Almost everything you wanted to know about Krynn in the Fifth Age!

Enter the Great Library of Palanthas.
In the company of Bertrem the Aesthetic,
explore the world of Krynn as lived
by ordinary people.

Clothing

Politics

Trade

Games

… and more

Bertrem's Guide to the Age of Mortals

( Dragonlance - Bertrem's Guides, Book 1 )

Nancy Varian Berberick, Stan Brown
and Paul B. Thompson

Introduction by Bertrem

Astinus of Palanthas is gone.

There was nothing dramatic or startling about his disappearance. He departed from the library in the same calm, measured way in which he did everything in his life. That last evening I came to him as he sat quietly writing in one of his great leatherbound books in which all the events of Krynn—her joys and sorrows, births and deaths, triumphs and defeats—were recorded.

Around us the world shuddered, recovering from the terrible events of the Chaos War, when men and dragons battled in the great rift, when the sun seemed at last about to set for the final time upon our troubled land. None of this was reflected in Astinus's demeanor. His hand was as steady, his writing as precise and legible as it had ever been. Even from in front of the desk at which he always wrote, I could easily read the words upside down as if I had been standing at his shoulder.

This day 23 Holmswelt at Restful Hour climbing fourteen Bertrem entered my study.

As was my custom, I wished my master good night before retiring to my cell for an hour's meditation prior to sleep. He said and did nothing that indicated any change was at hand. As was usual with him he barely acknowledged my presence. Yet that was the last I saw of him.

When I arose the next morning and entered his study, expecting to receive my instructions for the day, he was nowhere to be found. I was so struck by his absence that I did not note, for a moment, the more terrifying fact with which I was confronted. The great books that had lined his room, the volumes in which his words were recorded, had vanished. The room was entirely bare of any books or papers whatsoever, and my footsteps echoed hollowly upon the polished floorboards.

Fearing some further disaster that had supplemented the terrible events of the Chaos War, I rushed from the room to summon help. It was then that I realized the magnitude of the tragedy. All the library was empty. Its contents, as well as its guardian, had disappeared into thin air. I must record to my shame that I became insensible and was only revived some time later by a brother who bent over, me anxiously, fanning my face with his robe.

As the days passed and Astinus showed no signs of returning, I was faced with the overwhelming task of reconstructing the vanished collection of the greatest library in all Krynn. Some books, of course, were irreplaceable, particularly those chronicles written by Astinus himself. These books, over which he had labored for as long as any of us in the library remembered, contained the very soul of Krynn. Here were her joys and sorrows, her wars and peaces, her births and deaths, the endless circle of the sun and moons across the sky. Here, patiently recorded in Astinus's pleasing hand, was the history of the great events that have shaped our world, from its beginnings through all its ages. If a reader wished to walk through the fabulous streets of Istar before its fall, if he wished to climb the mountains and see the founding of the great dwarven citadel of Pax Tharkas, if he wished to journey through the golden woodlands of the Silvanesti and Qualinesti elves or romp among the carefree kender of Kendermore, he could do no better than to consult Astinus's magnificent labor of love. Though thousands upon thousands of volumes vanished with Astinus, I account these tomes the greatest loss.

Prior to my master's departure, many hours did I spend in the solemn silence of the library's halls immersed in these books. I have not read them all—no living man could claim such an accomplishment—but I think I may say that I have read as much as any man of the history of our land and the story of its people, of its heroes, its villains, and its fools.

Nonetheless, one evening as I sat by the fire meditating on this wondrous history, I felt an odd sensation. It was a kind of lack, as if I hungered for something and yet could not say precisely what. After thinking for some days and seeking solace in my favorite seat in the library where I watched dust motes dance in the afternoon sun, I at last realized the cause of my discomfort.

Astinus, who sought to record everything that happened on Krynn exactly as it happened, was necessarily constrained to report the most important events, those that affected thousands or even millions of people. His is a history of great men and women and their deeds. Where it fails to satisfy, if I may suggest such a near-blasphemous thought, is in its ignorance of the lives of the common folk of Ansalon. These are the people who lived in their towns and villages year after year, century after century, their lives changing with the season hut not, perhaps, so affected by the world around them as we might imagine. I daresay there are many in Ansalon who have never seen a dragon, never heard the cry of a griffon, never trembled at the approach of a troop of draconians. Yet to read Astinus's history, you might think such things were as common in Krynn as flies in the summer.

The next day I approached Astinus as he sat, as usual, writing, the pen scarcely hesitating as it raced across the yellowed vellum. When I spoke to him of my thoughts on the ordinary lives of the people of Krynn, though, he stopped and considered carefully for a few minutes before replying.

"The people of Krynn," he said to me, "write their history with deeds, not pens."

"True, master," I replied, "but is that not an added reason that we who wield the pen should record their lives for them?"

"Nay, Bertrem," my master said. "History records the deeds of great men and women. In these books"—his eyes slipped across the many volumes that surrounded him—" I have recorded the story of the great events that shaped our world, from its creation to the present. The world balances between Good and Evil, and the lives of ordinary people are the fulcrum upon which we waver between these two forces. Yet always in the end, we find a middle course, a Golden Mean, that points the way forward. Their lives cannot change this course and thus have no place in my story."

I had opened my mouth to argue further, but seeing Astinus once more occupied with his manuscript, I thought better of the matter and retired. Though I did not entirely agree with his answer, I had to be content with it. Yet it did not satisfy me that future generations might be ignorant of the way their ancestors lived and died, the way they ate their food and tilled their crops, the way they learned their letters and rode to war at their lords' calling.

Now that Astinus has departed—the gods alone know where—I have decided to satisfy my desire. I have resolved to write a little book that will acquaint the diverse people of our land with how the common folk live: what they eat, what they wear, what they do for pleasure, and so on.

