Apologies & more silence to follow

Things have been very hectic here these past few days in preparation for my mother's operation, which is why I haven't posted in a week. I apologize for that.

As of 8am today she went into surgery for a laparoscopic hysterectomy, because while tests earlier in the year proved she didn't have ovarian cancer, her doctors felt that it would only be a matter of time until it developed anyway, and so it was better safe than sorry.

So far, so good. I will post what I know when I know it. As it currently stands, she will spend the night in the hospital and then return tomorrow for 3 weeks of recovery, during which time I will be spending XP on domestic skills and perhaps taking a level or two in Domestic Goddess.

As a result, posts may become very minimal around here for a while. I'll try to update once a week, and will Tweet whenever possible, so you can keep in the loop that way.

I thank everyone who has offered prayers and well-wishes. They have helped quite a bit.

WNW: Spring is Here

Linky.

Pellatarrum: Some Questions Answered

Shaddakim, the gentleman who has kindly offered to take my various rantings about Pellatarrum and edit them into something approaching coherence, today asked me a few questions about the setting. I was only too happy to answer him, and since the work was already done, I decided to turn into a blog post for your reading pleasure and my growing postcount.




What does the sky look like? I know the elements move across it in a seasonal pattern, but is that a band across the apex or horizon-to-horizon, north-to-south and east-to-west?

Horizon to horizon, unless you are facing sunward, in which case they fade into the brightness/darkness. Recall that the elemental planes form the cosmological shell of the universe which contains Pellatarrum and are therefore larger than the material plane.


 Are the elements in the sky clearly visible or background visible (like the moon during the daytime)?

 It rather depends on the element and the time of day. I think I need a sort of chart here...

Daytime

Earth: Much like our world's moon, only with more variation of color and shadow.
Air: The deepest, bluest sky you've ever seen, perfect for losing yourself in.
Fire: A haze of pinks, reds, and oranges, rather like seeing a smog layer at sunrise/sunset.
Water: A reflective, rippling layer, like the sea on a cloudy day, only upside-down.

Nighttime

Earth: Mineral deposits and strata sparkle with light conducted from the positive energy plane, giving an impression of a fiber-optic aurora, as different materials catch and reflect different colors.
Air: Lightning and other atmospheric effects, including the light from various cloud castles, creates a slowly-moving starfield of incredible depth and complexity.
Fire: The Negative Sun helps bank the fires somewhat, reducing the flames to the cherry-red glow of hot coals. The City of Brass shines brighter and hotter than its surroundings, much like a Full Moon.
Water: The sky above is dark, mysterious, and capricious in what it reflects. It's rather like being on the water just before a storm, not certain if it will smash into you or pass harmlessly overhead.

Nighttime Light levels

Start of Winter: Waning Crescent
Midwinter: New Moon
Start of Spring: Waxing Crescent
Mid-Spring: First Quarter
Start of Summer: Waxing Gibbous
Midsummer: Full Moon
Start of Autumn: Waning Gibbous
Mid-Autumn: Last Quarter


I've seen references to a Nightspire in the comments, which appears to have been destroyed. Is its previous existance a world secret (only the most learned know of it and maybe not even them) or generally known?

It's existence and subsequent destruction is unknown, more from apathy than from any desire of secrecy. Only the Dwarves care about its existence, and that's mostly as a footnote in the original Blueprints of Creation.

I haven't yet decided if the Dwarves know it's been destroyed or not.

Random Awesome Thought of the Day

I have decided that what I would really, really like to see is a science-fiction version of the Old School Renaissance  -- by which I mean a kind of space action/exploration game that is more operatic than Traveller, but more Hard SF than Star Wars, sort of like Honor Harrington or Hammer's Slammers -- with the artistic sensibilities of John Berkey replacing the OSR's iconic Erol Otus.

I am tentatively calling this "Hard Opera" until a better name can be found.

Someone get to work on this, please.

Curse/Or, Chapter 4.5: Patch Notes pt.1

(Author's note: I call this section 4.5 because I'm still not entirely sure if it should be the beginning of a new chapter or appended to the previous one. Until I decide for certain, it exists between the two, and therefore the name of Patch Notes is entire apropos.)
 
