The Frothing Sloth
It is (correctly) said that this fantasy inn was first owned by one Jon the Surly, a mercenary of fearsome visage and skill who terrorised whatever battlefield he was on until a magical curse forced him into retirement. It is also said that the curse was one of shapeshifting, which is also correct. Every night, on the night of the full moon, Jon the Surly turned into an equally surly giant sloth.
This was even less than a problem for others than it at first seemed. Like most involuntary shapeshifters, Jon lost all of his ability to reason, while gaining supernatural powers of regeneration and an infectious bite; whether his temper was actually fouler as a were-sloth was never successfully resolved. It simply didn’t matter, because as a were-sloth Jon the Surly was sloooooow. He was also largely a herbivore in his were-sloth form, which meant that the usual food cravings that trigger blood-lust in lycanthropes and suchlike merely caused Jon to attack the nearest shrub. Again, very sloooooowly.
This new condition made Jon a bit of a liability on the mercenary front; but as an advertising ‘hook’ for an inn it wasn’t half bad. The Frothing Sloth quickly got a name for itself as being the sort of place where anybody who could come in, drop a bag of money on the ground, and not eat the staff would be given a room and a drink. It wasn’t a reliable sanctuary for anything being actively hunted, and you ate and drank what the help damned well served you, but it’s the only place around where a magically-cursed frog or something can hope to get a beer. Or, indeed, a sympathetic ear from the rest of the clientele. Which, if you’re trying to get cured, is admittedly a start.
The Frothing Sloth is currently run by a half-gorgon named Straight-Eyed Meg (her mother was a gorgon called Cross-Eyed Meg, which in a roundabout way explains how she managed to have half-human children) who took over the tavern when her parents grew too old to run it. She doesn’t turn people to stone with a look; she just glares at them until they suddenly decide to lie down and take a nap. This is a very useful trait for an innkeeper to have, and most of the regulars enjoy watching would-be robbers and bravos discover it.
But these days the inn is usually quiet enough (the clientele tends to be both weird and magically-touched, which makes interlopers thoughtful). In fact, Meg’s never had to take down and brandish her great-grandfather’s steel murder-claw sheaths (usually found hanging over the bar; some people aren’t sure that they even can be taken down by now. It will be a memorable day, if or when that ever happens.