Mermaid's Tail Bait and Bar

The Mermaid's Tail Bait and Bar in Shastaan provides wares for both fishing and drinking. Telward, as the bar's current bartender, helps customers whether they need to purchase bait or booze, sell fish, or a listening ear hear their fishing tales.

Drinks menu

Tequila - 20gp

Tequila, served in a sturdy, functional shotglass.

Ale - 25gp

Ale, served in an unremarkable wooden flagon.

Beer - 25gp

Beer, in an unremarkable, utilitarian wooden flagon.

Fishing equipment

Bait bucket - 195gp

Low and wide for stability, this wooden bait bucket is admirably adapted to its task. It has two carved handles with metal reinforcement along the top edge. The upper lip curves inwards, overhanging the centre in order to keep some of the more lively contents from seeking their freedom.

Simple fishing pole - 101gp

Made of supple wood and seven feet long, this pole is capable of fishing all the waterways of Sapience. Tiny metal loopholes have been embedded into the lower part of the rod, and a very slim string passes through them from an ingenious mechanical reel at the base. The reel itself appears to be stamped with the seal of Shastaan, and is a whirling marvel of moving parts that allows the line to be reeled in or cast out with but a deft flick of the wrist. A short length of line has been released at the top of the pole, where you can plainly see a number of weights, a shiny lure, and a menacing, barbed hook.

Deep sea fishing pole - 597gp

This pole is made of a heavy yet flexible jointed wood and is over six cubits in length. The handle is covered with a thick, dark-brown sheet of some animal skin that has been spiral stitched to the pole. Above the handle sits a largish reel and a spool of some line made of finely spun strands woven together. The line feeds through a series of metal loops decreasing in size from the reel to the pole's tip.

Minnow - 15gp

Five centimetres long at the biggest, this tiny silver-blue fish has only one purpose, to serve as bait. It is too small to eat or sell, and its iridescent, serrated fins are not of a size suited to any ornamental use.

Sand flea - 15gp

Brownish with white speckles, a sand flea has a shell like that of a snail and a body like a shrimp's, for it is split into several armoured segments. Perhaps as many as three or four centimetres long, it can be hard to spot, for its colouration blends in quite well with sand.

Worm - 15gp

Slimy and pink, a worm's body is sectioned into dozens of segments, each with several tiny hairs. The perpetual wiggling of its slim body is sure to seduce fish.

Shelled clam - 70gp

Slippery, sandy, and off-white, this raw clam meat does not entice the mortal's palate. Touching it is less than pleasant for most, and the only creature that might possibly find this interesting is some sort of hungry fish.

Crab - 70gp

Smaller than a mortal's fist, this crab is sand-coloured with a speckled shell. A rather large hole has been drilled through its shell and body so it can dangle from a fish hook, and so its body is somewhat misshapen.

Shrimp - 70gp

Several centimetres long when stretched out, this shrimp's segmented body is a bright blue that would be more practical camouflage underwater than here on land. Its legs are segmented and armoured like its shell, and a number of antennae protrude out of its bug-like face.

Mudsucker - 150gp

A squat fish nearly twenty centimetres long, this mudsucker is a brackish blue-black. Its two dorsal fins are yellowish, as are its belly fins and its tail, but their colour blurs into a muddy blue as well.

Hunk of octopus - 150gp

A small piece of a much larger animal, this rubbery chunk of octopus meat is a purplish colour. Its texture is slippery on one side, while the other side is dappled with dozens of small suckers, whose concentric colours draw the eye.

Rock bass - 250gp

This is no tiny fish, for its flat, oblong body weighs a good several pounds. Its scales are dappled brown and grey, a camouflage that helps it survive as well as providing it with its common name. Though slippery to the touch, its scales are surprisingly matte.

Marble carp - 275gp

This carp is a large round fish, with a sole dorsal fin. Its paired pelvic and pectoral fins are small and black, while its blue tail is relatively large. What is most surprising about this fish, however, is its colouration. Its body is patterned with an irregular marbling of gleaming white and vibrant blue, bright colours that cannot provide much disguise from predators.