Teresa walked into the bookstore like she owned it, a slow but deliberate saunter that suggested she was a predator and this was her hunting ground. "Books," she said to the young man who asked if there was anything he could do to help. "Books on computers. Books on computer networks. Books on programming and artificial intelligence. Even sociological studies on people who spend too much time on computers," she said, flashing a vicious smile in Yarrow's direction, "and top it off with the best science-fiction stories of the past twenty years, preferably anthologies."

"That's… quite a lot of books," the salesman explained, holding his palms up in supplication. "I'm not sure if –"

"I have enough money to buy every goddamn book in this store," Teresa said, turning that joyless smile on the salesman, "and I have nothing but time. Now get to it." She dismissed the boy with a wave of her bandaged hand, and he promptly scurried off.

A few minutes later, Teresa was slowly following the harried clerk as he made his way through the stacks, pulling books from shelves and tossing them into a pushcart which Teresa had commandeered from a nearby big-box store. She followed him with benign disinterest, paying more attention to the paperback currently in her hand than what he put in the cart. The collection was already a foot high and rising.

"I don't understand this dead-tree fetish you have," Yarrow groused as he followed along behind her. "My phone can display any book ever written, at a fraction of the volume displaced here. This is inefficient on a scale beyond comprehension."

Teresa turned and glared at Yarrow over the top of her book. "Three reasons," she said coldly. "One, that phone of yours is practically surgically attached to you, and I don't want to keep wrestling you for it every time I want to read something. Two, the screen is too goddamn small. Three -- " and with a vicious grin she folded the already-read pages of the paperback book backwards, its spine crackling like boiling fat until the covers were flush and its back broken.

Yarrow shuddered at the casual destruction. "Vandal," he accused.

"Damn right," she agreed, "and we sacked Rome itself."

Hand Armor

No, not armor for hands; armor made of hands. Think of a suit of armor made of multiple Things (of Addams Family fame) imitating Janet Jackson's 1993 Rolling Stone cover, except over the entire body.

Yes, the image in your mind is both kinky and disturbing. At least the hands aren't skeletal or otherwise undead. No, these hands are Constructs, closer to homunculi or golems than undead, and they are joined at the wrist in pairs. When the command word is spoken, the hands -- one hundred in all -- climb over the speaker's body before locking into place though interlaced fingers or grasped wrists. Certain critical areas, like the head and torso, are doubly covered. If the speaker is wearing clothing when this happens, the hands will either tear it away or crawl under it, depending upon its tightness. Whatever the circumstance, Hand Armor needs skin-to-skin contact in order to function.

In addition to looking exceedingly creepy, Hand Armor has several unique abilities:

• The wearer can command a single pair of hands to detach and operate remotely, as if a Mage Hand spell. 
• A number of hands equal to the wearer's Wisdom Bonus (minimum of 1) may be commanded to hold objects, such as a rope or a torch. These hands hold objects with a Strength of 10 and cannot be used to fight.
• The wearer gains a +3 Competence Bonus to the following skills while wearing Hand Armor: Climb, Disable Device, Escape Artist, Intimidate, Sleight of Hand, Swim.
• If another command word is spoken, all hands (except for those serving as "underwear") disengage from the wearer, clasps each other by the wrists, and form a 50' piece of "rope". While this is in effect, all of the previous abilities listed cease to function, and the wearer loses all Armor Class bonuses.  Another command word causes the hands to return to the wearer.

Armor Bonus: +4
Max Dex Bonus: +5
Armor Check Penalty: 0
Arcane Spell Failure Chance: 10%
Speed: 30ft/20ft
Weight: 15 lbs.

Construction Requirements: Craft Construct feat; Animate Rope; Mage Hand; Caster level 12th; Craft (armor) 17
Cost: 20,000 gp


This freaky piece of magic was inspired by a truly weird dream I had last night. 


NOTE: If you came here via Trollsmyth's Old School Rant post, thank you! Please read another of my posts about the Amazon PayPhrase Challenge and consider participating. Any and all versions of D&D are welcome in the APPC.

Ehrynn's Perfect Match

Beware of Archmages who haven't had their morning tea.

Beware in particular those Archmages who, not having their morning tea, are too cranky to properly light a fire and, in their frustration, lash out with whatever spells the have handy just to "get the godsdamn kettle to boiling."

Fun fact:  Fireballing your kettle, while emotionally satisfying, evaporates the water and you are still without tea. And probably a fireplace. 