Having undertaken this labor, I quickly realized that such a task is considerably greater than one might think. Ansalon is a vast land, and since the depredations of the great dragon overlords, many parts have become isolated, and little information about them is easily available. In the case of the elven kingdom of Silvanesti, no information about the land has been available for twenty years, since the elves, or some power allied with them, have erected a magical shield around themselves.

For twenty years the land of Ansalon shuddered under the horrendous battle of the Dragon Purge. When, at last, the conflict between the great dragons ended and surviving mortals looked about them, they found themselves subjects in a conquered world.

Fortunately I was able to receive the able assistance of three members of the Order who volunteered to go forth upon the highways and byways and bring back to me reports of what they found. They have surpassed my expectations, and I trust their observations will be of value and amusement to my readers. Here and there in their reports I have added my own comments (here given as footnotes), but I have kept such interjections to a minimum, preferring to let my three reporters speak for themselves.

I must here acknowledge the considerable assistance of those who helped collate and copy in a fair hand the information I received not only from my three reporters but from others throughout the length and breadth of the land. For their research on the Knight's Quest game, I acknowledge the assistance of Mark Fletcher, Tyler Mix, Paul Randies, Mitchell Rawlins, and Frank Reinart. Many others helped with parts of the book, from copying to proofreading. But most, I am indebted to Paul Thompson, Nancy Varian Berberick, and Stan!

Astinus himself would be proud of you.

The Foods of Ansalon

Bertrem's Note

"An army travels on its stomach," is a common saying, hut it applies no less to the common man or woman. For many, the question of food occupies most of their waking hours, from wondering what they will have for lunch, to planning dinner, to anticipating breakfast—not to mention the odd snacks in between.

Nancy Varian Berberick found much information about the eating habits of folk in Ansalon during an age when many traditional living patterns have been disrupted by the triumph of the dragon overlords. Here she offers much information and pungent comment.

In his hall, the knight or lord eats three meals, that which breaks his night's fast, a nooning to fill him up for the day, and a supper when his day is over. This last meal, though often light, is perhaps his favorite meal, for here he sits with his family to talk of the day's doings and look forward to the next. This is the case among elves and humans alike. It is also the case among the dwarves of Thorbardin and Thoradin and Garnet.

Once the high folk have dined, their servants are free to enjoy what their masters have not finished, and it is not unknown for the cook of the household to prepare meals with that notion in mind, making certain that she and her fellows won't have to dine exclusively on crusts and rinds. This expedient her master might not approve, but in the marketplace the sellers of meat and poultry and fish, of grain and fruit, offer no objection.

Though servants, even the most lowly, do well in the halls of the high, the crofters on the lord's lands, peasants and the free farmers, have little time for such niceties as noonings. They have been hours laboring in the fields and byres by then, eating what little pasties or pie their wives have sent out to them even as they look over the rest of the day's work, hoping to finish all before dark. Neither do they look to supper as anything other than food given in the weary time between work and sleep. While it is true that a farmer may dine on joints of venison or rabbit pies, if his son has had good luck hunting, his family's fare will not consist of puddings and fruits and fantasies of bakery from a cook's well-stocked kitchen. His is plain fare: porridge, meat stews and pies, a dark loaf from the oven, and milk and cheese. Unless he has a berry patch on his land and a wife skilled at making what the finer folk call "peasant's wine" from those, in summer or in winter, he has no wine to chill or mull, and unless he has the great good luck to live near a brewer, he will quench his thirst with cold water from his well.

Yet, as unlike as our eating habits are, rich man or poor, lord and lady in the hall or laborer in the field, scholar at his books or far-roaming hero with sword belted on, with but one exception we are each of us subject to the rule of the seasons. No matter our station, our ambition, the state of our hearts or conscience, no one of us can escape that seasonal bond, and that is for one simple reason—we must eat. Our food must be grown in field and garden and orchard, hunted in wood, captured from the sea. The only exception to this rule is made not for the sake of a race of folk who do not eat—who among us can fail to nourish himself?—but with the understanding that in these days we now name the Fifth Age of Krynn, the dwarves of Thorbardin have again closed their great gates against the world and returned to their ancient tradition of strict self-reliance. How, then do they fare, deep within their mountain city where sun never shines? Very well, by all accounts, and the discussion of that will follow other discussions in its turn. For now, we speak of the folk who feel the sun and the wind and the rain on their faces, the milkmaid gone to call her cows to the byre, the farmer behind his plow, the reapers in the field. We speak of the fishers who take their nets far out to sea, the shepherd on his hillside, elven hunters in the wood and their human neighbors whose tasks and skills are no different, each from the other.

IN TIMES OF CHANGE, SOME FARE BITTERLY…

In the days of the Dragon Purge, many unfortunate folk turned their eyes to the heavens and cried out for gods to come and help them, storming the bastions of the skies with prayers, weeping and pleading and, finally, cursing as, once again, the face of their homelands changed. In the Ergoths verdant lands and teeming forests became icelands. In the northern parts of Solamnia a dire wasteland came to be not desert but worse—a wilderness of emptiness into which few mortals or animals dared venture. Upon the stone of those lands nothing would grow; no insect lived. This was the Footprint of Chaos, the mark of a terrible god's passage, and still the sign of the world's pain. Like to this dire place is the Desolation in Malys's realm. Here it is impossible to find food, impossible to grow it. One cannot live there, for no grain grows in the burned land, no water provides home for fishes, and birds do not sail the skies.

In the lands now held by Onysablet the Black, only swamp is found, reeking waters, poisonous insects, and snakes whose venom kills in the instant of the first bite. What folk still live there fare poorly on the roots and leaves of common swamp reeds, on pale fish, snails, and vegetation that barely nourishes. These are not salt marshes where a man may hope to graze pigs. They are noisome swamps that will provide no nourishing food. What food the folk who live near the swamp have they steal from merchant caravans passing round the edges of their benighted land on the way to or from Beryl's lands and the Tarsis trade route. This stolen fare is hardly enough to count on. No one ventures into that realm to count, but rumor says the populations of humans and ogres who are not in the service of the dragon have dwindled past the point where they can be expected to survive. The wise have fled; the unlucky are dead. On the other hand, those who do homage to the dragon, and the bakali and draconians who are part of her troops, fare well because the wyrm sees to it that they are nourished and strong.

