By,
Madam Zarine
Last weekend at the annual Tournaments of Blackwood saw the Grand Opening of the Thirsty Wolf Tavern. As much as I would love to take all of the credit for such an endeavor, many hands helped in the effort. Trent had the idea to have a tavern where folks could come and go, give us their gold, be entertained, eat, drink, and other wise be merry (or married, as the case may be). A few others were interested in conceptualizing such an idea, so Trent, Daekara, Zatarra, Runaris and myself got to work planning and constructing.
A lot of ideas were thrown around, and sadly we could not implement them all at once so really you only saw a small portion of what we will eventually be offering. We decided to start with the simple things: food, drink, fun, and games. The games unfortunately fell by the wayside as I honestly forgot about them in the rush to get everything decorated and set up for everyone but I promise you they were there and maybe next time they will even be available to play.
The décor was of course amazing. We hung tapestries, strung fancy lighting and placed decorative knickknacks about. The bardic troupe that we hired, Cu Dubh, was quite shy and asked to play behind the scenes, but if you enjoyed the music you can find them being less shy in other places. (https://www.cudubhtribe.com/ )
If you missed out on the food then you should know that it was quite delicious. Daekara made some beef stew that while not the fanciest of dishes, really hit the spot. Runaris offered up his sausage which people eagerly paid for and seemed to enjoy putting in their mouths. He also attempted to make fried dough, which was a learning experience for future evenings and I truly hope he tries again. I put together some of my favorite meats, cheeses and olives in small charcuterie samplers that were well received. We hope to add new food to our menus as time goes on so check back in and see what we are cooking up. Well I mean, not me, I'm not allowed to cook.
Trent mixed up his now famous Achorian Seawater which was very popular amongst our hosts and guests of honor. Thaddeus (who you may know simply as T-Main, but he for sure is actually named Thaddeus) made one of his signature 'pour a lot of booze into a container and give it a name' drinks called Pineapple Upside Down Cake. Freesia can't seem to resist the lure of selling delicious intoxication and jumped behind the bar to help out, assisted by T-Main's love interest who we call 'She-Main'. Apparently she has an actual name, but really we don't care. We also had mass manufactured beer which seemed to garner less interest than the fancy mixed drinks, and Trent purchased a humidor and had cigars for sale.
We had more guests than we anticipated on Friday evening, and we really weren't the most prepared of business owners, but we made it all work and most importantly all of our visiting plebs had an enjoyable experience. Drinks were flowing, stories were being told, food was being consumed, and Kharma and Rhage got married in the middle of it all. None of the folks that I actually hired really worked out, but a lot of folks with limited funds jumped in and helped for drinks and food as payment, and some of them just did it for the fun of being involved and assisting folks in need.
Overall our grand opening was a success! We are so grateful to the folks who came out and christened our big red building with their joy and revelry and we can't wait to do it again, but even better with all of the ideas that we had and the lessons that we learned. We hope to see even more of your smiling faces next time, and if you just can't wait until the next big gathering you can stop by our more permanent location in Invictus and pull up a chair, just ask myself or Trent to add you to our guest list. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/467472024029494/ )
See you all soon!