Random Roadside Inn Generator

In effort to bring you more useful rpg content I have provided for your pleasure, a series of tables you can use to create your own roadside inns and taverns. Every crossroad needs a roadside inn. Your sandbox hex maps won't be complete without a few well placed inns to drive the economy of your region and provide some much needed rest to your road-weary player characters. Many memorable campaigns have started in such places, and a thirsty adventurer can do worse than to spend to night in such accommodations. 

When populating a regional map for exploration, it is important to keep in mind the necessity of locations such as roadside inns. Inns afford a long wandering party necessary respite from the deprivations of the wilderness or the dungeon. Inns are also filled with NPCs of all classes and kinds. Such characters can be useful for injecting a helpful, or hurtful new complication to your PC’s lives. Roadside inns can be found in sparsely populated areas just as readily as in the people-filled urban towns and cities. Use the handy set of tables below to create unique roadside inns throughout your campaign world.

A memorable location like a roadside inn starts with an interesting name to hang on the sign. Try using either method below for naming your roadside inn. The name prompts are also useful in imagining the colorful signage that hangs outside an inn.

Naming Method A: The [first object] and [second object]

First Object-D20                                         Second Object-D20:

1. Rose                                                   Thorn             
2. Ox                                                      Crown
3. Elf                                                      Scepter
4. Fair Maiden                                        Fairy
5. Keg                                                     Lute
6. Daisy                                                  Barrel
7. Chicken                                              Chalice
8. Hound                                                 Holly
9. Cup                                                     Griffin 
10. Book                                                   Dragon
11. Chandler                                             Goat
12. Dwarf                                                  Drum
13. Bear                                                     The Princess
14. Oak                                                      The Bishop
15. Bell                                                      Mutton
16. Mermaid                                              Dancing Bear
17. Hay Penny                                           Smith
18. Pony                                                     Wheel
19. Dryad                                                   Sword
20. Unicorn                                                Lilly

Naming Method B: The [past participle] [object]

(use either of the Object tables with this table)

Participle-D20:

1. Laughing
2. Dancing
3. Prancing
4. Drinking
5. Snoring
6. Sneezing
7. Fighting
8. Singing
9. Shuffling
10. Bowing
11. Crowing
12. Cackling
13. Flying
14. Glimmering
15. Capering
16. Shivering
17. Loving
18. Petrifying
19. Placating
20. Traveling

Food at the Inn:

(Roll a d10 at least four times to create each dish)

There are inns that cater to all sorts of differing clientele. Most low-class inns will only have a sing dish available at any one time, though they may offer bread as well. Inns that see more middle or merchant class patrons will tend to offer at least three different options, with at least one of them being higher priced while utilizing multiple vegetable or seasonings. Those inns that see enough high-class patrons to provide special accommodations for them will often have five or more available meals, including separate vegetable dishes and breads, usually served in multiple course.

Meat:                    Vegetables:                    Sauce or Seasoning:                    Preparation:

1. Mutton              Carrots                          Rosemary                                    Roasted
2. Chicken            Turnips                          Marjoram                                    Baked
3. Sausage             Yams                             Cheese Sauce                              Jellied
4. Rabbit               Potatoes                        Beer Sauce                                   Fricasseed
5. Eel                    Leeks                             Onions & Garlic                          Grilled
6. River Trout       Rutabaga                       Sage                                             Boiled 
7. Tripe                 Parsnip                          Red Wine Gravy                          Baked in a Pie
8. Squirrel             Asparagus                     Dill, Mint, & Parsley                   Stewed
9. Beef Livers       Peas                              Vinegar & Honey                         Braised
10. Salt Pork           Green Beans                 Pepper & Nutmeg                        Boiled in a Bag

Common Drinks:

Below is an offering of different beverages and their general availability, though depending on the caliber of establishment, some offerings may not ever be available.