These are the Fortunate Lands. Perhaps they would not think so, but the least afflicted by the ravages of the overlord are those elves and ogres and few humans who live in Northern and Southern Ergoth, for if they cannot grow the grains and fruits and herbs they used to produce to sustain themselves, at least they can grow enough to trade along with the whale meat and seal meat they hunt in their icy bays. Such game will clothe and feed them warmly. In these days, this is good luck and great bounty.

IN TIMES OF CHANGE, OTHERS FARE WELL…

Says the farmer to his wife, they two standing in the dooryard of their sturdy stone house outside of Hopeful, that city on the Tarsian trade route: "Woman, I do hate the dragon, that miserable green beast, that Beryl named for a jewel and whose beauty is hard for me to see!" Says the wife to her man, "Husband, look around you and see how much better we fare now than your father did. Then tell me again if you hate the dragon."

He does look around, and he tells her again that he hates the dragon, but he speaks with a confused kind of wonderment in his voice, for the land he owns is under plow, sown with oats and barley and hay, with wheat and corn and in the stony patch where the hill rises behind his outbuildings, with potatoes. His fields stretch out as far as the dark line of the distant forest, and he cannot help but admit that this farm, inherited from his father, was once no more than stonelands where only scrub would grow and—with great efforts worthy of any hero's impossible task!—the smallest patch of garden beyond which rolled bitter rocky fields that did no one good but goats.

One dragon spread ice, another desolation, in Solamnia a god went walking by and left death behind him, but the green dragon Beryl had a liking for forests and decided that the stony lands stretching down from the Qualinesti Forest would not suit her pleasure. With her magic, she changed all the rough scrub lands into forest and, in a matter of years, deer came to live there, and boars and quail and wolves and foxes and owls and hares… in a matter of but a few years the world around what was once a hardscrabble farm became lush and filled with food.

The farmer's sons are strong and hale, his daughters fair and healthy. Though the minions of the green dragon never fail to take their toll of taxes and goods, the farmer is not destitute. From his fields he harvests a generous crop, enough oats and barley and wheat to store in his barns against even the worst of winters, enough to send down to Tarsis by way of the merchant caravans that stop in Hopeful. His sons hunt the forest and fish the streams, and there are—perhaps in memory of all the fathers gone before him—goats in the upland for meat and milk.

In a dragon's realm, some don't fare as badly as others, and they contribute to the supply of food that keeps the most of Krynn nourished.

OUT FROM THE EARTH,
ROUND THE WHEEL OF THE SEASONS

"Out from the earth springs all that we need." So says the old proverb, that wisdom known to human farmers and hunters and the nomadic tribes. Say the elves, "Around the wheel of the seasons are found all that we need." If, in desolate lands, this ancient truth is being proved a lie, most of Krynn's people still live by it.

One winter day as I was walking in Palanthas, I stopped in at a baker's shop to purchase a loaf for my supper, and to enjoy the yeasty, steamy warmth of the place. I asked the mistress of the shop, as one does to be polite, how her business fared.

Laughing, she said to me, "No baker fares ill in winter! When the rain falls and the snow piles up, when the winds blow off the cruel sea, people cannot pass by a baker's shop without stopping in to buy something." She thought about this a little, as though wishing to expound, but ended only by shrugging her shoulders and saying, "People like bread. It's like water. You like to drink wine and you like to drink ale and beer, but when you are truly thirsty, you want only water. So it is, with bread. You like to eat meat, you like to pick over the tender flesh of fish, but when you are hungry, really hungry, you want only bread. It fills the belly and warms the heart…"

Her words failed again, and she offered me a cut from a loaf just come steaming out of the oven as though to say, see for yourself!

I cannot dispute the wisdom of the baker. People like bread, and bread is the staple of all folk in all lands, that staff of life whose beginnings are often thought by city folk to be in a baker's oven, but whose true generation begins a long time before ever the baker begins to mix her dough.

Many of the peoples of Krynn celebrate the seasons in the names of the months. In winter you will hear elves speak of Winter Come, Winter Night, Winter Deep. Those same months in the language of the Plainsfolk of Abanasinia are, Frost Eve, Ice Glaze, Snow Deep. The people of Solamnia—that is, Solamnia that was—all say Frostkolt, Newkolt, Deepkolt. These are the agrarian people, the forest folk, the shepherds and nomads who depend upon the rounds of the seasons in order to supply themselves and the rest of Krynn with food.

There are little romances in the cities, tales and stories and songs, that speak of the silences of winter, the dark days, the long nights when the farmer rests from his work. Such pretty tales to pass the time among the folk who harvest their food from the market! The truth, as any farmer will tell you, is far different. In winter seasons the farmer has no more rest than in any other season. This is not to say that he does not dine upon the same weary fare of winter just as any of us do, salted meat, what fish or bird he can take from the streams and the forest, and very few vegetables if his store of dried pease and parsnips is a meager one. His cheeses he hoards as any dragon hoards his gold, but they never last the winter months through. And so the work he does, he does on lean fare. He mucks out his barns and hauls the manure and hay out to his fields to feed the soil, if he lives in those climes where the winters are not harsh, he will find himself with days in which he can tend to the thatching of his roof. He sets out snares for hares and quail and partridges; if he is near a frozen lake, he will drop fishing lines through the ice in hope of making for himself and his family a meal that is not salted or dried or smoked.

