Three Old Kegs

Named for its sign, three lashed-together barrels hanging from a pole, the Three Old Kegs is popular with current and retired members of The Flaming Fist. It serves simple and hearty meals, keeps a variety of good-quality but inexpensive wines and beers, and tolerates no rowdiness among its clientele. Rooms are available for both short- and long-term stays, and the Three Old Kegs offers laundry, mending, repair, and sharpening services to its guests. Its reasonable prices and welcoming atmosphere have led several retired Flaming Fist mercenaries to adopt the place as a full-time residence. These long-term regulars act as additional security, making the Three Old Kegs one of the safest places for visitors to stay in Baldur's Gate.

The proprietors, three wart-covered brothers in their late fifties known collectively as the "Three Old Toads," are named Alstan, Brunkhum, and Klalbrot Wintersides—all neutral good male human commoners. The Three Old Toads are known to be soft touches for a sob story. All the cooks and servers at the Three Old Kegs are Flaming Fist widows and orphans, and the tavern regularly hosts fundraisers for the families of those crippled or killed in service. However, the brothers' kindness is not matched by their discernment, and the Three Old Toads frequently fall victim to grifters. Several times, these con artists have stolen enough money to threaten the Three Old Kegs with bankruptcy, and the brothers have been forced to find outside help to recover their lost funds and keep the tavern solvent. (Baldur's Gate, Descent into Avernus, 2019)

Purpose / Function

One of the most cozy, welcoming, and tolerant establishments in Baldur’s Gate, Three Old Kegs is named for its sign, featuring three lashed-together barrels hanging from a pole. The place is immensely popular, so much so that regular wayfarers’ donations have rebuilt the business after lire gutted it on three separate occasions.
The current Three Old Kegs features a large, central feasting hall whose entrance faces the bar and opens directly into the main common room. The Kegs serves hearty, simple food and good brews and wine. The establishment also rents out two private dining rooms, which are flanked by the kitchen and the pantries. Three of the Kegs’ floors are open to patrons, and its small, spartan guest rooms boast individual chimneys. The Kegs is known for the welcome it gives to travelers, and it offers mending, laundering, and weapon and tool repair and sharpening services to guests. The building’s two levels of cellars and its attic serve as housing for the staff and as storage and work areas.
The first of the fires toasted the Kegs’ original thick rugs and wall hangings, which have for the most part not been replaced, but the beloved inn and tavern offers just as many crowded bookshelves as its predecessors did. The Kegs remains a quiet establishment that patrons seek out as a refuge from revelry and the bustle of the streets. A popular spot for reading, napping, and idle gambling, the Kegs prohibits rowdiness. Patrons may wear weapons only in their rooms and in the arming lobby adjacent to the structure’s entrance.
Roisterers are warned that Three Old Kegs has a resident population of more than a dozen full-season renters who are retired from the Flaming Fist. These “weather eyes” won’t set foot outside the Kegs on any thing called an adventure, but they do defend the inn staff, keep order, and dispense advice and useful con tact information to guests who seem in need of it. They make their coin as recruiters and watchers for the Flaming Fist, message holders, and occasional armed escorts for merchants who are transporting goods.
Alstan, Brunkhurn, and Klalbrot Wintersides, known collectively as “the Old Toads,” own the Kegs. Kindly but gruff, the three wart-covered brothers work tirelessly and watch over the two-score world-wise widows and middle-aged females who work for the Kegs as maids, cooks, and servers.
Unknown to most patrons, the Old Toads are not wholly strait-laced. Deep inside one of their locked keg cellars is the Big Hollow, a huge empty barrel that sports a concealed door and vent holes. The Wintersides rent it as a hidey-hole for brief periods. Anyone who uses the Big Hollow to imprison or mistreat some one is reported to the authorities. (Murder in Baldur's Gate, 2013)

Type

Pub / Tavern / Restaurant

Parent Location

Temples