Dockgrave Tavern

The Dockgrave Tavern

In the busy neighborhood of the Docks stands an old building known as "The Dockgrave". This establishment has acted as the main cantina for seamen, dock loaders and other locals for at least 150 years. It's been run for the last three generations by a powerful Irish clan known as the Finnegans, whose head today is Craig Finnegan, also known as "The Irish Tiger". Recently, the Dockgrave Tavern has come into the sphere of interest of the Nakamura clan, which has been shunned from Emerald City after losing a showdown against a powerful Spheremaster family. The Irish-Japanese union has seen little conflict so far, but there are worrisome whispers that the Nakamuras are attempting to take over the business at the Dockgrave.

The Dockgrave Tavern offers poker games, cheap prostitutes, an opportunity to mingle with locals - and, surprisingly for such a rough and seedy dive, a mysterious VIP club known as The Velvet Room.

Opening Hours

The Dockgrave Tavern never closes its doors.

Carousing

The Dockgrave doesn't offer free drinks like Furry's Tavern, but socializing here is ripe with information, anecdotes, and possible skill gains. Spending three hours talking, listening, and arguing with other customers here will cost you just $20. You can have one Carousing session per day, and each session advances the Carousing progress bar by 20%. Once the bar is complete you'll receive an award comprising +1 Charisma (cap: 90) plus one of the following: +1 Will (80), +1 Int (80), +1 Gambling (80), +1 Performance (40), +1 Academics (80), +1 Science (65), +1 Stealth (40), or +50 Influence. If you are awarded a point in a skill for which you have hit the cap already, you will get the +50 Influence points instead. And once reaching this milestone you can begin again; there is no limit to how many times you can be rewarded for carousing at the Dockgrave.

You can bring Followers with you carousing here. Most will just tolerate these seedy goings-on, but Rachel will find it interesting (has some unique dialog), and Ansel, Jack, Loren, Rebecca, Samuel and particularly Bud will gain Happiness, and also trigger dialogs.

Carousing may also make you drunk, which may affect combat rolls and some other skill checks.

Poker game

Joining a Dockgrave poker game will cost you $50 (despite the game warning you "$600"), and sets you up with three other players, plus The House (usually represented by a young, female slave). Games take an hour, and you can gamble at the Dockgrave three times a day. The House sets the stakes and decides when to call, whilst also taking an active part in the game. Each game lasts three rounds. You "raise" to stay in each round, so a game will cost $350 if you want to last till the end and have a chance of winning; if your hand is poor you can "fold" to quit the game at any point rather than pay to continue. The pot you can win is shown in the centre of the table, consisting of each players' $50 entry stakes plus their $100 to stay in each round, so up to $1,400 at the end - and the other players rarely quit, so the winnings are usually near $1,400. The strength of your hand is shown as a number from 1 to 100; the other players' hand scores are revealed at the end. Each round you can choose to pay $100 to stay in, or fold. If you stay, you can keep your hand intact ("keep cards"), or try to strengthen it (by selecting "change") at risk of reducing its strength slightly instead, or ditch your hand and choose another ("change - wild)". Winning a game will give you some "Poker Fame", shown as a progress bar in red; you will have to win a lot of games to complete this bar. Higher Gambling skill will give you better hands on average, and better chances of improving your hand when "changing"; with low skill, changing will usually weaken your hand. With low skill you will struggle to get a hand strength much above 500, but sometimes this is all that is required to win. Your chances are also improved slightly if you have Intelligence 80+, or Poker Fame 15+ and again at 25+.

There are about 40 players you might meet when playing poker at the Dockgrave; their names are shown on the table. Ten of them are rather good, and have bonuses to their rolls: St.James, Largan, Loffe, Tobacco-Joe, Wrixie, Stuckey, Eleven, Lancaster, Tancard and Nakamura Jr.. Their presence in the game should influence your decision whether to raise or fold.

Each game of poker here has a small chance of gaining you +1 Willpower (cap: 90) or +1 Intelligence (cap: 90), and a decent chance of giving +1 Gambling skill (cap: 130). And if you end a game with a very good hand (score 850+) this will bring you +15 Influence (cap: 2,500).

Prostitutes

A local pimp Joe Bohannan controls four denaar-addicted hookers who provide Dockgrave customers with cheap holes to dump their loads in. Sessions take just 18 minutes and cost just $15. An efficient way of dealing with a distracting trouser bulge. You can avail yourself of this service as often as you can manage each day.

If you have Loren, Enya or Laika assigned as goldwalkers and you hire a prostitute at the Dockgrave, there is a decent chance that they happen to be freelancing there and it is one of them who Joe directs you to, in which case there are special dialogs.

Jobs

Speaking to Craig Finnegan, if you have 500+ Influence points, unlocks a slave-selling contract worth $430,000 in total. Mr. Finnegan is in need of ten fully trained slaves, which the MC can supply if he can find or train up any girls to meet the tough prerequisites demanded.

	Task I	Task II	Task III	Task IV	Task V	Task VI	Task VII	Task VIII	Task IX	Task X
Price Offered	20,000	25,000	30,000	35,000	40,000	40,000	35,000	40,000	65,000	100,000
Max Age	22	29	30	20	23	18	20	40	30	19
Max Will	0	0	5	5	25	0	-5	-5	-10	0
Min Charisma	35	40	70	50	70	50	50	50	70	50
Min Beauty	60	50	60	60	65	70	60	60	75	70
Min Vaginal	50	50	80	90	85	70	65	85	90	Virgin
Min Oral	70	80	80	50	90	70	90	70	95
Min Corruption	40	30	40	20	60	20	60	60	60	10
Min Dancing					60	30	30	30	70	70
Min Performance									60

The Velvet Room

The basement of the Dockgrave comprises a venue-within-a-venue, known as the The Velvet Room - though there are many rooms down there. The door at the top of the stairs down is blocked by two armed guards, who will only let through people with 2,000+ Influence points.

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Asking about Bounties

Unlike most other such establishments, the Dockgrave is not currently a useful source of information for you when it comes to tracking bounties, so this option is not offered here.