The Sour Barghest

Hearsay:The Sour Barghest is a small, smelly, acrid-smoke filled tavern on the Lower Planar side of the Outlands. It sits somewhere between Tir Na Og and Rigus, but it is still far enough away from the Great Road to see the Spire. Being roughly two to six days walk from Rigus, it is a major dive of the goblinoid races that constantly war with one another on the floating and spinning cubes. A rough and tumble place filled with tough bashers with itchy sword fingers and tongues spewing screed and wanting bub, it is not a place for primes. Most primes seem to think of orcs, goblins and hobgoblins as stupid, crass, slow-wits, but they have another thing comin’ when they enter the Sour Barghest. It’s patrons make up the majority of the Acherian War-Lord’s recruiting militia, and some of them have been known to be a ruthless as a baatezu with a Blood War contract when it comes to signing up berks to join up in the Iron Waltzes... It’s their job to keep the War-Lord’s ranks brimming with the brightest, smartest, and toughest warriors. It also their job to scrag as many clueless sods as they can to use as fodder, and three things that they do not do when it comes to fodder: discriminate, ask for permission, and think twice. It’s best to have a good friend watching yer back when you walk into this joint.

Description:From outside, the Sour Barghest looks like a fairly inviting kip. It is a low-slung dive, built into the side of a rolling hill with some shoddy stone and woodwork, but all in all, it doesn’t look half-bad. There are no hitching posts, are there’s no barn to speak of, merely a ramshackle lean-to in the back for storing firewood and curing ‘meats’. In the front of the tavern, off to the right side (near the hill) is a large pile of rusting metal garbage consisting of old used pans, kettles, smashed helms and breastplates (possibly of brawlers long gone), and various and sundry rotting garbage. NOTE: - There is a permanent portal to Acheron grounded in the mouth of a massive, sunken soup kettle here. The key is a scattered iron filing. A weathered sign hangs above the tarp-covered door depicting a scowling barghest.

Within, the tavern’s walls are covered from floor to ceiling with various planar maps, faction posters, rag pages, etc. that look like they have been drug all over the planes themselves. Frot merely started putting these up years ago to cover the holes in the walls, and it became a theme with some of the regulars. Now nearly everyone that comes in tacks something or another upon the wall, whether it is to immortalize themselves or just get rid of some junk they are carrying, no one knows. What little wood is in the tavern appears to have been salvaged from wreckages of giant war machines, or perhaps ships of some sort. All of it is fire and tar blackened, pitted with age and signs of struggle, and often bears insignia of a particular force or organization. (These tables are fiercely defended and hoarded by the locals, however). The stone is the jumbled-looking stone of the Outlands, roughly hewn and severely mortared to compensate. The serving ware is also a motley conglomeration that appears to have been scavenged from the far corners of the planes. There is only one ‘specialty’ to speak of, and it is Frot’s famous ‘Don’t Ask and I Won’t Tell’ meat slabs, served with a strange, thick-skinned, maroon tuber that he apparently grows himself. The meat is cooked from rare to seared, depending on the order, but that is about all of the control you will have over it. No matter what drink is ordered Frot only pours one, rotgut. Any complaints can be taken up with the management, Frot’s three-headed spiked mace that he lovingly calls ‘The Boss’.

The Dark:The Sour Barghest is run by an old, battle scarred one eared barghest that has obviously seen his fair share of bashing. Chant is that he was once a high-up in Acheron, but after many years of the horrors of the battlecubes, along with a brief stint in the Blood War, he lost his taste for war. It is rumored in low voices that he made a deal with a baatezu high-up, and in exchange for eliminating certain ‘obstructions’ for the fiend, he was ‘let out’ of his position fast, with no questions, and with a ton of jink. Why he started a dive near Rigus is any blood’s guess, but now he has a fairly profiting venture and not many questions are asked. (It’s said that those that ask too many questions wind up in one of three places: the meat-house, out back, the trash pile, out front, or thrown through the portal into Avalas, where a berk either winds up in the dead book or ‘enlisted’ in one of the scads of armies there). He never smiles, and it whispered that that’s because he’s now indebted to a baatezu, and that’s enough to make any cutter unhappy. It’s said that he would give it all up for his freedom, ‘cause he feels the fiend’s claws a’callin’. The barghest goes by the name Frot Steelshod (Pl/ Barghest/F7,T5/NE/Bleak Cabal), but don’t expect him to talk much. Recently, he has taken to taking up Bleaker rags on his walls, which only goes to support the ‘theories’ of the locals. He runs the tavern by himself, he does not ‘bus’ the tables, as that is expected to be done by the following (or new) customer, usually by raking the previous customer’s remnants into the floor. He rarely, if ever, comes out from behind the bar, and when he does, it is usually bad business for all concerned.

Recent Chant:Seems that of late, the old barghest has noticed a great deal of Harmonium and Mercykiller activity in the 'Land. Looks like the bashers are settin' up road blocks and harrying every sod and merchant that comes their way, often scraggin' them but for the most part lettin' 'em go. The Law-sods are always chargin' them a 'processin' fee', though, and the bashers are as tight-lipped as Sung Chaing's purse strings as to what the chant is to all of this hullybully. Seems that the sods they scrag, however, are bein' taken farther in, towards the Spire. Some bloods even say that they are being taken to Illsensine's Realm for 'processing'... Now, sod, put that in yer waterpipe and smoke it!