Ales and Beers:

1. Broadsword & Blade Pale Ale, 4 cp (always available)
2. Harrfoot Double-Stout, 3 sp (5-in-6 if available)
3. Dwarven Imperial Stout, 2 sp (3-in-6 if available)
4. Bellagari Pine Lager, 2 cp (always available)
5. Forrest Town Weissbier, 5 cp (6 if available)
6. Fellinderelle Woodland Ale, 1 gp (1-in-6 if available)
7. Gorst’s Amberbach 5 sp (always available)
8. Eastern Forest Lager 7 cp (2-in-6 if available)
9. Milsin’s Cream Porter, 1 sp (4-in-6 if available)
10. Gessimir Brothers Stout, 3 sp (3-in-6 if available)

Wines and Specialties:

1. Alkiri Vineyard’s Syrah, 8 sp (always available)
2. Monksford Vineyard’s Mustcato, 1 gp (always available)
3. Monksford Vineyard’s Pino Grigio, 7 sp (always available)
4. Ketrikoi Vinyard’s Cabernet, 2 gp (5-in-6 available)
5. Elven Luc’toi (mead) 5 gp (1-in-6 available)
6. Dwarven Mushroom Liquor, 1 gp (always available)
7. Bardebari Whiskey, 7 sp (2-in-6 available)
8. Oralgo Grenache, 4 sp (4-in-6 available)
9. Argbek (orkish gin), 2 sp (2-in-6 available)
10. Harneese Vinyard’s Chardonnay, 3 gp (1-in-6 available)

Not all establishments offer all of the specialty services below. As always, use common sense when listing available specialty services.

Specialty Services:

1. Turndown Service, 2 cp per person.
2. Maid, 3 sp per person.
3. Clothes Washed 6 sp per load.
4. Private Dining, 2 gp per person.
5. Armorer, negotiable.
6. Bath, 5 cp per person.
7. Running Errands, 6 sp per hour plus expenses.
8. For Seeing and Saying Nothing, negotiable.
   
   

Tavern Entertainment-D40 (roll 2D20 and add them together):

1. 
   