He plows the frost-cracked soil and sows oats in those fields of his that have been long growing other, more strenuous crops. These fields will do no more duty than to host that gentle crop that will feed his family, pay his taxe, and be stored for market and sold for the making of gruels and porridge and bread. He will cut wood for his fires and for springtime building; he will mend his hedgerows and his stone fences, always keeping his bow and full quiver near to hand in case Fate sends him the luck to see a thin and winter-weary stag venturing into his fields from the forest. He checks his flocks to see if the lambing has begun, counting the days from when he turned the rams into the enclosure with the ewes, for when the first lamb drops he will know that the lean season is past. Spring dawns in the moment the first lamb staggers up on wobbly legs to nuzzle his mother for milk.

A man of the earth, the farmer has no dewy-eyed notions of the sweetness of lambs beyond how tender the flesh is of those few he is already singling out for his supper. The time has come to eat well again and to begin the work of plowing his rested fields.

In spring the farmer sows barley. If his soil is sandy, as it is along the eastern parts of Coastlund, he will sow in the early part of the season. If his farm has clay in the soil, he will sow later. In this way, the barley for beer and stews and porridge will be found in the markets of small towns and large cities as soon as the second month of spring. After his barley, the farmer sows pease and oats and rye, then wheat. His hay he sows later, and harvests last, but he will, if late spring is warm and only reasonably wet, sow a fall series of crop again for harvest in early autumn.

His grains harvested, the rye and the wheat and barley corn, the farmer threshes and flails, separating grain from the chaff, and he and his family fill up the grain sacks and take them to the miller. One of those will be found in every region where grain is grown, be it a small quern, a grinding wheel turned by the power of men and women pushing against the spokes, or a water mill run by the strength of the element. Some of the finest millstones are the most ancient, imported from the lands around the dwarven kingdoms in days long gone.

At several mills I visited in Abanasinia I was told that the stones have tasted the grist of harvests from right after the First Cataclysm until last year, for they are well made and worth whatever the millers' ancestors paid for them. Perhaps, or perhaps that's family legend. It cannot be denied that some of the runes carved into the oldest stones still in use are made in a style long gone from use. Be his millstone old or new, in the hands of a good miller, grain can be ground fine or rough, and the wise miller knows what is best liked in the markets around. He takes a percentage of the grind for himself, to use in his household, to sell to merchants, and leaves the rest for the farmer to sell. It is still known around Haven today that the finest bread flour comes from farms in Haven's Vale, for there the farmers know how to tend their fields, and the millers treat their profession as though it were an art.

After his various harvests, the farmer sends his chickens and ducks and geese into the fields to fatten them on the hulls and grain fallen from the gathering and to let their droppings add nutrients to the weary soil. He tends to his hives and makes his bees welcome; he sends his sons out to hunt and sets his daughters to making butter and cheese from the milk of cow and goat. All around him the season bids fair for a good year, and he turns his thoughts toward the highways of Krynn, wondering how well they fared in the winter, how easy or difficult it will be to get his springtime harvests to market where he can sells them to townsmen or to traders passing by.

And so you see that your bread is born not in the baker's oven but out of the dark womb of the soil of winter, oats and rye and wheat planted and the first of it harvested when you imagine the farmer and all the world is sleeping.

OUT OF THE HUNTER'S WALLET

For as long as they can remember, the Plainsfolk of Abanasinia have made wallets of sturdy hide, deep enough to hold a half dozen grass-hens and a fat brace of rabbits. Decorated with quills and stitchery, hung with a broad smooth strap of leather, this wallet fits comfortably over the hunter's shoulder. He can carry his catch for hours without feeling the strain. Among the Plainsfolk, to say a thing comes "out of the hunter's wallet" is another way of saying it comes from gods, for they still remember when gods walked the face of Krynn; they remember who they were and what bounty they could bestow. No like expression exists in the cities where men and women go forth and back to shops and market fairs. Though the array of food to be found in a market fair can be dazzling, no one says bounty comes out of the stalls of the sellers.

They are different, city folk and country folk, in their expressions and their understandings. For those who live in towns and cities, it is easy to think that the country man is hard pressed to find such fare as his town-dwelling cousin. Ah, but that's the city man's idea! He sees market stalls filled with wares, dried fish, and herbs hung in bunches, chickens and ducks and geese dangling in the poulterer's window, vegetables in their seasons, now and then a rope of figs and dates, garlic hung on strings… well, he says, it's a good life. However, the country man wanders these fairs and wonders how anyone would want to eat only smoked meat or salted, how the wife endures having to use dried herbs from which so much of the essential oil is long gone. How, he asks himself, can they stand to eat food that is covered in spices, not for flavor but to disguise the smell of rotting! He thinks he is the richer man, and perhaps he is.

The country man's meat is fresh from the bone, venison from the woods, rabbit from his meadows, and geese or hens from his own door yard. The eggs his wife scrambles are taken right from his own coop, the milk warm from his cows and goats. His mutton needs no spices to disguise a foul odor, his lamb is fed on the milk of his cows and tender as a pansy's petal. It might well be—nay, it is—that the farmer in Abanasinia or the Vingaard River Valley will never taste whale meat or stews made from the oily meat of seals, but neither will he find himself obliged to do more than salt his meat in autumn in order to enjoy it in winter. If there is little that is fancy or fine on his table, unless he is a witling, there is none that must have its unfortunate age hidden with exotic spices.