The wizard Ehrynn Paahlet was one such Archmage, and while her fireplace was being rebuilt in the aftermath of her latest incendiary tantrum, she had An Idea about How To Fix This Problem Once And For All. She promptly assembled a group of hardy adventurers and disappeared for several years. When finally she returned, her mood was much improved, and the countryside breathed a sigh of relief as her morning tea never failed to boil. 

Of course, her tower burned to the ground six months later, but that's beside the point. 

Ehrynn's Perfect Match is a rod of gold, approximately the length and width of a pencil, flat at one end and tapering at another. It is found inside a storage tube made from the thighbone of a large creature, and the bone itself is carved with ornate runic script. The bone tube radiates abjuration magic, and the golden rod of conjuration.

Operation is simple: grasp the rod by the flat end and withdraw it from the bone tube. The tapered end will immediately burst into flame and will burn continually: in the fiercest of winds; in the rain; underwater; smothered in sand. The Match does not simply create fire; it actually opens a minute gate to the Elemental Plane of Fire. The only way to extinguish the match is to drop it into its bone tube, or otherwise place it within an object or location warded against extra-planar effects. 

However, there are two drawbacks to using this device. First, there is no way to adjust the flow from the gate; it cannot be used as a torch, flaming weapon, or cutting tool. The only thing it does is extrude Elemental Fire at a precisely controlled rate. 

The second drawback, though, is related to the first. Ehrynn knew that there would be times when she would need a hotter flame, and therefore the longer the match is left outside of its tube, the hotter the flame becomes. Given enough time, the Perfect Match will set fire to anything. Rocks will melt and even metals will ignite if exposed to it long enough. Fortunately, he metal of the Match is immune to this melting effect. However, Ehrynn failed to take into account that even without melting,  its metal construction would become very, very hot...

Every round after the first that the Perfect Match is lit, it deals 1 hit point of fire damage to anything touching it. This effect is cumulative until it reaches 30 hit points/round, which is the maximum damage from exposure to the Plane of Elemental Fire. When this occurs, a safety effect disengages the planar gate and the Match begins to cool, again at a rate of 1 hit point per round. Placing the Match back inside its bone tube resets it, and it will again ignite upon withdrawal.

This is my entry for the Amazon PayPhrase Create-a-Thing Contest.

I'm gonna get wasted

Happy Birthday to me!

Take it away, Dustin:

Critical Update!

Tomorrow is my birthday.

I expect presents!

That is all.  :)

WNW: YouTube Signoff

Be sure to view this full-size to see some of the wacky Google entries.



For those of you who don't get the joke, go here.

Erin's Capricious Musings

(post #1 of clearing my backlog)

If you've shopped at Amazon, you may have noticed a curious thing on the right side of the screen, sandwiched between ads: the PayPhrase.

Now I'm not going to bore you with what it really is, because what is far more interesting is the random collection of words it creates when you click on this link. It's far more interesting if you already have an Amazon account, because then it renders your first name in front of the word salad, along the formula of "(names)'s (adjective) (noun)."

I think this is wonderfully inspirational and potentially hysterical, because the combinations which result have a distinctly awkward syntax to them, and suggest a florid martial arts move, a spell, a magical item, or perhaps an adventure seed of some kind.

Therefore I posit a challenge to all of my fellow-blogging Game Masters: generate a Payphrase that strikes your fancy, and create something from it. There are no prizes other than bragging rights, acclaim from your peers, and (hopefully) an assortment of odd ideas that you can sift through the next time you are bored or stymied or just looking for a good laugh.

How does a week sound? A week to generate your phrase, write something amusing, and report back here with a comment or a link. Very well, then. To arms!

EDIT: A big thank-you to everyone who is visiting me from Old School Rant. And welcome to my madness! Due to a tragic case of not enough people participating, I have extended the deadline (such as it ever was) and I encourage all of you visiting folks to enter my Amazon PayPhrase Challenge.

By participating, you are contributing strange or amusing notions to the knowledge base of Dungeon Masters everywhere, and that's just universally good. I don't care which game system you stat it for (if you stat it at all; a good idea is its own reward, after all, and easily adapted), just let me know what you've done and I'll link to it.

Here is the list of submitted ideas:

1. Ehrynn's Perfect Match by me
   
2. Brian’s Satyrical Poetry by Trollsmyth
3. Tim's Pleasant Cooperation by Hexarchy who, sadly, has since deleted his blog, and if he's posted a new one I can't find it any more. Call me, Hex! 

