7th Jan 2020 ~ Blackmail House Inn & Guild
So for today’s tidbit, the second thereof, I want to talk a lil about The Blackmail House Inn and Guild- and maybe also it’s infamous owner, Esmus St. Utterson.
The Blackmail House used to be one of the best, most reputable Guildhalls in the Kingdom of Ilcotzan. It was, and in a physical sense- still is the biggest Guildhall of the Ilcotznian capital & port metropolis of Tolco. So what happened? Why does its once-crisp red facade crumble depressingly under a hunched blackened roof, eerily foreboding and ominous?
Well. No one’s quite sure, actually. Not even the current owner. But there are whispers of a contract gone wrong, guild members crossing their client, and consequences so dire they could only be resolved in blood. This all happened long ago though, and whatever truth to be had in the Inn’s halls is long gone.
The current owner, Esmus St. Utterson, has been there for about 5 or 6 years now and her goal is to reestablish Blackmail House as the Grand Guildhall it once was- but the progress is slow and the expenses pile up fast, so for the moment the Hall is doubling as an inn. She’s also struggling to maintain guild memberships to fulfill contracts- since they are so few and far between no one wants to waste their time there, and because no one’s there most clients submit request elsewhere.
So, St. Utterson set about trying to gain more customers- and her efforts mostly fell flat. She and her nephew Enfield eventually became the last two employees of the House, catering to a few patrons at night as a pub and inn but holding no contracts otherwise. All other warriors left, putting their names to more profitable ventures with other Guildhalls.
This didn’t deter Esmus though. Finally admitting she couldn’t keep the House afloat independently, she very recently applied to become part of Elion Academy’s network of Guilds. These Guilds are usually engaged to protect expeditions to and from their destinations, and if accepted Blackmail House would have a steady flow of new missions and contracts. However, she’s been notified she’s missing a few key individuals on her team- most notably an in-house doctor and a navigator. Now she has a couple of weeks to convince the right people to come work for her and her seemingly doomed Hall, and complete the test-mission from the Academy- or risk losing one of her most prized possessions.
