Blades & Stars
This comfortable inn was named for its original sign, an enchanted wooden shield. Painted black, the circular shield displayed an image of a curved silver saber gripped by a pale, slender arm. An enchantment on the shield caused glimmering, starlike motes of light to sparkle along the saber’s blade. The former innkeeper of the Blade and Stars, a chaotic neutral half-orc bandit named Aurayaun, used to insist that the illusory effect was the shield’s only magic, and that it did exactly what she intended it to do: draw in business.
Still, it appears that there’s more to the shield’s story, for recently both Aurayaun and the shield disappeared. Since then, Aurayaun’s worried wife Lupin, a chaotic good female human commoner, has been running the inn and loudly expressing her belief that the disappearance is the result of foul play. What kind of foul play, she has no idea.
While Aurayaun was quiet about her past, she had no enemies that Lupin knew about. Lupin furiously rejects the Flaming Fist’s conclusion that her wife simply abandoned her. A local vagrant claims to have seen Aurayaun climb up and remove the sign-shield late on the night she went missing, then vanish into an alley with a cloaked figure. Since then, though, Lupin has received parcels containing pieces of the shattered shield, each bearing a tiny constellation upon it. Lupin is convinced it’s a map, but to where, and whether that destination is terrestrial or the heavens she doesn’t know. She’s willing to pay to find out, though.