HERO'S GRAVE - the Winter Solstice

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Mystic Tombs of the Hero Kings

Winter Solstice

THE WINteR SOLsTiCE

CELEBRATION ON THE LONGEST NIGHT OF THE YEAR

The Winter Solstice, a celebration of the longest night of the year, is a festival held all around the known world. In warmer climates, the Winter Solstice is marked with extravagant revelry beginning at twilight and lasting until daybreak the next morning. In the resort town of Bayside, the Solstice Invitational manaball tournament is held at midnight, featuring some of the best players around the world competing for the Winter’s Cup. Flamboyant costumes are popular in the city of Treboa, with the one wearing the most spectacular costume being crowned the Motley King (or Queen). Along the frontier, merrymakers gather at the oases that dot the Forsaken Desert. There, elaborate tents and pavilions are erected and fanciful circuses entertain young and old. The most illustrious of these is Taliesin’s Farewell to the Sun, which attracts travelers from as far away as Yverdon. However, in the frozen reaches of the Far North, the Winter Solstice is a solemn occasion. As the night draws longer and the temperatures drop to their lowest levels of the year, families huddle around the hearth, reciting prayers to their ancestors and droning ancient chants that date back to the time of the Heroes. A tradition among the Northron Vanguard is to follow the ice totems carved in the likeness of Ylspeth of Ulheim through the frozen wastes of the Snowfields to the city of Ulheim, once Queen Ylspeth’s throne. The bodies of many brave adventurers who did not survive the pilgrimage are entombed in the crypt beneath the Yceholt. The Winter Solstice is also the only night of the year that prisoners at Bitterill are given reprieve from the confines of the watervaults, though their conditions outside the vaults wouldn’t be considered any sort of luxury. However, not all evenings of the Winter Solstice are spent in celebration. As bloodmages and those who have succumbed to the primal lure of vampyrism are most active at night, the Magehunters of the Order of the Malleus Maleficarum dedicate the longest night of the year to tracking down and hunting their inhuman prey. The Order is especially vigilant in Sinneslochen, where the High Mage of Haemomancy, Lesperith, is said to slumber somewhere beneath the city’s ancient necropolis. Each year, Magehunters thwart countless bloodmages wishing to revive their sleeping savior.

Taliesin, star of the world-famous Winter Solstice circus festival, Taliesin’s Farewell to the Sun, demonstrating one of her renowned tightrope dancing routines. The Farewell to the Sun festival is routinely held every Solstice at the Old Embre oasis on the edge of the Forsaken Desert.

Padrick, a Magehunter of the Order of the Malleus Maleficarum, next to a bloodsigil found on the outskirts of the village of Nosrowden, not far from Sinneslochen. Bloodmage rituals on the island around the Winter Solstice have increased year after year. Padrick is currently tracking the whereabouts of Roquebrune, a bloodmage reportedly active in Calideon.

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{thuh WIN-ter SOL-stis}