I'm not a builder. Never have been. My home in Minecraft is a big, boring box, my HQ in Valheim is just a basic longhouse, and my base in Enshrouded is a shack with barely enough room for a bed, a workbench, and five NPCs standing shoulder to shoulder. I just don't have the sort of building talent so many other Enshrouded players do.
The nice thing about Enshrouded, though, is that there are all sorts of pre-existing structures in the world. Crumbling farmhouses. Abandoned cottages. Castle ruins. Since you can claim plots of land by placing flame altars, you can essentially take over some of these existing buildings, do a few repairs, and make them into a brand new base.
So while I've been roaming around the world completing quests and exploring, I've been keeping an eye out for a suitable building to snatch up for myself so I don't have to build my own. There have been a few prospects here and there, but today I fell in love with an abandoned inn called the Blue Goblet Tavern.
This tavern instantly puts my shack to shame. It's perfect. It's a beautiful three story building with enough room inside to actually glide around when you jump off the balcony. There are multiple trees surrounding it with beehives, making a nice local source for honey and wax, there's clay and copper in the cliffs outside, and room for farming on the plateau below.
There's even a grapple spot to quickly get to the roof, and it has its own water well right outside so there's no need to unlock and build my own. There are so many amenities inside like sinks and bathtubs and toilets (the fantasy version of a toilet: a chair with a hole in the seat), bookshelves, wall-hangings, plenty of lighting, and lots more. This tavern has a 25 comfort rating! My crapshack has a pitiful 11.
As with any foray into home ownership, there are a few downsides. First off, as I discovered when trying to claim the joint with my flame altar, there are "enemies nearby." This turned out to be several large rats in the basement, and a moment later, a bunch of larger spiders in the basement's basement. But some frantic hacking with a two-handed axe solved the problem (there's a treasure chest down there too, so bonus) and once you claim the place they won't respawn.
Here's a little gallery showing off some of the curb appeal:
There are a bunch of corpses around the tavern, too: lying in bed, sitting on the toilet, crouching in a corner. It's pretty grim, but once you've claimed the plot you can deconstruct them and let them rest in peace (by which I mean grind them up into bonemeal for your garden). And there are some holes in the walls and roof, missing doors, smashed furniture, and other DIY improvements you'll have to make. For a bad builder like me, that's vastly preferable to constructing a place from scratch.
The Blue Goblet Tavern is located in the Revelwood, west-northwest of the Revelwood ancient spire. Here's a map showing its location, which can be enlarged by clicking the upper right corner:
By placing a flame altar inside on the floor, the border is just big enough to capture the entire building. If you expand the flame altar twice (with a total of 6 shroud cores) you'll have plenty of land to develop outside as well.
Now all I have to do is schlep all of my collected crafting materials and workbenches over to my brand new (well, extremely old) tavern, summon my NPCs, and remove a corpse from the toilet. Home sweet home.
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