The Book Fetish

Tucked in an alley corner just around the bend of a curving side street, the Book Fetish bookshop caters to a scholarly and refined crowd. The shop is surprisingly roomy—though clearly made by combining several smaller spaces—and lit by large windows. Bookshelves line the walls, and a few stand free on the floor. Tables and chairs fill the center of the room. A horseshoe‑shaped counter with glass-fronted cupboards sits just to the right of the door and always has a pretty young woman behind it. The Fetish keeps slightly irregular hours but usually opens around mid‑morning and stays open far into the night. At any given hour in between, visitors can find Arcane Collegium faculty and students browsing the shelves, sampling the books, or arguing over the low tables.
The Fetish sells new and used books, common and rare volumes, and a wide range of ordinary to exotic spell components (usually kept in the back room or behind the counter, with only samples displayed). Many customers see it simply as a cozy shop that often stocks the right items but perhaps charges too much. A closer examination of the stock and the staff, however, begins to reveal the secret of the Fetish’s popularity.
The side of the counter furthest from the door, tucked close to a wall, contains libido-affecting herbs; various objects for heightening sexual pleasure, including through pain; and contraceptives. The attractive and polite female staff occasionally fetch special items from beyond the faded scarlet tapestry behind the counter, almost always books on proscribed sexual or religious practices. Eavesdropping among the customers reveals some careful, perhaps coded, conversations. Questioning of the staff reveals nothing, of course, unless the correct phrases are used.
The Book Fetish actually is a quality bookshop, but it also serves as a front for the Temple of Painful Pleasures. Many of the customers (though by no means most) frequent the shop for its large selection of erotic literature and treatises on sexual practices, as well as to pay their 11 gp to obtain the platinum headman’s coin that serves as their entry fee to the Temple, located in the alley behind the shop. Most of these customers—and the Watch—have no idea the Temple of Painful Pleasures isn’t just a high-end brothel but actually is a real temple dedicated to Marena the Red. They don’t suspect the additional gold piece in their entrance fee goes to supporting her proscribed cult, their pleasurable activities serve as rites to the Red Goddess, or the Temple and Book Fetish staff are all her dedicated servants and priests.

Type

Shop, Generic

Parent Location

Zobeck, the Crossroads City