Barrel of Bacchus

  Within the taphouses and village inns of the Golden Empire, one can often come across the legendary tales of Saint Bacchus. Otherwise known as the saint of wine, which the minstrels love singing about.   In the legends, Saint Bacchus was a traveling vintner that ventured around the Golden Dunes during an era where clean water was scarce and wine anything but cheap.   With a large collection of different barrels, he went from village to village and gave out free samples to the locals. He then invested in vineyards and production of various cheaper and easily produced vintages to both quench the thirst of the people, but also forge trading relations and routes between different settlements - that all produced their own unique drinks.   As a result, thirst dropped remarkably in only five years, while coin and cultural interchange flourished. This made the mysterious merchant that never made his intentions clear in words, a living legend for his actions.     While Bacchus was historically a real figure, his blessed barrel of endless bounty that is often mentioned in children's stories, is not.   Bacchus never came to a village with a single endless keg of wine. He offered over several casks that were all slightly different, but brewed on the ingredients and conditions that could be sourced locally to the region.   This act was as much charity as it was a tactical mercantile move. Questioning the villagers on which vintage was their favourite, before teaching them how to brew it. He did not operate on philanthropy alone either, demanding a small sum of trade profits to keep his swiftly growing wine empire afloat.   The Barrel of Bacchus has thus turned into something of a tradition, that the cheapest swill or rest produced from the traditional wines - are blended together and stored in a large canister often found outside a tavern entry, or right by the bar counter inside.   As water is still scarcer than wine in the deserts, these so called Barrels of Bacchus serve as cheap offerings for those in desperate need to quench their thirst, ‘lest the scorching sands claim their lives.