for foodstuffs and casks of wine, beer and ale.

Residents

The Owners

• Baris: Blue-eyed, with long, silky gray hair that used to be blonde over a low forehead, high cheekbones and always-shorn face, Baris is always smiling. Short and graceful, he is usually clad in clothing of an elegant cut, favoring browns and purples. Baris is pleasant to be around, although he tends to maintain a distrustful outlook on the world. He is always quite eagle-eyed, noticing things most others miss.
• Karya: An older woman with slate-gray hair worn in the southern style piled atop her head and wearing elegant clothing, Karya is refined and dignified. Irritable and thrifty, Karya is an extremely focused woman. Everything she does in life is intended to build towards her dreams of being a wealthy landowner with the freedom to enjoy her riches without the burden of children.

The Staff

• Janyce: Serene and shy-appearing, Janyce has eyes the color of an overcast sky and dark mahogany colored hair worn straight and long, braided away from her face. Sharp-eyed and sarcastic, Janyce sleeps at the inn. She'd like to try and find herself a husband while she's still young enough to do so, though her sharp tongue tends to put most would-be suitors off.
• Sarella: A woman who regards the world with suspicion-filled slitted green eyes, Sarella has very short cut black hair, with a very feminine, curvy build and pale skin. She has a high forhead and nearly no eyebrows. Kind and somewhat irreverent, Sarella believes in treating others with gentleness. Like Janyce, she lives at the inn.
• Una: The old queen of the kitchens has short-cropped gray and white hair, and deep-sunken brown eyes. The inn's cook is quite hide-bound and set in her ways, and she will not hesitate to sabotage everything and everyone until she gets her way. She lives in a small house that she shares with another widow in the poor part of town.
• Jaemis: A thin-lipped boy of thirteen or so with slate-grey eyes, Jaemis has dark brown hair that usually stands up in a wild mess of spines. The kitchen boy is quiet and contemplative in a sly way, with a habit of biting his nails and watching from under hooded eyes. He is quick to take advantage of things that seem to favor him, but he is also quite a realist, not allowing wishful thinking to confuse or endanger him. Jaemis sleeps beside the kitchen hearth.
• Norbert: Thin-bodied and quick of gesture and motion, Norbert's eyes are like deep blue gemstones. He has neck-length black hair which he keeps oiled and fastidiously shaped close to his head, a a close-cropped goatee around lips that he often nervously licks. He is very hot-tempered, given to sharp words quickly, which has gotten him in trouble with Karys on more than one occasion.

The Guards

• Tovyn: Always whistling pleasantly, Tovyn has beady gray eyes with a pleasant squint to them and chestnut brown hair and beard with slightly red highlights to it. He is tall and well-muscled, with pale skin. Tovyn isn't particularly ambitious or optimistic - he usually assumes that things are going to come down against him, but seems to have accepted that fate. Torvyn is married and lives in a cottar's croft with his new wife.
• Allard: A tall and athletic young man, Allard has big round eyes and a thin mustache the same dull hue as his dirty blonde hair, kept long and braided. Though he is hot-tempered and enjoys looking for trouble, he is also fairly gullible and easily fooled. Allard lives with his aging father in town.

The Stables

• Feltyn: Narrow of build, Feltyn's droopy grey eyes stare out at one from the tangle of wiry black hair that his hair and beard hide most of his face behind. The mousy and shy stablehand is clearly somewhat simple. He mumbles terribly when forced to talk to people, but talks to animals just fine, often telling them what their masters need to know.