ST
Stelios the Taverner
Role Tavern-keeper (Greek kapelio)
Nationality Greek
Status alive
Age late 50s
Description
A barrel of a Greek in his late fifties, bald and bearded, forearms like cables, an apron stiff with years of spilled wine. Booms a welcome at every stranger and remembers every face. Runs
Description
A barrel of a Greek in his late fifties, bald and bearded, forearms like cables, an apron stiff with years of spilled wine. Booms a welcome at every stranger and remembers every face. Runs a low waterside kapelio in the Frank quarter — a smoky single room with benches, a fiddle on a nail, and a back shelf of retsina, raki, and a date arrack that strips paint. Sailors of every flag drink here.
Background
Came to Alexandria off a Greek coaster thirty years ago and never re-shipped. The tavern is the harbour’s unofficial news exchange — who arrived, who sailed, whose cargo was interesting, which captain is hiring or fleeing. Stelios trades the news for custom and keeps the worst of it behind his teeth.
Motivations
- A full room and a quiet one — he’ll throw a knife-puller out the door himself.
- Gossip is his stock-in-trade; he gives it freely to good customers and shades it for coin.
Connections
- The liquor-and-gossip stop on the Alexandria streets (see Session 03 Alexandria). A natural draw for Holt, Thomas, and Freddy.
Appearances
Relationships
- Publican-to Nathaniel Holt — A sailors' taverner; warms to a navy man who drinks and listens