The neighborhood of Newbridge has a great many inns, but the largest and one of the most respected is the Whispering Elm, owned and operated by Laraket Trang ("Lar" for short). The Elm has enough rooms to accommodate more than a hundred guests at once, and is almost always full; the best way to get a room at the Elm is to reserve it months in advance. Even visitors who aren't staying at the Elm may have reason to stop by and spend some time in its common areas and its restaurant, not only for the food quality but also to get recommendations for guides. Trang and her staff are familiar with the most respected and reputable guides in Newbridge and vet them before referring visitors to them, so if you want to find a guide who's guaranteed to be legitimate and don't want to go through Elistar Guides (which in some ways is of questionable legitimacy anyway), the Whispering Elm is a good alternative.

So successful has Trang been with the Whispering Elm that she has made something of a franchise of it, letting other innkeepers elsewhere in Lüm and lately even in other cities give their own inn a variation of the name (generally "Elm" with a different adjective) and explicitly claim affiliation, using branded supplies and décor that Trang provides them. Trang takes the reputation of her franchise very seriously, and is more than willing to revoke the license for inns that don't measure up to her standards; she weighs complaints and compliments sent to her by guests, and occasionally travels to other inns in the franchise for inspections. The original Whispering Elm in Newbridge remains the largest, however, and Trang herself resides there in a room on the ground floor, and has excavated an extensive office suite below (heavily and magically reinforced against the encroachment of water from the surrounding swamp) where franchise business is dealt with.

Laraket Trang is a dumpy, short-limbed woman who can move very rapidly when she wants to, and often startles people with sudden bursts of quick activity. A navanar with some shrew ancestry, she has a pointed face and patches of light brown fur on her body. Her voice is high pitched and slightly nasal, and she has a tendency to noisily draw air through her clenched teeth when annoyed or dismayed. Her usual attire is a brown smock and skirt, with a white kerchief on her head.