Harrigan’s Home

When you’re deep in the forest, perhaps when all of your resources have reached their limits and exhaustion threatens to overcome your entire band of explorers, adventurers, or soldiers, Harrigan’s Home may present itself as your unexpected yet welcome sanctuary.

You won’t find this inn on a map. Indeed, as soon as one might record its location in the piney woods of the northern foothills, it will instead manifest in the warm, humid environs of the southern cypress swamps. Harrigan’s comforting hearth appears wherever it must to best serve its most-prized clientele: lost and weary travelers with no place left to turn. If you’re looking for it, you probably won’t find it. But it may just be there when you need it, rising out of the mists and gloom of dusk.

A rough circle of massive tree trunks form the makeshift courtyard around Harrigan’s Home proper: a colossal hollow tree stretching more than eighty feet across. In the center of the courtyard lies a well from which fresh, clean water is always available. The trees that surround the courtyard each contain a private room for those that require it. On the northeast side of the central tree is a fenced-in area suitable for housing a small herd of horses or other pack animals if necessary.

The central chamber of the main trunk is given over to a rambling collection of mismatched tables, chairs, stools, and cushions lit by flickering torchlight. Harrigan himself is almost always bustling about, serving up drinks and food from the outdoor kitchen enclosed by the stacked rock wall on the north side of the tree. There always seems to be enough to go around, and no guest goes without nourishment. Occasionally Harrigan will disappear up the narrow staircase attached to the inner northwest wall of the central chamber, attending to some personal business which he doesn’t feel compelled to share with anyone.

It’s always night at Harrigan’s Home. Guests arrive in darkness, and when they decide to leave, it’s still night. While the sun never rises, neither does time pass in the usual sense. While present in the grove, visitors can benefit from their rest, but when they leave and continue their journey, it’s just before dawn on the day following their entry, no matter how long they were guests. They will leave with restocked provisions and sincere encouragement from Harrigan as he pats them on the back and sends them on their way.

Harrigan’s Home is surrounded on all sides by an opaque mist. Travel through the mist without guidance will simply return the traveler to Harrigan’s courtyard. This way station exists in its own demiplane¹ that has been splintered off of the Feywild. It’s not common knowledge (nor is it known that anyone knows) whether Harrigan himself was responsible for its creation or if he came into possession at some later point in time. One key property of this demiplane is the complete lack of aggression or malice from anyone who spends time there. While within the confines of Harrigan’s Home, nobody feels the urge to cause harm to any other being or otherwise incite violence. It’s a place of peace and rest, without exception, and there have been no records of anyone being able to circumvent this ancient and powerful enchantment.