madoc proudfoot

You felt a little nervousness in your stomach as you sat there nursing your pint, tasting the iron from your cup. You'd been living with shirefolk for a few weeks and had heard a rumor that picqued your curiosity: a tanner named Proudfoot who was rumored to be 'part horse.' You remember seeing a she-orc at your inn holding her hands far apart, as if describing a massive fish she'd caught.

"That's just impossible, there's no way," you laughed, heat rising in your cheeks. "I swear," she said, noticing with a tusked smile. "Go see it for yourself, at the Hog and Anvil in Treegarland."

Treegarland was several towns over, two separate carriage-rides and a long walk away. You found the saloon, which looked and smelt like a combination of pub and rabbit warren, full of hairy beings and pipesmoke and catfolk and lizardfolk and the warm, alive babble of a local watering hole. Your unfortunate height left you cramped into one corner of the establishment, a tree root from the ceiling resting gently on your shoulder. You order some ale in a coppery-tasting cup, and wait.

The pub was subterranean, with a batwing saloon door at the top of a battered dirt staircase that led into the main carousing area. You felt and looked and probably smelled suspicious, a stranger. Eyes lingered on you, particularly those of one lecherous lizard-man who scooched closer to you. "Fuck," you thought, burying your face in the tome you brought to read. "Hey," he croaks, a fat old gila monster with long claws dyed teal. "Hey," he says again, over the din of the pub. You look up, and see his bright blue tongue slide across his lips. You felt oddly flirted with, like you and he were in some conspiracy together, were already bound by some common interest.

"You here to see the horse-boy?" He said, grinning bigger. "I come here every week..."

You heard the batwing doors swing open, and just from the heavy footfalls your nervous heart was certain he was here. The heavy footsteps thumped down the dirt steps until a light cheer went around the candle-lit interior of the pub. "Show's about to start!" Your new gila monster friend says, his clawed hand resting on your thigh.

"Part dwarf, part hobbit, all hammer!"

"i wasn't even really into feet until i saw his..."

"The Twelve-and-a-Halfling..."

"Talk about a pocket pony!"

"The man himself!"