The Clapton's Hammer Innkeeper

The relentlessly sad, well-meaning, balding human who built and runs the failing Clapton's Hammer tavern in Gwyndinas's Brown district — on top of an ancient burial ground he chose because it was cheap. His son died in the arena and "lacked the will to come back"; his father fled the Veilwood. He waits, oblivious, for "the Reclamation" to arrive and fill his beds (they have been in the city nine months). Genuinely unnamed — the table joke-named him Captain / Clapton / Rufio / Ian and Lash introduced herself to him as "Fiona."

Session 13

• Hosted the party overnight; too scared to enter his own basement, where "the voices tell me to go away."
• His grief-demon-cursed inn was draining the will to live from everyone in it (two guests already dead). The party descended, killed the demon, and freed him from the pall.
• A possible recurring contact in the Brown district near the Colosseum; the party promised to return and to make him arena tabards to promote the inn.

Session 14

• His inn, now cleansed and cheerful, served as the party's base for the day — he cooks real soup with "actual spices and no sadness in," ladles a shot-glass portion for Lash's crab, and brings Thalia and Lash lemonade and goggles while they smash rocks in his garden. Still mostly called "Rufio" by the table.

Session 17

• The Clapton's Hammer is now thriving — lively and jovial, a bard with a tip jar, families and couples in the booths, Rufio beaming behind the bar. The party long-rested upstairs in the warehouse bunks (~1 gold for the group) the morning after Ashlyn's death.
• Draak cited the inn as his contact address for Eldrich the Elder's reply, explaining he'd killed the "monster from underground" that made the place "super sad."