The Planar Trade Consortium is already a thing in Planescape, so I could see a Great Atrium of Doors as the grand entrance to a multiplanar shopping mall- a central courtyard surrounded by spiraling promenades linking to floating portals and runic signs displaying “SALES” in 123 different...
Are you high ranking aristocracy, a very wealthy gentleman with 'friends' or very, very pretty (by 18th century standards)?
If so, you can expect your invitation soon ...
The real world origin is the reason the X-Men version all dressed in faux 18th century costume (with bulging codpieces).
The original club had the stated aim to satirize and mock the rigid moral codes of 18th-century British society - they were hedonist and pornographers who existed to shock...
Eberron was new, it did well
Putting out material might have just been to prove the copyright for renewal Dark Sun.
If Athas does come back, its going to be a different beast to what it was, but at least there will be psionics
Which is why I looked to non-western exploration models, which tended to be more diplomatic and scholarly. Al-Masudi was a Scholar who lived in the Abbasid Empire and was commissioned by a Caliph to verify the reports of nations and beast beyond their borders - it was pure scholarly curiosity...
I did a couple based on the journeys of Al-Musadi and Ibn Battuta and the like, and they are largely a set of terrain/weather based skill test punctuated with gear loss, discovery reveals and social encounters where you meet and negotiate with the locals. It can get monotonous unless the players...
Stevenson was certainly aware of Walter Scott, both beings Scots writers. Long John Silver was inspired in part by Scotts novel The Pirate
In "On Fairy tales" Tolkien notes having enjoyed "Red Indian stories" (sic) as a boy and been inspired to learn to use a bow. So...
The Three Musketeers begins with DArtagnan having a bar fight at the Inn in Meung, Ivanhoe has an Inn encounter too iirc (while disguised as a mysterious stranger), as does Dick Turpin during his famous ride.
Id guess all of those were popular reading in the early 20th century too and as...
Canterbury Tales is likely the oldest featuring an actual Inn.
But The Odyssey is notable for powerful NPC (goddess) disguised as a traveler gives a “quest hook” to adventurers in a guest-hall