2.  Tantos Talaver, Bard and juggler extraordinaire. Tantos plays the lute and juggles colorful balls. He knows love songs, ballads, and drinking tunes. Secret or desire: Searching for his lost sister. Quirk: Loves cats.
3. Mina Kruthus, singer. Mina knows mostly courtly songs of love and knightly sacrifice. Secret or desire: Actually low-born, pretending to be a noblewoman. Quirk: Misuses long words.
4. Jolan Tru, elven tumbler. Jolan is a contortionist and tumbler. Secret or desire: Knows of a way to the lost elven city of Re’Molos. Quirk: Compulsive liar.
5. Durlan Rockbeard, dwarven poet. Durlan recites slow, somber dwarven poetry in long, unbroken sentences. Secret or desire: Keeps the soul of his dead lover in a bottle. Quirk: Claims to be able to speak with stones.
6. Alistair Miroc, fiddler. Alistair is a perpetual drunk who plays jaunty folk dances and reels. Secret or desire: He was once a high-born general. Quirk: Loves dirty limericks.
7. Diathor Nulty, flutist. Diathor takes requests and can recreate most tunes once someone has sung or hummed them for him. Secret or desire: Craves a bottle of whiskey from the long-destroyed elven distillery in Re’molos. Quirk: Has an eidetic memory.
8. Yulan Stonehand, dwarven percussionist. Yulan plays a series of pitched rock drums. They only know dwarven music, but it’s pretty good. Secret or desire: Has the deed to a dwarven gold mine. Quirk: Eats rocks, rarely speaks but when he does, he only does talks in dwarven.
9. Siranna The Golden, Poet. Siranna tells tales and recites classic epic poetry of heroes and their conquests. Secret or desire: Are a deposed minor noble who wants their land back. Quirk: Heterochromatic eyes and hair.
10. Lucen DiMora, one-woman band. Lucen simultaneously plays a foot drum, washboard, brass horn, and bells as she sings. Secret or desire: In love with a dryad of the forest. Quirk: Holds eye contact too long.
11. Evard Lithlleen, elven harpist. Evard knows many soothing songs of tree and brook, and also a few dirty limericks. Secret or desire: Knows the location of a magic ring. Quirk: Talks to themselves.
12. Evo Chandar, stand-up philosopher. Evo regals audiences with many insightful and funny stories about life, love, and everything in between. Secret or desire: Killed the real Evo Chander and took their name. Quirk: A very dark sense of humor.
13. Metilan Michrios and Tenda Parsells. Metilan plays lute and Tenda sings. They perform love songs, folk dances, and song stories of clever heroes. Secret or desire: To resettle the local marches. Quirks: Metilan chews their bottom lip and Tenda talks too much.
14. Bjorn Forkbeard, dwarven hurdy-gurdy player. Bjorn knows most popular songs of the day but loves bawdy songs the most. Secret or desire: Worships the demon Ssrazzbazzortch. Quirk: Speaks softly in conversation.
15. Lucien and Sidrienne Greenleaf, wood elf brother and sister performers. Lucien plays hand drums and Sidrien clog dances. Secret or desire: To kill the local ruler and lead a peasant revolt. Quirks: Lucien hums when bored and Sidrienne can never make up their mind.
16. Gracious Tom, stage magician. Tom performs classic close magic with a finale featuring a rabbit being pulled from a hat. (It works most times too!) Secret or desire: Was once a royal assassin. Quirk: Horrible luck.
17. The Farmhands, a trio of brothers who play hand drum, flute, and sing. They perform mostly work songs, folk dances, and ballads. Secret or desire: They hate each other. Quirks: Only the red-headed brother speaks.
18. Logain Tamrok, Bard and hurdy-gurdy player. Logain is a master balladeer and crooner. Secret or desire: Was a notorious outlaw in their youth. Quirk: Will hit on ANYONE.
19. Devian Strongbow, burpist. Devian can burp long passages of epic poetry, dirty limericks, and people’s names! Secret or desire: Trained as a burp master by an ancient sect of warrior monks. Quirk: Claims to be a powerful foreign warrior called aa Burpist, as though that’s a thing.
20. Culap Scrontibow, prop comedian. Culap is a gnomish comedian who uses elaborate props to punctuate his poor attempts at humor. Secret or desire: Culap wishes to find a growth potion so he can finally fit into his nicest cloths. Quirk: Obsessed with cleanliness.
21. Laifdoor Bruen, hammered dulcimer player. Laifdoor plays mountain songs and sings of lost loves in his signature high falsetto. Secret or desire: Wishes to clear the mountains of monsters and settle the land again. Quirk: drinks maple syrup like water.
22. Simeon Nandor and Hiras Gobul, percussionists. Simeon and Hiras play polyrhythmic drum patterns with whatever is around them. Secret or desire: These two are actually spies for a rival local kingdom, out on a scouting mission. Quirks: Odd accents and an overly curious nature about them.
