Village
Rowdy
Poor prices
The Split Barrel
the ciderhouse where sour meets sweet
Inside, the air is all warm apple steam, straw, and the sour tang of ferment. Long wooden benches crowd a low-ceilinged room where laugher and argument clang together like mugs; torchlight guttering in iron sconces throws everyone into half-shadow. The bar is a single plank scarred with countless knife nicks and a dark line of sap-stain down the middle — the patrons on either side sit as if on different continents. The crowd is a muddle of rough coats, sunburned faces and work-worn hands: cider-makers, field hands, and a surprising number of stern-faced elders in family tartans, each side watching the other through a veil of insult and old jokes. When voices rise, the house tends to cheer rather than shove — factions trade roasts, slanders, and an exchange of mugs until the brawl threshold is reached and the room turns into controlled chaos that somehow ends with a shared hymn for the harvest.
A weathered wooden stave split down the middle, one half painted crimson, the other green; a painted cider apple sits over the crack. The paint is chipped, the hanging iron ring is rusted, and a small brass plaque reads: 'Mind the Split.'
Merran Hobb
Human
Manner
Quirk
Stats
Moon-split Cup
1 spA small measure of the house's sharpest cider warmed with clove and a drop of something darker — it brightens spirits and makes one's tongue more likely to tell the truth for the next hour.
Poor (5e lifestyle: about 2 sp a day)
Hobert 'Hob' Gree · bouncer
A broad-shouldered ex-porter who steps between fists with a weary grin and a rule: 'Two steps, not three.'
Mira Clem · barmaid
Quick with a mug and quicker with gossip, Mira knows which family paid and who owes for stitches.
Old Jams · cook
A cranky man who burns everything to the same blackened crust and insists no one tastes food that isn't 'properly singed.'
Garrick Crowford
A lean foreman from the Crowford side who swears someone used Blightroot Orchard's apples to poison his father's cider vats.
Hedwyn Merris
A blunt-faced Merris matron who trades insults with Garrick and quietly offers coin to anyone who can produce the 'night-apple' cider.
Old Marrek
A stooped cooper who whispers about a sealed barrel in the cellar that tastes 'like moonlight and mischief' and claims he once slept under its scent for a week.
1
Garrick Crowford claims his late father hid a crude map pointing to a single tree in Blightroot Orchard that bears 'night-apples' — he wants a party to retrieve a sample before the Merris do.
2
Old Marrek says the Split Barrel's cellar hides a cedar barrel sealed last harvest containing moon-lit cider; he believes a small town official, Maris Vale, took a vial to test its effects and is now acting oddly.
3
Constable Maris Vale is investigating irregular shipments of casks sent overnight to Grayhaven; someone in the village is smuggling silver coins inside cider barrels and paying off coastal buyers.
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