Curiousities is a small boutique of strange and exotic goods. The owner greets you as you walk in -- a rat-faced fellow with a patchy beard and scarred cheeks.
This shop is glorious. It has old swords, gemstones, finely carved wood trinkets, and books with suggestive titles. Rolled up tapestries fill one shelf, with a collection of fine paintings leaning against it. There are looking glasses, statuettes, and old jewelry. Some of these gadgets are so strange you can't even identify their use.
When the shopkeep tells you he's a retired adventurer it all makes more sense. Though he isn't very old, he's comfortably retired to a life of dealing in interesting goods.
As it is when meeting any adventurer, he regales you with grand (and slightly exaggerated) tales of his exploits. He and his dungeon-diving buddies had competitions on who could come up with the most devious use of plain Rope. The possibilites are endless -- setting intricate traps, springing other traps, climbing treacherous terrain, tying up a sleeping giant, swinging acrobatically across chasms. The shopkeep claims he knew someone that convinced an entire tribe of orcs that he was their god incarnate, using only a length of rope and some quick thinking.
You wish you could afford anything in the shop. Perhaps when, or if, you return from Kingswall you'll give him first choice of your findings.