⚔ Aᴅᴠᴇɴᴛᴜʀᴇ ⚔

Hamhocks Slaughterhouse is the beating heart of Baldur's Gate's meat industry and one of the Outer City’s most infamous landmarks. Operated by the Hamhock family for generations, this sprawling facility processes livestock at an industrial scale, supplying butchers, taverns, and merchant ships bound for distant ports. While vital to the city’s food supply, the slaughterhouse is reviled by many neighbors—its overpowering stench and unceasing noise sour relations with nearby hostlers and tanners. Rumors swirl of backroom dealings, illegal alchemical tallow trades, and even the occasional disappearance blamed on the "blood pits." Despite this, its iron-fisted foreman and ruthless efficiency make Hamhocks untouchable. City watchmen tread lightly here, as the Hamhocks hold sway with certain Guild members and the darker corners of the Black Network.

The air thickens before Hamhocks even comes into view—an acrid cocktail of iron, wet fur, and offal clings to the wind. The complex sprawls over an entire block, a chaotic tangle of low brick buildings, soot-caked chimneys, and fenced-in killing yards echoing with the cries of doomed beasts. Blood gutters run openly into the cobbled streets, staining the stones rust-red, while a haze of steam rises from the boiling pits and smokehouses. Laborers in blood-slick aprons haul carcasses with mechanical precision, their grim expressions lost behind soot-streaked visors and buzzing flies. Rusted bells toll shift changes like funerary chimes. The entire place hums with brutal, ceaseless industry, casting a shadow of dread and grim utility across the district.