23. Quirami Soong, foreign wind instrumentalist. Quirami plays an exotic reeded wind instrument with a high, buzzing sound. Her songs are exotic and enchanting.  Secret or desire: To free her father from the enchanted gem a witch cursed him to be trapped in. Quirks: Impatient.
24. Diphilop Dundor, gnomish juggler. Diphilop juggles fruit, balls, tankards, or whatever he can get his hands on! He tells fables and stories from mythology. Secret or desire: Is the last in a line of famous gnomish sorcerers. Quirk: Has a booming deep voice.
25. Barkly Arakson, singer. Barkly sings in his deep baritone of ships lost at sea and loves tragically cut short. Secret or desire: Wishes to raise his sunken ship The Cynocephalus from the bay in which it sank. Quirk: Loves to rhyme.
26. Kulanni Memos, mountain dulcimer player. Kulanni plays many popular folk songs and reels, but her true musical love is sappy love ballads. Secret or desire: Ran away from a horrible, arranged marriage. Quirk: Foul-mouthed.
27. Hume Cronas and Jeska Tandoi, tumblers. Hume and his wife Jeska do two-person tumbling and acrobatics to the audience's claps and cheers. Secret or desire: They rob travelers on the road as they travel. Quirk: They finish each other’s sentences (and sandwiches).
28. Opkins Abramos, performing wizard. Opkins is paying his way across the land performing minor acts of magic to wow audiences. He conjures clouds of colored smoke in various shapes and traps voices in bubbles that release when they pop! Secret or desire: To storm the abandoned tower of the wizard Clattrakat and plunder its dark depths. Quirk: Sarcastic to a fault and kind of a know-it-all.
29. Fabian Bryr, flautist and foot drummer. Fabian likes to play long ballads and airy contemplative pieces about the ways of the world. Secret or desire: Needs help freeing their husband from debtor’s prison. Quirk: A hacking cough.
30. Gundir Dazgurk, half-orc lutist. Gundir may seem clumsy and crude, but he plays the lute and sings with an emotional mastery that leaves the audience in awe. Secret or desire: Raised by his aristocratic human family. Quirk: Why use one word when Gundir can use ten?
31. Gavlin York, concertina player and former sailor. Gavlin plays old sea shanties and regales his audience with ocean tales and nautical bon mots. Secret or desire: Still a pirate and a thief. Quirk: Can’t say no to a pretty smile.
32. Bombok Dragonbeard. Dwarven pan flautist. Bombok takes requests and sprinkles in some traditional dwarven drinking songs along the way. Secret or desire: Looking for a famous gem. Quirk: Knows Common, but only responds in Dwarven.
33. Amarian, famous bard and lutist. Amarian is a master of his instrument. He is so well known that he goes by his first name only. Secret or desire: Is secretly a doppelganger. Quirk: Great listener.
34. Lensinor Silladinai, elven harpist. Lensinor plays traditional elven songs of old, and she has a beautiful singing voice. Secret or desire: Killed the prince of the local elven kingdom (by accident). Quirk: Wears veils and uses fans to cover her face.
35. Rugan Cooper, spoons player. Rugan plays two battered tin spoons with much gusto. He often dances about whilst doing so. It’s an odd sight, to say the least. Secret or desire: Has a map to a secret untouched ruin. Quirk: Says “dangnabbiit!” and “goldurnit!” all the time.
36. Olga Lenser, animal trainer. Olga performs with her three trained cats and a small dog. They all take turns jumping through hoops, balancing on each other, and jumping from high perches with bells around their collars. Secret or desire: Her performing animals are actually former lovers that crossed her. In retribution, she turned them into animals and forces them to perform. Quirk: Hates elves.
37. Old Bill, washtub bass. Old Bill plays a battered old washtub with a broom handle stuck in it and a long string attached. He sings songs of old drunks, vagrants, and baffling poetry about whiskey and sorrow. Secret or desire: Looking for his lost love Lucinda. Quirk: talks in a low drunken growl.
38. Kirku Flim, impressionist. Kirku performs flawless impressions of locals and tavern patrons. His mastery of mimicry is unparalleled. Secret or desire: Regularly uses their talent to swindle rich folk as they travel. Quirk: Smells like cedar wood.
39. The Dusty Road Players, theatre troupe. The Players perform masked theatre acts with lots of bawdy humor and allegory. Secret or desire:  They are actually ghosts who return to the land of the living regularly to perform. Quirk: All of their references are out of date by almost 80 years.
40. Tunash the Inscrutable, mentalist. Tunash “speaks to the dead” and bends spoons with the “power of the mind”. Secret or desire: Tunash can actually telepathically communicate with the dead, but he’s just bad at it. Quirk: Tunash always refers to themself in the third person.