The Car Kit

Feh. Ever have one of those days when your brain refuses to do anything productive? That's been my day so far. So, since I feel a bit like a zombie, I might as well talk about the Z Kit.

Now as much as I love the current version of my Z Kit (right), it's become a bit too large and ungainly in its current incarnation (a Condor 3-Day Assault Pack) for me to take it everywhere I go, especially if I've just popped down to the local Internet café for some writing.

So what I've done is taken the old Z Kit bag, a Swissgear SA9259, and turned that into my "Palette has to get out of the house for some solitude" pack, filled with munchies and other comfort items as well as my laptop and all its sundry cables. But that has left me feeling just a bit naked and under-prepared, so what I ended up doing was assembling a very basic sort of kit that, when coupled with the crap I normally carry with me when I leave the house, wouldn't exactly survive a zombie apocalypse but nevertheless would go a long way in case of an accident, car breakdown, etc. I call it my Car Kit because I can take it with me in car, either as driver or passenger, and it won't take up much space and people won't give me funny looks.

On the left, of course, is another Mora Clipper. I freaking love this knife and have three of them. This one is the stainless steel version, because its intended role is "throw it in the bag and forget about it until I have need of it."

In the center is the AMK S.O.L. Survival Pak.  Now normally I advise against buying these prepackaged deals like this because they are either far too expensive and you're better off assembling your own, or they're made with crap quality items and you're just throwing your money away. However, I managed to luck out and find one of these on sale for half price ($12.00) plus free shipping. To give you an idea of how small it is, each of those grid squares is an inch, so it'll easily slip into a purse, tote bag, or in my case a backpack.

On the right is my Auto Emergency Preparedness Kit, which I got at my local Target for about ten bucks. It's the large version, so that was quite a bargain. It's about the size & shape of two videocassettes. There's not a lot to say about it other than the fact that there's quite a lot of really good stuff packed into a small bag. It's not suited for trauma work, of course (that's in the Z Kit) but it's quite nice to have along. There's also enough room left in it for personal additions, such as a flashlight, extra batteries, and tampons or pads if you're a woman.

Total cost for all this: Under $50.00
What it's worth in an emergency: Possibly your life

Pellatarrum: Winter

Winter in Pellatarrum is characterized by the large amounts of rock which fall from the sky.

No, I'm not kidding.


When the Elemental Plane of Earth has rotated enough for the Dayspire to touch its surface, Winter has officially arrived, marking the start of the Dwarven New Year.

(Interestingly enough, this means that the sky above Pellatarrum is one giant seasonal clock, because on a clear day you can see the progression of the planes across the heavens. If you can only see one plane from horizon to horizon, you know you're at mid-season. Leave it to the Dwarves to engineer a clockwork universe.)

Deep within the great Dwarven Citadel-Forge of Agnakorem, great torrents of earth, pushed forward by the Elemental Churn, flow from the plane and down through the hollow interior of the Dayspire. Most of this material cannot be collected by the Dwarves -- there is simply too much of it -- and that runoff disappears into the interior of the disk of Pellatarrum, falling until it reaches the midpoint. From there it is shunted sideways into a series of great tubes and caverns (the Greater Underdark) which extend indefinitely outwards into Pellatarrum's infinitely large circumference.

However, the Dayspire is not the only place where elemental earth enters Pellatarrum, though it is by far the largest conduit. Throughout the entire winter season, pieces of the elemental plane break off and fall through the infinite ether towards the Material Plane. Usually these pieces are small, ranging from specks of dust to small pebbles of about an inch in diameter, and they accumulate a coating of water around them as they pass through the clouds above Pellatarrum. As this is Winter (see Why It's Cold, below), this coating quickly freezes and these particulates become snow and hail, respectively.

But sometimes, larger pieces can break off. Usually these pieces break apart during their etheric freefall, resulting in a particularly nasty blizzard or hailstorm, but every decade or so a piece doesn't disintegrate on the way down. The effect of its impact is roughly analogous to air-dropping an iceberg. (Fortunately we don't have to worry about the physics of a large mass at terminal velocity striking the ground and releasing a lot of heat. Instead, the mass just falls to the ground with a heavy THUD, crushing whatever was under it and shaking the ground for miles. Because fantasy, that's why. Also, it's winter, and snowfall that creates heat and/or explosions goes against theme.)

