Red Knife Tavern

A rough-edged drinking hall in West Varnhalt where weapons are checked at the door and fistfights are not. The Red Knife is where mercenaries, trappers, and drifters find work, and where information about the Frontier's wilder reaches can be bought for the price of a round. On the Varnhalt Frontier, this site sits inside the patchwork of crossroad towns, mesa camps, and trade-protected routes that radiate from Old Varnhalt. The Loosening is constant here — mile markers contradict, paths loop — so settlements rely on local pacing and on the small island of stability around the Black Stone Tower in the eastern hills. The Frontier has no central authority; this place answers to whoever its trade depends on this season.