Caravanners typically have beasts of burden and wagons, so while their equipment needs to be as rugged as that of any traveling culture, they can often deal with a little bit of extra weight if some other concern makes it worth it. Still, every pound of equipment carried is a pound of carrying capacity that can’t be devoted to trade goods, so a balance must be struck.

Prodigies are gifted with exceptional talents entirely inaccessible to the vast majority of creatures.

The saying goes that when the snowpears can be harvested the winter is ending and new journeys can begin. These odd, squat trees appear dead for much of the year, but they leaf and flower briefly following the first thaw and produce their fruits quickly afterward. Growing in clusters, each snowpear is no larger than a grape. They have pale pink skin covering jelly-like purple flesh and taste like a ripe pear long soaked in honey. Unfortunately, they spoil quickly and have proved difficult to preserve or ferment into alcohol.

If Hearthenfalme is meant to be a joyous occasion, the longest night of the year is often a source of fear, as undead and evil powers are thought to take advantage of the extended darkness to further their vile plans. The Dunwell Rising, which saw the ghosts of that accursed and abandoned town appear to kill thousands, started on Longnight a little over twenty years ago. The devastating plague known as the Gray Blight took its first victim on a Longnight centuries past before going on to ravage the continent.

The world is old beyond the memory of all but the longest lived, and heroes who were once renowned for their selfless sacrifices and mighty deeds are long forgotten. The genius minstrel Wol Dreyfoot claimed to have been inspired by the many partial tales and snippets of longer stories held in the bardic college’s vaults as he composed his magnum opus, “Song of the Forgotten Hero”, nearly a century ago.

Hearthenflame occurs on the night of the first new moon of winter and commemorates the bravery of Paneth, the celestial who legend holds brought knowledge of hearth and fire to mortals in direct defiance of the gods. When discovered he was transformed into a pig by the gods and then unknowingly cooked and eaten by the mortals to whom he had given the secrets.