Quick facts
Type: Bar · Location: Saline Coast · Run by: Harlan Ironfoot · Known for: Shady deals and a hidden way into the Saline Coast Sewers
The Rusty Anchor is a rough bar on the Saline Coast where criminals meet and secrets are traded. The FAM went there for leads, played a dangerous game of poker there, and later used it to get into the sewers.
Overview
The bar sits in a dimly lit alley in a less-traveled part of the city, near the edge of the docks where the land meets the water. The sign is weathered, with a rusted anchor hanging from it. The building is old, salt-stained wood with small grimy windows.
Inside it is dim and smells of stale ale and sea brine. Fishing nets, old maps and faded paintings of ships hang on the walls. The clientele is sailors, dock workers and unsavory types who keep to themselves. The bartender, a grizzled dwarf named Harlan Ironfoot, runs the place with a no-nonsense attitude and lets certain activities go on as long as they don’t hurt business. He has a network of contacts and sells information.
Several private rooms in the back, reached by a narrow hallway behind the bar, are used for meetings. Behind a false wall in one of them is a hidden passage to underground tunnels that connect to other parts of the city.
History
- Session 4: The party came here because the arsonists Yorn and Yagra were supposed to be paid here. The surly bartender gave them nothing, but they found a job board posting about bandits attacking caravans.
- Session 8: Nelda overheard talk here about a “Tourist Tinker Terrorist Terrorizes Town,” which led her to Wilbur. Escher overheard a meeting in the alley outside about using a “masquerade” as cover and taking care of “loose ends.”
- Session 9–10: Eldon Reed invited Wilbur to a poker game here after the masquerade ball. When Wilbur walked back out into the tavern, a large half-orc with a great axe attacked the party. The half-orc died and the party was thrown out.
- Session 23: The party went down a stairwell in the Rusty Anchor into the Saline Coast Sewers.
- Session 25: Coming back up, they found Harlan waiting at the top of the stairs. Wilbur misty-stepped and shoved him down the staircase, and the party escaped.
Appears in
Session 4, Session 8, Session 9, Session 10, Session 23, Session 25