The Bloated Toad tavern is a fictional place I often use in my various DnD and other ttRPGs. Many a quest, mystery, and brawl got their start here, sometimes explosively. The tavern is lodged in a small alcove along the inner facing westward wall of Katharsis, the capital city of the region. A kingly toad stares down potential passerbys, beckoning them to come in and see what might be new in the ever-changing pub.
TL;DR: Tales in the Bloated Toad is a repeatable tavern escape room coming soon!
If you are into world-building keep reading!
A classic start:
As for many, the Lord of the Rings series was one of my first introductions into an incredibly realized fantasy world. It’s been an inspiration for many, myself included. It’s map was filled with intricate details based on world history, people's history, and their various languages and mixings. To a passerby, you may not see the attention to detail to the world that was created. One of the many locations from the series is a tavern in the town of Bree named the Prancing Pony. This fictional tavern is probably where the trope of starting adventures in a tavern derives from. One day it would be cool to make a licensed LOTR/Prancing Pony room, but it is not today.
The Tale of the Bloated Toad:
As far as the story of Bloated Toad goes, at the time some hundreds of years ago there was a newfound threat from the Brassmen. They had threatened the realm, burning villages in their wake in the name of their Cacophony. Instrumentii rained from the sky, blaring their wicked songs. Beckoned by their orchestral masters, the Brassmen marched in ranks of thousands more than ever recorded before. Their armies had marched through the undertunnels to the surface, and threatened Katharsis herself before the first year was through. First the villages, then the towns, and soon city after city fell. Thousands were displaced, scattered across the realm seeking safety wherever they may find it. To the horror of the refugees, the Realm of Patin had created truly monstrous brass creatures to aid their warriors' new war front, and the civilized peoples of the upperworld had little to answer for these agressions. Brassmen had an unnaturally high protection from most non-magickal weapons, Instrumentii were not only hard to hit but often disorientate their foes, and the brass creatures were hulks beyond description which could roll over an entire home if it’s destruction was desired.
To paint an ugly picture short, things were not good in the kingdom of Katharsis. War threatened the very fabric of civilization. The Brassmen legions surrounded the City of Katharsis, their Instrumentii masters’ obnoxious Cacophony heard even at the top of Kingskeep. It was here in his bedchambers that King Wierre had decided to personally take up arms and lead an attack against the foreign legionnaires. His advisors and royal family had urged him to change course,, but seeing how dire the situation was and how it was costing him his sleep, he felt as though there were no other reasonable course of action.
The King had mustered his forces to the west wall. Already, the forces of Patin had been gathering outside the gate, teeming with over ten-thousand Brassmen and an untold number of Instrumentii. Looking back to the city, Wierre counted his men-at-arms to be half of what he’d want. Seeing a paltry force in the face of the brass hordes outside the gate sent the ruler spiraling. He determined a course of action: brace for an attack by the foe then mount a counter-attack once the Insturmentii leadership has been spotted. Wierre was not delusioned by the risk of his plan, but he would need to buy time and take risks like this if his pleas for aide from neighboring cities will be answered in time.
It was the night before the planned counterattack that Wierre had happened upon a tavern whose name has since been lost to time. The King had been distraught by how his family had left him, and was noted to appear anxious about the next day by his subordinates. By luck or fate, the King in a daze entered the pub and changed the course of the tavern’s history. Sitting on the bar was a staunch fat toad. The King felt a glimmer of hope after seeing this small fellow. How could it be oblivious to the chaotic world outside the public house?
Several pints into drinks, Wierre asked the barkeep the name of the toad. Not understanding the question, the barkeep responded with “Wierre.” And bowed. King Wierre found this hilarious in his drunken state, and unceremoniously crowned this “Bloated Wierre” with the official royal circlet.
The next day Wierre set out to war with the guards of Katharsis, hungover and bloated. That morning the barkeep immediately commissioned a name and sign change, anticipating an influx in popularity now that he has had the King as a patron. If the tavern made it through the war, he was going to be rich! Unfortunately this popularity would never come, as Wierre’s popularity plummeted after his death that day. It was rumored he had knighted or crowned a toad or a rat, that did not bode well with the commonfolk. The Tavern Master had to make some slight alterations to the name, and the Bloated Toad was named.
From there on, The Bloated Toad served as a hotspot for weary travelers first arriving to Katharsis. It also doubled as a stashhouse for the local Thieves Guild, if you believe the rumors. Many shady dealings have happened here, some see it as a front, but for what has never been definitively proven in the courts.
Escape room story:
The escape room story is set several hundreds years after Bloated Toad was named. It is again a time of crisis, as an army of death-worshipping cultists from the Mortuary Temple have marked the royal family of Katharsis for death. Less traders make it to the city as weeks go by. The usual hustle of the marketsquare outside Katharsis’s walls fall silent as the prairies and wildes outside the city become evermore dangerous. Reports of villages falling silent reach the city, and panic washes through the streets. Some common folk get the idea to turn in the Royal Family, lest the Mortuary wishes for the entire city to die. The walled castle of Kingskeep shines mockingly over the denizens of Katharsis. This theme will be explored more fully in our final game, The Fall of Kingskeep.
Game Details:
The game of Tales in the Bloated Toad has you play as a group of aspiring adventures who have one night before the City walls become closed to everyone but traders and adventurers. That is to say, no one may leave, but traders and adventurers may return. You’ve found a lead from someone that will be willing to procure an adventuring license, if you just so happen to help with a little house keeping. It seems the backroom of the tavern has fallen into disarray over the last few years, and you are requested to clean up shop. Doing so is not without reward, there are coins in magickally locked (and normally locked) objects the Tavern Master doesn’t care to keep anymore. Anything of value is yours (to pawn for in-game currency)! The Tavern Master assures your group that as long as you raise enough coins by cleaning out space to turn the backroom into a bed and breakfast you’ll have your adventuring document. Not much time is left, as the permits office closes in an hour!
This is a classic RPG campaign set-up, and creates the foundation for our games to come. It’s relatively low-stakes as players get to learn more about the game, the world, and rules of what makes escape rooms work!
During the game one the players uncovers a rumor of a crypt containing vampiric magick in the area, and is worth questing for. Should you complete that quest you may be in for a royal reward…
Coming up I’ll write more about the player classes, business operations, how we use AI in the escape room, and anything else that may be interesting.
Thanks for reading!
