You push through the warped door of The Empty Net, and the smell hits first: sour ale, stale smoke, wet rope, and brine from the dark water slapping against the pilings below.

The place is half tavern, half hazard. Parts of the floor are patched with mismatched planks. Gaps between boards show the black water beneath, glinting when lantern light catches it. A couple of beams lean at angles that would worry anyone sober.

The crowd here is exactly what you came for and exactly what the nicer inns of Saltmarsh pretend doesn’t exist:
smugglers, cutthroats, fishermen down on their luck, mercenaries between jobs, and the sort of people who know things they absolutely shouldn’t.

Lately, Saltmarsh has been buzzing:

• Ships vanishing off the coast, no wreckage, no survivors—just gone.

• Strange lights spotted far out at sea on moonless nights.

• Whispered talk of something in the deep that drags ships under.

The harbor taverns closer to the center of town are full of nervous merchants and worried captains. But The Empty Net is where people come when they want real answers… or real coin… and don’t care how bloody the work is.

Tonight, two such people end up at the same unsteady table near the edge of the room, where the floorboards creak and the sea whispers through the gaps.

Duncan McDougle

One of them is a harengon with the thousand-yard stare of someone who has died once and still isn’t convinced he’s really back.

Duncan McDougle moves like a dock rat who remembers being a deckhand, a pirate, and a sacrifice. Salt crust clings to worn clothes that have seen more than one ship and more than one life. The faint scent of strange, sharp powder clings to him, hidden carefully among the usual smells of the tavern.

He grew up begging on the docks of Luskan, dodging boots and blades. As a boy, he slipped onto the wrong ship at the wrong time—and by sheer chaotic luck, stopped an assassination that impressed a certain flamboyant drow pirate. Five years under a legendary captain taught Duncan how to sail, fight, and survive… right up until he didn’t.

Thrown into the Negative Plane of Vacuum as a living offering to some distant, uncaring god, Duncan died for a world that never knew his name.

Ten years later, on a strange night in Saltmarsh, a portal tore open during a gaudy local celebration—Duncan clawed his way back into the world, gasping phantom air into lungs that remembered dying in nothingness.

For the last three years, he’s called Saltmarsh home in the loosest sense:

• Taking odd jobs

• Running shady cargo through the docks

• Selling a vicious little stimulant the locals whisper about as “goblin powder”

All of it mostly to drown out the memory of being torn apart by the void.

Tonight, he’s here because activity in Saltmarsh means business, and rumors of ships vanishing to some hungry sea-creature sound like the kind of problem that pays well… or kills fast.

He settles at a table, back to a wall if he can, eyes automatically mapping exits, rafters, ropes, and faces.

Jinn Viceflower

A little later, a tiefling woman threads her way through the crowd, moving with the easy balance of someone who has spent years on swaying decks and doesn’t trust any floor to stay still.

Jinn Viceflower wears her luck like armor and a smirk like a weapon. She was born into silk and cruelty—human nobles who treated people like property and each other like enemies. The day she realized her “father” hated her not just for being a tiefling, but for what that implied about her mother’s faithfulness, something in her snapped smartly into place.

One night, as a teenager, she stacked the odds in her own favor:

• One sack

• As much of her family’s stolen wealth as she could carry

• And a quiet exit out a window and into the dark

The money went fast—freedom has a way of burning through coin—but it was still better than velvet cages and whispered threats. When the gold dried up, she learned to work with her hands: rope, knots, sails, cargo. A ship’s deck became her new home.

Being a young woman on a ship full of men was its own kind of hell. If she worked harder than them, they resented her. If she faltered, they sneered. The ones who got too rough, too cruel, or too handsy had a way of… meeting accidents. A loose rope, a slipped knot, a sudden fall from the rigging. People muttered about curses. Jinn just kept her hands clean and her conscience mostly satisfied.

She steals now, when she can justify it:

• Corrupt merchants

• Slavers

• People who built their fortunes on other people’s suffering

Her moral compass spins, but it always points roughly away from the truly innocent.

Saltmarsh has been on her map lately:

• Ships going missing

• Crews talking about strange things in the deeps

• Council coin quietly looking for people willing to take risks

A town like that is ripe for someone like Jinn: profits to skim, secrets to uncover, maybe even the chance to claim a ship of her own one day.

She avoids the polished taverns and walks straight into The Empty Net, because this is where the real stories are told, where the desperate drink, and where the kind of jobs she likes are born in whispered deals.

All the tables are crowded except one: a rickety thing near the edge, occupied by a lone harengon with the wary stillness of a man who has seen too much.

She slings her pack off her shoulder, nods at the empty chair without really asking, and sits.

The tavern noise washes around them—dice clatter, someone argues about wages, a drunk sings off-key. A wave hits the pilings below, and the whole structure gives a tired creak.

Duncan's nose twitches left to right. His eye focus on the Tiefling. He lifts his eye patch up so he can look at her with both eyes and takes out his smoking pipe. He reaches for a match and can't find it. He'd ask for a light from the Tiefling but doesn't want to be rude. He looks for a candle.   21  and motions for a waitress to bring him two pints of ale.

Duncan waves to the tavern girl in a green dress as she walks by holding a tray of empty mugs. She nods, as several other patrons try and place their order. 

Duncan frowns at the stub of a candle. He takes a small piece of wood from his tinder box and lights it in the candle so he can light his pipe. Once lit he blows the smoke toward the ceiling. He looks at the Tiefling and asks, "What can I do for you?"