Once in a great, great while, miles-long sections of Elemental Earth will come loose. It is rare, but not unheard of, for hills or even mountain ranges to suddenly appear in the after-melt of a particularly rough winter.


Why It's Cold
Since many things in Pellatarrum have strange origins (such as night being projected darkness rather than absence of light), it's reasonable to ask "Why does it get cold in the winter? Is something projecting coldness?"

Actually, yes. Just as the Positive Energy Plane radiates light and warmth, the Negative Energy Plane radiates darkness and cold. Normally the two balance each other out, warming during the day and cooling during the night, but when the Plane of Elemental Earth begins to break the horizon of Pellatarrum, the days become dimmer and cooler. This peaks at midwinter, when only Earth can be seen from horizon to horizon, and then gradually warms until the plane finally slips below the horizon at mid-spring.

Why does it get darker and colder? Earth absorbs light and warmth. Go sleep on the ground at night without a blanket beneath you and you'll wake up very cold. As for absorbing light... well, what else would you call shadows? Fire doesn't absorb light. Neither does air, although particles in it sometimes do (and it could be argued that those particles are minute bits of earth floating around.) Water sometimes absorbs light, true, but it takes an awful lot of it. Of course, this is why Elemental Water corresponds to Fall, when things begin to get cold and dark... but it follows right after Fire/Summer, so it's not as noticeable .

There, you see? Makes perfect sense.

Pellatarrum: the Elemental Churn

I was midway through my post on Winter in Pellatarrum when I realized that I probably had not explained a key concept thoroughly and that this would cause a lot of confusion if I didn't stop and immediately address it.

Therefore, I am now explicitly stating for the record that none of the Elemental Planes, not even that of Earth, are static. Elements are created from the heart of the Positive Energy Plane, where they slowly congeal into whatever flavor of creation they happen to be, progressing from raw Positive Energy to Positive Quasi-Elements and thence to "proper" Elemental forms.

From there, the raw elements slowly progress across the plane, pushed forward as more are created, until they degrade into Negative Quasi-Elements and then ultimately destroyed by Negative Energy. This progression is known as the Elemental Churn, and because of it there are very few locations on the Elemental Planes which are static.

Those which are static are typically famous in some way -- the City of Brass and the Great Dismal Delve are the greatest examples -- and all have the attention of powerful elemental spirits to keep them in place as the rest of the plane flows around them. These guardian spirits are quite literally Genie Loci (please pardon my terrible pun there) and their presence -- either through singular strength, mass of numbers, or both -- anchor that location to a fixed point within the plane.

Therefore, all aspects of an Elemental Plane which are not Loci are moving in some way, be it flowing or grinding or blowing or burning, and because of that they are all considered energies for purposes of crossing the infinite distance between their home plane and Pellatarrum.

Feel Free to Use These

Earlier today on Twitter I was helping Marcian Tobay with a project by trying to generate a name for her work-in-progress card game, which is "a recreation of that final epic battle your 4 legendary warriors face at the end of every JRPG ever. It's beauty and insanity."

As it turns out, she didn't like any of my ideas. These things happen, but still... sigh.

Anyway, I think these are great names and I don't want them to go to waste, so I'm tossing them out into the IntarWebz for people to use.


Legendary Falling Cherry Blossom Perfect Strike

Perfect Falling Strike of Cherry Blossoms

Epic Destiny Unfurls Like a Scroll Listing the Names of the Dead

Battle Apotheosis Stratagem

Destiny Guides My Hand to Defeat You

Exaltation of Perfect Duel Techniques

Sublime Endgame Gambit

Graceful Decapitation Maneuver

Godlike Devastation Battle


I'm sure that players or GMs of Exalted can find good homes for these. Enjoy!

Pellatarrum: the Seasons (Overview)

To talk about the seasons of Pellatarrum is to talk about the Dwarves. The most organized and practical of the Four Elder Races, they are responsible for the overall design of Pellatarrum, and therefore it's no wonder that the seasonal cycle resembles the working of a forge.

Because, you see, that's what the Dayspire is: the Forge of the Heavens.



The Dayspire Revisited
Most folks on Pellatarrum look at the infinitely tall monolith which dominates their sky and assume it is mostly solid, albeit honeycombed with miles of Dwarven tunnels and halls. And while this latter assumption is indeed true, the former is most assuredly not.

