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Random thought on the Barleycorn Monastery

by Cab Davidson

Just musing on imperial measurements and the word 'barleycorn' came to mind. In some ways the old imperial system is daft, in others it's brilliant. I'm delighted that we in the UK (for the most part) use the far more sensible metric system for some things, but there are some elements from the older way that appeal. One of them is the barleycorn, a third of an inch. Great word isn't it? And what an evocative way of measuring something. A barleycorn is about a third of the width of your thumb long, so it's a third of an inch, that being roughly the width of a mans thumb. Then a hand is four inches, roughly the width of a mans hand, and a foot... Well you get where I'm going from, you can see how such simple ways of doing this held sway for so long.

And so to HWA1 and the Barleycorn Monastery, which is (from what I remember, haven't dug the book out yet) a small, ruined monastery. An odd name for something sitting high in the Broken Lands somewhere near Ethengar and Glantri - it doesn't sound especially like it's a name derived from either.

So, as a matter of no particular importance, I put forward the idea that Barleycorn is named thus because it was so small, it was a tiny monastery building, perhaps even with an ethos based on aestheticism based isolation and an economy of space. Barleycorn was, perhaps, an hermitage with delusions of grandeur.

For completeness here's how Barleycorn is now in my campaign.

Barleycorn Monastery

Location: Broken Lands
Style: Entropy
Members: 80 (mostly hobgoblins and goblins)
Master: Heretic Zam Zammara (Hobgoblin Mystic 16)

Located high on an isolated plateau in the Broken Lands, the Barleycorn was founded by Ethengarian mystics seeking to reform the lost souls of their own errant ancestors reincarnated as humanoids. It is unknown precisely when or how the original Barleycorn Brotherhood fell, but it was replaced by a new entropic order of goblin and hobgoblin mystics who in typical humanoid fashion formed a grotesque parody of the original group. Ranging far and wide across the broken lands and beyond, members hire themselves out as mercenaries to whichever humanoid warlord will pay them most. The most worthy applicants (being those who survive whatever new, brutal tests are dreamed up by the Grand Abbott) are inducted into the order during a dark ceremony on the night of the new moon.