FINE FAIR FISHES FAT FRYING FAST

Taken from the sea in nets, lifted from the lakes and speared in icy mountain streams, gathered in still pools at the ocean's edge, the fishes of Krynn are part of our everyday fare. The well-to-do love to skin eels and boil them in stews, to steam clams and mussels, and to eat oysters right from the shell. Folks less fine are fond of trout stuffed with lemon grass or onion grass, pike dressed with mint or basil or thyme, and salmon dried on racks or baked in ovens or on flat rocks. The wealthy man, and the less wealthy when he can, will purchase fish packed in kegs and barrels, preserved in brine or the roughly ground salt taken from the shores of Sea Reach. Thus cured, these fish will keep through most of winter. People purchase racks of them dried to golden on the very ships that caught them up from the deeps. In cities and port towns, we are happy to go down to the docks and eat fish stews in the alehouses. We eat shark, and some folk in the cold climes eat whale meat, the tails being the kind of delicacy that will feast a whole village of Icewall folk. It is said that the people of the Ergoths, made newly cold by the changes wrought by the white dragon Gellidus, are learning how to like that rich fatty meat, for it is the best thing to keep them warm. Ogres, perhaps more accustomed to trusting instinct, took to whale meat at once, but report tells us that the elves, who imagine themselves to have more refined tastes, are not quick students, even all these years later. Humans and dwarves and ogres and members of other races than those will eat the meat of dolphins and porpoises, but you'll never find one of the elvenkind dining thus. They regard these creatures of the sea as too much like their shape-changing cousins the Dimernesti, and the likeness turns an elf’s appetite sour.

FROM ORCHARD TO THE LORD'S TABLE

From the orchards of dragon-held Qualinesti and the lands on the arable side of Southern Ergoth come pears and apples and plums. From there, too, come such nuts as walnuts and pecans. On the sunny slopes of Hylo the kender grow three different kinds of apples, grapes for wine and for table, cherries and sloe, and a hard green pear that never looks ripe but, if eaten from the branch at just the right time, tastes sweeter than all the pears of Krynn.

They also grow mulberries for wine and make silk from the cocoons and webs of the silkworms who feed on the fruit. Thus they have orchards for each kind of harvest, being sure to keep the worms far from the trees from which they intend to gather fruit. They have lately learned to grow almond trees and export those for the milk and the meat.

Out of Mohrlex's realm come a local fruit unknown in any other regions, good for making liqueurs but for little else. This is the food of the wealthy or the farmer who has the sense to keep an apple tree in his dooryard, for few other than rich men can afford fresh fruit for their tables. It must be packed and shipped and taken often through dangerous lands. To get it to market in fair time without spoilage requires speed and luck and often the hiring of several strong mercenaries to defend the caravan. By the time the fruit comes to market, the man who wants to treat his wife to a sweet fresh apple will have to think about cracking open his coffers.

Dried fruit is somewhat less expensive, and fruit cooked and preserved in honey as a compote is, while not unaffordable, something the working man must save to have. It is seen most often on the tables of the laborer or shopkeeper in times of celebration, during seasonal festivals or marriage feasts. It is also true—almost axiomatic—that the servants in a rich man's hall, while dining on his leftover venison and goose and leek pies, won't be able to taste what is left of a sauce of plums and apples unless he's of a mind to run his finger along the edges of the empty plate. For the poor man, the berries that grow at the edges of the wood, gooseberries and elderberries and raspberries, are the only fruit he will see, and if he is fortunate, his wife will know how to do more than make pies of them. She will know how to make wine!

THE GREEN COURSE

Every housewife grows her own vegetable, city dweller or farmer. In the castles and cottages, they grow pease and beans and carrots. They grow gourds in spring to eat in autumn and parsnips in winter. They plant turnips in early spring and then again after the first tufts are seen above ground. The ladies in their castles order their servants to grow artichokes and cucumbers, to sow cress with the lettuce and mustard beside those. Dandelion is grown for salad, spinach for steaming, and in all lands but the jungles of Nordmaar and the icy wastes of parts of the Ergoths and Icewall, onions grow from spring to winter.

In the ice lands, folk fare poorly for vegetables. It's said that the gnomes of Mt. Nevermind are trying to invent a process by which fresh vegetables are dried and need only be reconstituted. However not much more than piles of green and orange dust has resulted so far. To balance their diets, the icebound depend on meals made of beans and grains. The thanoi and the Icewall barbarians hardly care about that, never missing what they don't know, but the elves of Silvamori and Qualimori do still sigh for what they used to have.

Outside the icy lands, folk high and low like to have a house that smells clean, and so they make room in their gardens for strewing herbs, that is costmary and fennel and lavender and winter savory to mix in among the among the floor rushes. These hide, to some degree, the clinging odor of old meals and the wet dogs that he beside the fire on rainy nights.

HONOR THE HERBS OF THE WORLD,
MYSTERIOUS AND FAIR

On a hot summer's night in Palanthas, one that might make the elders of the city recall the terrible season the dwarves in the city named the Anvil Summer, the people of the city like to pour themselves tall pitchers of water and stuff handfuls of mint into the container. There is no ice to cool the drink, but if they are wise, the thirsty prepare this with a clay pitcher and water right out of the well. Soon they have a simple concoction of minted water that, if no cooler in temperature, certainly tastes deliciously refreshing on the tongue.

We grow our mint in as many varieties as we can, some tasting like peppermint or spearmint, some with the sweetness of apple or orange or lemon. We cook with them, drink infusions of them, flavor our water with them and, yes, strew the fragrant leaves and stems in the floor rushes so that every step releases the tangy perfume. Herbs are harvested and bundled to dry so they may be sent abroad in export. In Silvamori they will pay as much as one steel for a thick bunch of mint or basil or sage. Offer one of those poor chilly fellows a wreath woven of bay leaves and decorated with cinnamon sticks and he might consider reviewing the history of your family with an eye toward considering you his friend.

For decoration and flavor, herbs have always been well regarded. However, there are other uses for these plants of the woods and hillsides and gardens. There are those—I am one!—who recall the days when herbs and spices had a mystical air to them, for they were the stuff of mage-work. A bit of lavender oil, some dried rose petals, a pinch of orange mint, three seeds of the star anise plant, and a scant handful of the bark of the sandalwood tree, all gathered at the full of the three old moons and left in a stone bowl to dry until the dark… these, with the proper words and appropriate gestures, could get you sent halfway across the world on a spell of transportation. In these after days, though, all those things combined will get you a charming potpourri to perfume your bed linen. Yet no matter what land they dwell in, from what race they obtain, the lady in her hall, the farm wife in her kitchen, the apothecary in his shop, all understand that there is still a kind of magic in herbs, that which obtained before ever the Three Magical Children undertook to teach mortals the ways of high sorcery.

