The Kelp Bar
A generous soul might call the building ‘unprepossessing’, while someone more cynical might describe it as ‘run-down’. It is a weather-beaten structure made of bleached-out boards that have salt stains running along the bottoms. In front hangs a sign that appears to have been lettered by punching holes in a sheet of metal; the letters read ‘Kelp Bar’.
As the bar is on the very end of East Street, close to the docks, most of the clientele are either sailors or shipyard workers. The interior is lit by a few sputtering oil lamps, whose light looks feeble even in the middle of the day. No two of the tables and chairs seem to have come from the same set, and several of the chairs are so rickety that a person is taking their life in their hands by testing their seats. It is the sort of place where anyone who isn't immediately known to the regulars can feel themselves being examined upon entering. Although rarely is anyone overtly hostile—at least, at first.
There is a bar along one side of the room where one can get their own drinks before lounging on the precarious chairs in the parlor area. A large sign behind the bar declares in large, black letters: KELP BEER, 1 HALF-NILO. The letters are old with a heavy coating of dust on them, and have not even addressed the fact that Nilo are no longer legal tender in Zeltiva. It doesn't have any other items listed, because the Kelp Bar doesn't sell anything else. Food shortages are common in Zeltiva, public restaurants don't exist, and the only beverages that can be produced locally and reliably, are kelp beer and water. And the kind of people who come to the Kelp Bar spend all day working in and around the water, and aren't about to drink any during their private time.
Should one have the courage to order a mug of the stuff, they will be confronted with a flat, green substance that smells suspiciously like a dead fish—probably after rotting for several days on the beach. All the locals in the bar seem to drink it with impunity, but the kindest thing an outsider has ever said about it is that it was an "acquired taste". If one were to actually drink it, they would find that it tastes almost exactly like it smells, except saltier. It also contains an extremely high quantity of alcohol, which might be the only fact that allows a person unfamiliar with it to keep drinking it.
Leon Moorfel
Date of Birth: Fall, 476AV
Place of Birth: Zeltiva
Title: Owner of the Kelp Bar
Skills: Brewing (75), Cooking (65), Weapon: Dagger (50), Fishing (40), Aquiculture (35), Organization (30)
Language: Common (Fluent), Fratava (Fluent)
Concept: It is tended by a grim-looking woman whose brown hair is shot through with streaks of grey. She has the appearance of someone who might have been very attractive once, but time had not been kind to her, and her face shows some of the weariness that she obviously feels. She doesn’t speak much, but when she does it is with a dock draw and a heavy dose of dry sarcasm. She fits in perfectly well with her customers and knows exactly how to talk to them, finding little issue. She is not a very strong woman, but is beloved by all of the Sailor’s Quarter if not the city, and so finds little issue kicking anyone out of the Kelp Bar on the occasion it is needed.
Prices
⥼ Drinks
- Kelp Beer, mug: 5 SM
Original location credit goes to Liminal.
