In the common room of Waterdeep’s most famous tavern stands a wide stone well, and at the bottom of that well lies Undermountain: the deepest, maddest dungeon in the Realms. Adventurers pay Durnan a gold piece to go down. The rest of us stay up here in the warm, and bet on how they come back.
House rules, read before wagering:
- Mark a fate. Tap Alive, Dead, Undead, or Petrified beside any adventurer — that puts your ✗ on the slip in your colour. Tap it again to take it back. The Full Party line bets the whole roster on one shared fate (all alive, TPK, all undead, or the statue-garden special).
- Set your coin. Type your stake in the CP, SP, or GP box on that line — whichever coin you’re playing in. One coin per line.
- Call the return. Fill Weeks, Months, or Years with how long you’re giving them. (If you skip it, the house writes in 3 months.)
- Deposit or credit? Pick how you’re paying up top; the slip marks it beside your wagers, and Durnan remembers.
- Payouts, as printed: Alive, Dead, and Undead pay 2:1 — a right call returns double your stake in the same coin. Petrified pays 3:1. A wrong call stays in Durnan’s lockbox.
- The wall holds many slips. Pin a new one any time; settled slips stay up for the regulars to admire. Everyone sees every slip, every mark, live.
See a worked example — the Fine Fellows of Daggerford
Straight from the house archives: five delvers, five wagers by one regular, paid on deposit. Four came back breathing and Halleth Garke — bless him — did not, exactly as predicted. Every call was right: 4 cp staked on Alive paid 8 cp, and 500 gp on Dead paid 1,000 gp.