Crow Club

Crow Club
Location Information
Location	Ketterdam
Nation	Kerch
General Information
Type	Gambling house
Head	Kaz Brekker
Organizations	The Dregs

The Crow Club is a gambling house on Ketterdam's East Stave, operated by Kaz Brekker and the Dregs.

History

The Crow Club was a dilapidated building when Kaz Brekker bought it and spruced it up into a gambling hall for the Dregs. He invited ordinary shopkeepers and legitimate businessmen to buy shares in the Crow Club, bringing them in with small stakes that paid back big for the early investors. However, it is possible this origin story is only a rumor planted by Kaz. Kaz became the floor boss of the Crow Club—and the youngest to ever run a betting shop. Over the next two years, Kaz doubled the club's profits.

Later, Kaz mortgaged the Crow Club in order to clean up Fifth Harbor. At some point, Kaz stashed 20,000 kruge behind a discolored brick in the wall behind the Crow Club, for use in an emergency.

Six of Crows

After a parley with the Black Tips, Kaz gives Jesper Fahey a line of credit at the Crow Club, which he uses to play Three Man Bramble with some Ravkan tourists. Inej fires Rojakke on the floor of the Crow Club after Kaz realized he was skimming. When Kaz returns to the Slat, he sends Anika and Dirix back to work at the club.

Kaz gathers his crew for the Ice Court heist in one of the private parlors of the Crow Club. On one of the card tables, Wylan Van Eck begins drawing the map of the Ice Court according to Matthias Helvar's descriptions. Kaz forces Matthias, Jesper, and Wylan to sleep in the parlor the night before they set sail for Fjerda.

When they return to Ketterdam, Kaz trades his shares in the Crow Club and Fifth Harbor to Pekka Rollins in exchange for 200,000 kruge.

Crooked Kingdom

After Jan Van Eck claims Kaz kidnapped his son, stadwatch investigate the Crow Club and the Slat. Per Haskell has to temporarily shut down the gambling hall.

As Ketterdam reacts to the outbreak of a (false) plague, Kaz takes advantage of low real estate prices to buy the building next to the Crow Club so he can expand. He also buys out Per Haskell's shares in the Crow Club. Thanks to the plague fear, the Crow Club is barely occupied, so Kaz orders Anika and Pim to entice tourists and workers to the club.

Rule of Wolves

Zoya Nazyalensky and Nikolai Lantsov visit the Crow Club to ask Kaz for his help stealing titanium from Rentveer. He takes them through the secret tunnel that connects the Crow Club to the Geldin District to meet up with Jesper and Wylan.

Description

Unlike the bright colors and gaudy flash of most gambling halls on East Stave, the Crow Club is predominantly colored black. It has a black and crimson facade, a portico with black columns, and an oxidized silver crow with its wings spread above the entrance. The interior of the club consists of a main hall with card tables and the like and several private gambling parlors, garbed in black and red. The card tables are circular and draped in crimson cloth decorated with a repeating pattern of black crows. The parlors also contain the equipment for Makker's Wheel. The walls are coated in black lacquer and the floor is black walnut. The club's parlors, like most gambling halls in the Barrel, are windowless to prevent customers from observing the passage of time, leading them to spend more time there. In at least some of the private parlors, there are safes hidden behind one of the wall panels.

It is located near the Slat, far south on East Stave. Kaz hires steerers to drive tourists away from the Emerald Palace and to the Crow Club. Doormen monitor the entrance and barkers stand out front, offering free drinks, hot coffee, and good deals.

By the time of Rule of Wolves, the Crow Club is three times the size of any other establishment on the block. Zoya Nazyalensky describes it as "a demon dance hall." Off the side of the main gambling floor is a discreet door guarded by two bouncers, which leads into a card room. A locked door in this card room leads to a tunnel beneath the canals. The tunnel ends at a huge iron door with an elaborate locking mechanism and a spinning handle, which exits in the Geldin District.