City
Dangerous
Squalid prices
Ledger & Cleaver
the pit in the slaughterhouse's shadow
You duck past a greasy back door and down three stone steps into a low-ceilinged cellar that smells of blood, sweat, and stale ale. Oil lamps gutter in iron brackets; their light glazes off hanging hooks and stacked crates of salted hides. The far wall is a ring of packed earth, blood-dark at the base and rimed with chalk rings where fighters were marked; a tangled skein of ropes and muffled cheers surrounds it. Voices are low and sharp—bets barked in clipped syllables, a bawdy chorus when a brawl tips their way. Newcomers are watched like fresh meat; loyalty here is measured in coin and scars.
A rusted cleaver nailed to a warped wooden board; the blade is pitted, a dried smear of dark stain runs from handle to tip, and a brass coin nailed beneath it bears no lettering—just a crude knuckledice engraving.
Miron Hesk
human
Manner
Quirk
Stats
Knuckledice
5 cpA shot of house spirit served with a crushed coin; drinking steadies the hand and dulls shame—grants +1 to Intimidation or Athletics for the duration of a single contest (ten minutes), but imposes -1 to Perception checks for the same time.
Squalid (5e lifestyle: about 1 sp a day)
Tilda Brune · barmaid
A lean woman with a scarred jaw who keeps orders moving and subtly sweeps pockets for owed coin—she knows the best bettors and who is up for a fight.
Big Jory · bouncer
A hulking, missing-tooth ex-prizefighter who opens fights with a grin and closes them with a club; he takes the cellar's house cut personally.
Seth Harrow
Once a promising young fighter who vanished from the ring three weeks ago; rumors say he crossed someone at the slaughterhouse.
Mother Kess
An older fence and fixer who buys 'special' cuts from the slaughterhouse and pays fighters' debts when it suits her; she keeps a ledger of her own.
Roon the Small
A nervous bookie who runs the betting chalks and knows which rings pay the most and which stables to avoid.
1
The foreman Garron Pike has been shipping 'blackhide' crates out the west yard at night; someone saw a chained crate marked with a sleeper's sigil last moon.
2
Seth Harrow owed a tab to Mother Kess and was seen arguing with a butcher named Pale Gidd before he disappeared; a gambler promises a safe reward to anyone who brings Seth back alive.
3
A crooked priest named Hamen sells 'blessed bindings' to fighters that ensure a quick fall—several fighters who used them turned up dead in the slaughterhouse's lower vats.
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