Bottle and Blade

The Bottle and Blade walks the fine line of legality. To the public, it appears to be a middle-range resthouse, providing food, drink and beds to travelers in Blackgate's merchant district. It caters to guild agents, minor bureaucrats, petty military officers and artisans visiting from the provinces. The main room tends to be rather quiet - the bartenders are careful to toss out any visitors who might appear to have the potential of causing trouble and bringing in the law. The beers are all from Danigau (most people drink the house beer) and the food is traditional Brecht fare. It does serve the distinctive and potent frost-distilled liquor called Gramma's Kiss made from local blood rose. The rooms are clean, simple and purposefully kept in a state that hardly deserves mention. Overall, the Bottle and Blade appears to be without distinctive qualities, simply another inn in the district.

In truth, however, the Bottle and Blade is anything but ordinary. The inn's basement has recently become the most popular underground gambling hall in Blackgate. Cards and roulette remain popular staples, but most of the guests come to see fights in The Rage Cage. Dueling and gladiator games are both illegal in Blackruft (as is gambling and selling alcohol without paying taxes), which has only increased the popularity of the games at the Bottle.
Simply getting to the basement is not an easy task. Guests in the main taproom are never allowed downstairs as visitors must leave the bar and travel around to the back door. Those who knock on the door are asked the password (which is continually changing, knowledge of which is something of a prestige item amongst a certain crowd), those who answer correctly are allowed into the storeroom and then through a secret door built into the back of a wine cabinet (the wall holding the wine bottles swings open). Guests then travel down two flights of steps into the reception area. Everyone ("even the Count himself") is searched upon arrival for weapons. Cloaks can also be checked at the door.
Since the Bottle and Blade has no competition, the owners feel no great need to maintain immaculate appearances. The main gambling room is poorly lit and littered with garbage. The entire place has a somewhat grungy air, appealing to rebellious young nobles, unscrupulous merchants and general ruffians. Some merchants have been known to visit here not for the gambling, but to look for a few hired hands to do particularly dirty work.