With the vanishing of gods went not only magic-craft but healer-craft, and the last is perhaps more sorely missed than the first. No more the closing of a wound or the cooling of a fever for the cost of a heartfelt prayer. Women die more frequently in childbed for lack of healers, children perish of fevers, and the infection of even a minor wound will take their fathers from them. Early in the Fifth Age, folk began to try to learn the new magic known as mysticism. It is true that those rightly taught can heal themselves and others, though the effort is not always rewarded with success. Thus the people of Krynn, in all lands, are turning again to the old ways of healing with herbs. With varying results, they have taught themselves how to cool a fever with powdered aspen bark, how to soothe an irritated stomach with infusions of chamomile and mint. They know that the bark of the slippery elm can soothe a sore throat, but they do not know what to do when the throat closes up, fevers rise too high, and the flesh falls from the sufferer until it seems there are not but bones beneath the piled-on blankets.

Here, then is a little table of the most useful of herbs, all of them grown in Qualinesti or Hylo, for those are the regions where such things fare best. Each is noted for both medicinal and culinary purposes.

LET THE WISE BE WARNED!

Such herbs and diverse plants as are here listed should not he used by those who are not a long time trained in the craft of healing, though even the youngest and most inexperienced cook will have success with her meal if she uses these in the ways her mother did, or sparingly until she has learned her own way.

Bay: For medicinal purposes, the oil from the leaves of the bay plant, or sweet laurel, as the elves name it, is used in the bath to relieve aches and pains. In the kitchen, the leaves make a wonderfully spicy flavoring for soups and stews, or when rubbed on meat before roasting with salt and pepper.

Beech: The leaves of the lovely beech tree make an excellent poultice that reduces swelling due to sprains and strains, and an excellent treatment for skin diseases. The sap of the tree is often tapped and fermented for wine.

Beet, white or red: The juice of the white beet soothes headaches. The juice of the red is helpful in curing yellow jaundice. The roots of each, white and red, are rich in sugar and nutrients, and often boiled to serve with roasts.

Blackthorn: Known among kenders as sloe, the flowers of the blackthorn make excellent tonics, the plant's leaves freshen breath, and the bark, boiled and chewed, reduces fever. The fruit, or sloes, are excellent to eat fresh or to use in jellies, syrups, and wine.

Borage: The elves name this herb star flower, and all folk know that taken as a tea it will reduce fever and help heal lung infections. The oil is good to rub on arthritic joints, and the leaves, made into a poultice, help heal inflammations and bruises.

Bracken: This herb is brake to the elves of Qualinesti but has always been known as bracken to the rest of the world. Its roots are boiled and made into an ointment for healing wounds. Housewives have been serving the young, uncoiled fronds as a vegetable since the time of the First Cataclysm, and in Silvanesti they used to brew a kind of beer from them. Perhaps they still do.

Bramble: As well known by its other name, black-berry, the bramble's leaves are boiled as a tonic and used to help with dysentery. As a poultice they are excellent for burns and swellings and open sores. Those who gather the berries know that bleeding caused by the thorns is stemmed by rubbing fresh leaves on the cuts. The fruit of the bramble is eaten fresh or cooked and used to make wine.

Briar: Known as dog rose among dwarves, the hips of the flower are used to make tea for a gentle tonic. Rose water is soothing to sensitive skin. The petals are sprinkled over salads and, with the hips, used to make jam.

Clove-Pink: kender and some humans know this herb as the gilly-flower. It makes a fine tincture to use in easing faintness and headaches and malignant fevers. The petals flavor soups, sauces, jams, and wines.

Colewort: Among humans living in Tarsis, this herb is known as kale, and all folk know that the twiceboiled leaves taken with broth are cures for pains of liver and spleen and stones in the kidneys. Taken with honey, the juice will ease a hoarse voice. Made into an ointment, colewort eases muscle aches and painful skin rashes. Colewort is also tasty as a vegetable, boiled and pureed.

Marjoram: This is an excellent herb for easing indigestion and earache, and for use in the treatment of dropsy. Teas made of marjoram relieve wind and have been known to help cure colds. In the kitchen, marjoram is used to flavor soups and stews and meats.

Palsy-Wort: Also known as cowslip, the leaves of this herb make a good salve for healing wounds, a tea for headaches, and the kender say the roots will heal arthritis. The leaves and flowers are good for salads, the flowers for wine, vinegar, and mead.

Parsley: Dwarves have long used parsley to cure gout and asthma. Render use it for coughs. All folk know to chew it raw to freshen the breath and to use the leaves in a poultice for sprains and insect bites. In the kitchen the leaves are added to sauces and soups, and the roots are boiled as a vegetable.

Primrose: Known to elves of both Qualinesti and Silvanesti as first rose, the primrose is often used as a blood purifier and for coughs and sore throats. The flower and young leaves have been used by elven cooks as additions to salads, and the mature leaves are sometimes boiled as a vegetable.

Rose: A favorite in gardens everywhere they will grow, roses yield an oil that is wonderful for soothing chapped skin. Their petals are added to salads, and rosewater flavors confections and sweet dishes.

Rue: The people of Solamnia know sow-thistle as herb of grace and use infusions to help quiet headaches and ease strained eyes, colic in babies, and wind. In the kitchen, the leaves are sprinkled over salads.

Self-Heal: This is a wound herb, good for healing cuts. The young leaves are often cooked as a vegetable, but older leaves are bitter and unpleasant to taste.

Sow-Thistle: The kender call this hare's lettuce, and they use if for fevers, deafness, and stomach pains. In Tarsis, people eat the leaves raw in salads or add it to soups and stews for flavoring.

