The Tavern
Every harbour town has one room where word travels faster than ships. The Tavern is where the Harbour Watch pins its notices by the door, and where the tables wait for anyone with a steady hand and an hour to spare. Two doors, then: the wall of leads, and the games.
Honour and Bounties
Tavern
Attack & BattleFinding the Tavern
Open Settlement, then the Tavern tab. It opens on Leads, with Games beside it. The wall is the same in every harbour you hold: a notice is pinned for the whole realm, not for one island.
Without a Tavern on the island, the barkeep has no roof for his tables, and the wall still shows, greyed. You can see that someone is wanted, but the notices will not come down from the wall until you build one. A poster you reach some other way, from a Governor's profile, the Daily Chronicle or a shared link, still opens to be read.
Leads: work posted on the wall
A lead is a job pinned in the Tavern for any Governor willing to take it on. Today there is only one kind: the bounty. When a Governor's misdeeds pile high enough for the Watch to set their name down as Wanted, a WANTED poster goes up with one job, one reward and a window to finish it in. Everything about how a Governor gets there, and how the reward is shared, is on Honour and Bounties.
The wall reads On the wall, with each notice as a small card. An empty wall means the Watch has nobody to hunt today, and the barkeep will point you to the tables instead. The wall is read when you open the tab, so a notice posted while you sit there appears the next time you come in.
Opening a lead
Tap a notice and it opens in place, with Back to return to the wall. At the top sits the hero: the Wanted Governor's portrait and name, the time left before the notice comes down, and one shared tally of the job so far. Under it, two tabs.
- Info holds your place in the hunt and the poster as the Watch printed it. It tells you your part of the tally and what that part would earn if the job were done now, or the smallest part the Watch will pay for if you are not there yet. From here you can open the Governor's profile or share the poster. If you hold no island, it says you cannot hunt, and why. If the poster is yours, it tells you what the hunt means for you.
- Ledger is the hunt's news: every blow that counted toward the tally, newest first. A signed blow names its hunter. A blow struck unseen, a plunder, a strike under Unsigned Sails, or a strike on a blighted island nobody is left to watch, reads An unknown hand, and nothing more. Anyone who can read the notice can read its Ledger, the Wanted Governor included.
How a lead ends
A finished lead loses its tabs. The hero carries the result, and the body and the Ledger follow on one page, so the whole story of the hunt stays readable.
| The hero reads | What happened |
|---|---|
| Brought to account | The tally reached the job. Each hunter is named beside what they struck in the open. Everything struck unseen, by every hunter, is added into one last row, An unknown hand. |
| The trail went cold | The window closed before the tally was full. The poster came down and nothing is paid. |
| Taken down by the Watch | The Watch withdrew the notice. Nothing is paid. |
The games
The other door leads to the tables: games of nerve and steady hands, from stacking the merchant's coins to shaving a sleeping sailor's belly. Every level of the Tavern earns a table credit, and each table costs one credit to open for good. The games pay nothing and cost nothing to play; they are for pride, your best score and the house scoreboard. The full list lives on the Buildings page.
Reference
Who can see and use the wall?4 cases
| You are | What the lead shows you |
|---|---|
| A hunter holding an island | Your part of the tally, what it would earn, and the poster. |
| A Governor with no island | That you cannot hunt this Governor, and why. |
| The Wanted Governor | The hunt for you: what happens when the tally fills, and that the poster comes down if the window closes first. |
| Without a Tavern on this island | The wall, greyed. A notice opened from a profile, the Chronicle or a shared link still reads. |
Common questions
Do I need a Tavern to hunt a bounty?
No. Your blows count toward the tally whatever you have built, as long as you hold an island. The Tavern is where you read the notice and follow the hunt.
Will there be other kinds of lead?
The wall is built for them, but today the bounty is the only notice the Watch pins there.
Why does the Ledger say an unknown hand struck?
That blow was struck unseen: by a plunder crew, under Unsigned Sails, or on a blighted island, where nobody is left on the shore to mark the banners (unless the strike takes the island). It counts toward the tally and its share is paid like any other, but its hunter stays unnamed.