Side quest Classical Age Coming soon

The Salty Parrot

A harbour tavern where duels are won with the last word: learn every barb and retort, climb the ladder and out-talk the Harbourmaster.

They say you can't win a duel at the Salty Parrot with a blade. You win it with the last word. I have never once had the last word.

Purser Fennick

What it is

A turn-based duel of wits. The side holding the initiative delivers a barb, and the other must answer with the one retort that fits. A fitting retort wins the bout and the initiative; the first to three bouts takes the duel. There is no timer and no way to lose for good: the game rewards learning, not reflexes.

How to find it

When it arrives, the quest will open in the Classical Age, once a finished Market or Fishing Hut stands in your city. Purser Fennick will wait beside it under the lantern.

How to play

  • You start knowing only a few lines. Every barb you hear, and every retort an opponent answers you with, is yours from then on, and when you fumble, the tavern's parrot, Admiral Plume, squawks the retort you needed.
  • Climb the Ladder, patron by patron, starting with Nell the net-mender. Lost a duel? Rematch, wiser than before. Your Repertoire lists everything you've learned.
  • The last rung is the Harbourmaster, whose barbs are old jokes in new words: answer each by analogy with the retort that fit its cousin.
  • Between duels, an optional puzzle in the Back Room asks you to use what's in your pockets on the right things. Solve it to uncover the Three-Crowned Patron. Wrong combinations cost nothing and earn a joke.

Relaxed mode

The duel is turn-based anyway. Relaxed mode adds hints: it marks the fitting retort for barbs you've heard, sparks the barbs a patron can't answer, gives a clue for each of the Harbourmaster's new twists, and nudges you through the Back Room.

Rewards

Out-talk the Harbourmaster to unlock The Salty Parrot, a harbour tavern landmark where arguments are a sport and the parrot keeps score, plus a one-off gift and a chronicle line. Your repertoire carries into every replay.

In pictures

The invitation card for The Salty Parrot in the game: the quest's name, Purser Fennick's invitation in quotes, the estimated minutes, Optional, and the Play and Not now buttons.
The invitation card, from the game in development.
The Salty Parrot's painted tavern sign, a green parrot on black, hanging between shuttered windows.
The sign outside. It creaks in any wind, and sometimes without one.
A cutaway of the tavern: the bar, barrels, tables, a fireplace and a duelling ring on the floor.
Inside the tavern, where the duels happen.
The Three-Crowned Patron: a statue of a round, three-headed bear-like creature wearing three gold crowns, on a stone plinth.
The Three-Crowned Patron, hidden in the back room.

Generated from the Erapolis game data, with pictures from the game itself. Numbers are per minute of game time, at Standard difficulty.