Violet: White flowered or purple, the violet is found all over Krynn, in every land hut the Northern Wastes and the New Swamp and those unfortunate places dragon-blasted by flame or ice. The leaves ease coughs and colds and soothe headaches. As a poultice, they heal skin rashes. The petals of the violet are sprinkled over salads and clear soups and are used to make wine.

Willowherb: Rosebay among the Plainsfolk of Abanasinia, willowherb eases migraine headaches and soothes stomach disorders. The shoots can be boiled and eaten, the leaves infused for tea.

IN THE LANDS OF NO SEASONS

We have, now, spoken of the rule of the seasons, of sowing and tending and harvest and the way the world turns from spring to summer to fall and winter. And we have, earlier in this treatise, mentioned those folk of Krynn who do not depend on the seasons for their harvest. These are the mountain dwarves of Thorbardin, for at the time of the Dragon Purge they shut their great gates against the danger, and against the world. Dwelling in their magnificent underground city, they are, of all races in Krynn, the most capable of utter self-sufficiency. These are the farsighted of Krynn, at least when it comes to their own well-being, and so when the gates of Thorbardin swing shut, they do so upon folk who are confident that they will eat well, live well, and in the comfort of their homes and halls and taverns, be free to speculate upon the madness of the world as they call for another tankard of ale.

How do they manage this, living beneath the mountains and away from the seasons, even the very turn of day into night? Why, they manage very well, for their long fathers in ancient days instituted a system of farming warrens to feed the people when the outside world could not be counted upon to behave well or sanely. It's true the dwarves miss some of the finer things they had become used to enjoying from trade with other races and nations, but if they sometimes wish for a sip of elven wine, for a jam of sloe out of Hylo, or a meal made from some of the more exotic fishes available from the Dimernesti elves, they dine well off cattle they raise in the East Warrens, beasts grazed on the fields made long ago, in the time before the First Cataclysm. Those fields, as level as a tabletop, produce grasses and hay; they are watered by a cunning system of irrigation that brings water right in from the Urkhan Sea.

Where is the light? In that underground kingdom, how do they find the sunlight, so necessary to the good health of crops? A kender once asked about this, a long time ago, speculating that perhaps the dwarves brought the light into their city in buckets. (Well, we are talking about a kender here, not a sage.) He reckoned the buckets would have to be tightly lidded, perhaps even lined with lead so the light wouldn't leak out before it got to where it needed to be. And he thought that maybe it would be a long and arduous task ("Harduous," he said to himself, "very, very harduous!") to drag in all that light.

Arduous? Rather, say, impossible. However, the dwarves of Thorbardin, by the great good grace of the gods, don't think like kender. They think as engineers do, and so they located veins of clear crystal and widened them into shafts through which the sunlight could shine down. There beneath the tumbling light, they build their farming warrens. Warmed and nourished by the sunlight, the fields beneath the mountain are as fine and green as any you will see in Abanasinia or the Vingaard River Valley.

This system of in-drawn light and irrigation also keeps the Farming Warrens in productive good health. In some fields are the cattle we mentioned, for meat and for milk with which to make cream and curds and a variety of cheeses. In other fields, the dwarves grow oats and barley and wheat and rye, just like top-siders. From these they make breads of all kinds, and with those grains they name "the drinking grains," barley and hops, they brew beer and ale. With corn they feed their cattle and themselves, being sure to plant enough for use in distilling that clear and wondrous drink known as Dwarf Spirit. The delight of any dwarfs heart, this fiery concoction is the bane of all outsiders—even minotaurs!—who are, with rare exception, constitutionally incapable of taking more than two swallows without finding themselves face-down on the floor.

Beyond the fields, orchards grow, and bees are kept to pollinate all crops and provide the city with honey. Here are apple trees and peach trees, though the more delicate fruits such as blackberries and plums refuse to grow. In gardens, near the warrens and within the city itself, the dwarves grow herbs and vegetables. In their own section of the warrens, chickens and geese are kept carefully quartered and tended, so no dwarfs table is in danger of missing a good roast chicken, and their quilts and pillows lack no down.

This, then, is how one lives unbound from the seasons. It suits dwarves well enough. By all accounts, they seem to thrive. One cannot imagine—or one who is not a mountain dwarf cannot—how it would be, though, not to feel the wind on the face, the touch of rain, the bite of winter. We are bound to the seasons, we who are human and elf and kender and minotaur, we who are centaur and dryad. I daresay even the Neidar dwarves are, for it has been many long centuries since they knew the inside of the mountain. Bound and held, but gently in thrall, for this is the way of our world.

Regional Dietary Regimens

Bertrem's Note

While Nancy Varian Berberick concentrated her researches regarding food on the differences between the diets of city and countryfolk, Stan! spent more time on the specific regional dietary differences during the Fifth Age. His essay points up a weakness of my own that I must confess to the reader: Though I have lived on Krynn for more years than I care to acknowledge, I have traveled little and have little direct knowledge of places in our land other than the great city of Palanthas. Laboring for years under the close supervision of Astinus—a supervision as understated as it was precise—I had little time for travel, and thus my days were largely circumscribed by my duties to the library, brief and simple meals taken in the company of my brother Aesthetics, and sleep, though often far too little of that.

In the years following Astinus's disappearance I contemplated more than once leaving the city in which I have dwelt for so many years and seeing more of the land I know only through hooks. However, something always held me hack. Dare I now confess that it was fear? Yes, fear of the unknown, fear that I could not exist outside the rarefied atmosphere of the library.

Thus I am doubly grateful to my researchers that they have done what I could not do and have traveled the length of the land. This is perhaps more striking in light of the terrible ravages exacted by the dragon overlords and by the wandering bands of Knights of Neraka. In a world with so much lawlessness, I count myself fortunate that those I sent forth have returned at all, let alone with such valuable information.