The Dayspire is actually a pipe, and the Dwarves only live in the walls surrounding it. As the seasons tick past, the tip of the infinitely tall Dayspire actually touches the elemental plane above it, and in so doing, the contents of that plane pour down the hollow interior and into Pellatarrum itself, replenishing and renewing it.

Wait a second, I hear you asking. If the Dayspire is infinitely tall, how does it manage to hit the Elemental Planes? Isn't having two definite endpoints pretty much the definition of a finite distance?

Yes, this is an excellent question, which I shall answer thusly:

1. Fuck Euclid.

2. There's infinite and then there's infinite. If you were to start climbing the Dayspire using the handy Dwarven roads which spiral up its perimeter, you would never reach the top. Even if you were immortal, and had a crew of equally immortal Dwarven miners digging fresh tunnels ahead of you, in a million years you would never reach the top. This is because you are composed of matter, and the Rules of Creation -- which the Dwarves hard-coded into reality at the moment of Pellatarrum's concept -- state that matter can never, ever, bridge the divide between the Material Plane and anything else.

(Which is why you need spells like Gate and Plane Shift to cross the planes. Those don't bridge the gap, they create a shortcut between the two. Compare this to our current knowledge of "cannot travel faster than light" vs "using wormholes to get around this restriction".)

Energy, on the other hand, can and does travel freely through the Ether to Pellatarrum. If it didn't, then the Positive Energy Plane couldn't warm the land like a sun, and the Negative Energy Plane couldn't create darkness for sleeping. Ipso facto, energy can cross the infinite in a finite period of time.

But in that case, how can the Dayspire reach the planes? It's clearly made of matter and not energy.

It's also a giant magical battery, as at any one time a quarter of it is bathed in Positive Energy and its opposite quarter bathed in Negative Energy. And this energy cycles around it constantly, in a pattern of "Positive - Cooldown - Negative - Cooldown." In other words, it's an artifact of literally unfathomable proportion, and it's allowed to break the rules.



The Forge of the Heavens
To understand the seasons, all you must do is think of how a smith would work a forge:

1. The forge is stocked with raw material -- the fuel for the fire and the items to be worked.
2. A fire is lit and then carefully stoked to the proper temperature.
   
3. Once it is hot enough, the materials are worked into their proper shape.
   
4. The smith quenches the finished item to cool it, then puts the fire out to clean the forge for its next use.
   

This is the cycle of seasons within Pellatarrum:

1. Winter (Elemental Plane of Earth)
2. Spring (Elemental Plane of Air)
3. Summer (Elemental Plane of Fire)
4. Fall (Elemental Plane of Water)

So, to summarize:

1. Raw materials (ore, minerals, etc) from the Plane of Earth flow down the Dayspire and are collected by the Dwarves. They cannot harvest it all, and the surplus flows down into the earth below them. (Note: the Dwarven colony within the Dayspire extends deep below the surface of Pelltarrum. They are very good at harvesting materials, and still they are unable to gather more than a fraction of this bounty.)
2. Air flows into the Dayspire, clearing away much of the dust and dirt from Winter. This also helps to re-oxygenate the Dwarven tunnels. Spring cleaning occurs during this time, and anything unwanted is pitched down the pipe. Exhaust tunnels are opened in preparation for Summer, and collection hoppers are cleaned and put away. Forges are made ready and spells are cast upon them.
   
3. Fire! Unfathomably hot elemental flame roars down the tube and is vented into forges. Through careful placement of forges and vents, Dwarven smiths are able to fine-tune the heat which flows through them, and they are able to forge anything during the summer months. Anything. Despite the use of spells and exhaust vents, and the placement of homes and common areas on the outer rim of the Dayspire, everyone ends up sweaty and sooty. This is not necessarily a bad thing among Dwarves, but other races find it almost uninhabitable.
   
4. Torrents of water, both salt and fresh, gush through the great pipe and clear away the soot for the summer. Everyone bathes, washes clothes, and collects water. Great cisterns are opened to harvest this bounty (the water is later desalinated and purified if it is intended for potability.) The forges are put to bed for the year in a ceremony of quiet reverence. Soon enough, however, winter will come again and there will be more ore and minerals falling from the heavens, and to Dwarves, that is cause for celebration and rejoicing...
   

Each season as it affects the rest of Pellatarrum will receive its own detailed writeup during the week.