Encounters: The Harrowed Hearts Club

Encounters: The Harrowed Hearts Club (2017, 2019) details the Harrowed Hearts Club, as well as covering the ins and outs of club construction, statblocks for employees, and rumors surrounding the establishment.
== A Chronology of the Harrowed Hearts Club ==
=== 1850s-1880s ===
In the 1850s, the Harra brothers started up a barrelhousea cheap and/or disreputable bar at a local well. Jacob was a stillerinformal term for one who operates the still, which ferments alcohol, John was the merchant, and Joseph was a fiddler who brought music to the humble establishment. Over time, some conflict grew between the three. Jacob the Stiller and John the Merchant wanted to get rid of Joseph--but Joseph himself had other plans. Jacob and John never came home one night, and the townsfolk mounted a posse to find them, looking high and low until they caught the stench of death coming from an old well--the two brothers were slain, and the mob was furious. Details of the ensuing plan are scarce, save that they managed to catch Joseph--suspected of killing his brothers before letting them boot him out of the family business. The mob hung him, but in their shame, buried Joseph in the well with his brothers, and vowed to not speak of it again. As such, the scant few tales that remain are mere flickering embers of the truth. All embellishments aside, there are unhappy spirits lying beneath the Club as we know it--perhaps Joseph wasn't the killer after all, and his brothers seek to clear his name from beyond the grave.
=== 1880s-1940s ===
The dancehall. The Fire of 1889. A hundred and fifty souls lost. The ashes laid for a while until the Club was used as a warehouse, which was renovated into a speakeasy during the Prohibition. This is where it got its contemporary title, the Harrowed Hearts Club. Supposedly, it was owned by some powerful figures in the Mob, but a shootout with the Feds left some administrative vacancies.
=== 1940s-1980s ===
During WWII, the Club served a whole lot of servicemen from a nearby military base. From 50s to 60s it hosted all manner of entertainment--beat poetry, blues, country, rockabilly, and rock. This era also had its share of unnatural deaths: Carver Hawthorn the Poet was shot by a biker over an argument about a cigarette girl. Billy Montgomery the Rockabillerinformal; one who plays rockabilly died onstage in "a violent fit", as some described it. Andrew Jackson Johnson, lead singer of The Skyliners, died in an auto accident just after performing here. Ace Hoyle, the Soul Performer, was found dead in an apparent--but not confirmed--suicide. The club was sold around the 70s, refitted into an elaborate car dealership--even using Andrew Jackson Johnson's death car as a (rather macabre) display piece.
=== 1980s-Present ===
In the early 1980s, The Harrowed Hearts Club was reopened in all its glory, catering to a more hard-edged scene. Its bad fortune seemed to still haunt it--Anna Domini the punk guitarist overdosed shortly after performing here, and Tommy Salerno, drummer of the Gunseleers, simply disappeared completely. There was one small light in this darkness--the Internet. The Harrowed Hearts Club's misfortunate history gained a cult following among ghost-hunters, music fans, and those looking for a diamond in the rough. The structure has changed shape over the years, but they say its foundations are still the same--below the shredding of guitars and crashing of drums, beneath the floorboards, the skeletons of the Harra brothers still sit in the well they were condemned to nearly a century ago.
== References and Notes ==
Category:PDF Only
Category:2017
Category:2019