There exist some universal dietary regimens. Across the face of Ansalon, no matter where you go you will find folk who begin the day with some form of gruel, make a lunch of cheese and bread, and sup on freshly caught game of one type or another. There are, naturally, individuals who break from this pattern—vegetarians and the like—but the basic meal plan described above would not be considered exotic in any corner of the continent. Furthermore, every culture and race we know hunt the same animals and cultivate roughly the same vegetables, and most bake a recognizable form of bread.

TEYR

Perhaps the best place to begin an examination of nutrition in the Age of Mortals is with the citizens of Teyr. Since this area is inhabited by draconians, we have little or no information about them, and my journey through this land was fraught with peril (about which I shall say nothing). Geographic influences restrict the range of choices available to the people of the region. The arid savanna provides precious little in the way of native vegetation (only grasses and a few tubers) and the local game consists mostly of medium to small animals. Rabbits and weasels are plentiful, and some areas are home to small communities of badgers, porcupines, and boar. No herd animals keep permanent grazing lands in Teyr, but small groups of wild sheep, horses, and deer cross the plains during migration seasons.

The cultural factor that most strongly exerts influence on the Teyrian diet clearly is the martial lifestyle to which most draconians dedicate their lives. One must always bear in mind that draconians are not a naturally occurring race, but were called into existence by the machinations and perverse magics of the goddess Takhisis less than one hundred years ago. So far as the draconians knew, the only choice they had in this world was whether they would obey orders or be summarily executed for insubordination. Basing decisions on likes and dislikes, as well as creating a culture that afforded the individual the opportunity to explore any vein of creativity and purpose he or she could imagine, was a long time in developing for the draconian race. Truth be told, they still struggle with this issue.

As a result, Teyrian diets consist mostly of dried meats, hard biscuits, and other traditional military rations supplemented by whatever edible vegetable that can be foraged in the immediate area. The draconians are skilled hunters and treat their prey with respect and honor—they are extraordinarily careful not to overhunt a herd, knowing that a hungry belly tonight is better than no food at all in a few months. They eat nearly half the fresh meat they bring back from a hunt. The other half of the prey is preserved and left in store in case game becomes less plentiful or the community is ordered to relocate. Even in these relatively peaceful times, draconian culture still revolves around the notion of following orders, and many families continue to move from place to place as though participating in a military campaign—just so they don't get "too soft."

As a result of their austere existence, the Teyrians have become skilled scavengers as well. While they do not go so far as to feed on carrion, they do make it a practice to track any large predators into whose territory they settle. Small numbers of tigers are known to wander the northern plains, and at least one reputable source states that packs of wolves have lived in the region from time to time. If the draconians can find these animals in the act (or just after) of bringing down a kill, they chase the predator away and claim the meat for themselves.

This is not to say that all the draconians of Teyr live in a state of nomadic barbarism. Many, perhaps even most, of the citizens live in towns and small semi-permanent communities, but most of what scholars would call their "cultural identity" is borrowed from other regions and societies. As a result, draconians are not known as the originators of culinary excellence. Rather, they fuse other cusines and often lend them a unique draconian flavor. However, they are credited with creating at least one recipe that members of other cultures find palatable enough to emulate—a dish the draconians call shredded venison.

The meal is prepared by taking freshly dressed venison and tearing it into long, thin strips. These strips are then coated with a mixture of common herbs, a standard array of cooking spices, and the juice from a local pepper that is so pungent that until the draconians created this recipe it had been used only as a catalyst for alchemical reactions and caustic irritants. [Mostly by the gnomes of Mt. Nevermind, who experimented with it for some years as a possible basis for a chain reaction that could power an automatic nosehair trimmer (though the more innovative gnomes saw bigger uses—perhaps for running a power-driven fingernail clipper). When a container of the juice exploded, it is said, the resulting spray of pepper juice incapacitated forty gnomes for a week and led to the epidemic known in gnomish chronology as the Great Sneezing Fit of 26 SC which led to the invention of the disposable handkerchief.] (Lest any readers worry, I have tested—and tasted—this juice myself, and while it has hardly what one would call "delicate flavor and bouquet," it poses not threat greater than oral discomfort and temporary numbness of the palate.) Thus treated, the venison is wrapped in leaves and placed atop the embers of a recently doused cooking fire. These embers are kept alive, though never fanned back to full life, for an entire day, and when night falls the meat is removed. It should be stored in a dry place and may be kept safely for more than a fortnight.

The final results are dried and shriveled strips of meat that are intoxicatingly flavorful. Unlike other dried meats, these are not overpoweringly salty, but rather brim with an almost fruity zest that tingles the lips and thrills the tongue. Much like the draconian race itself, shredded venison takes what many people would consider a most distasteful set of ingredients, fires them in an unorthodox kiln, and results in a wholly unique creation.

ABANASINIA

Lest the reader think that this treatise will dwell overlong on exotic and outlandish fare, let us turn our attention to the plains of Abanasinia. The food enjoyed by the farmers and merchants of Abanasinia is comparable to that served in nearly every section of the continent.

It is quite ironic that the dish most closely associated with this region is the singular Otik's Spiced Potatoes made famous at the Inn of the Last Home. The irony lies in the fact that these potatoes—while quite flavorful and filling—are not particularly piquant. The truth of the matter is that Abanasinian food as a whole makes use of a relatively narrow family of spices, and it uses them notoriously sparingly. In fact, while elves from the both Qualinesti and Silvanesti are said to consider human Abanasinian cooking to be robust, dwarves, minotaurs, and various peoples from the lands to the east often call the food bland and flavorless. The Abanasinians prefer to say that their palates are more refined than natives of other regions, allowing them to enjoy food's natural tang. In fact, they abhor foods covered in sauces and smothered in aromatic spices.

Abanasinian cooking spices consist of wild garlic and onions (both of whose flavor tend to be considerably less pungent than the domestic varieties grown in other regions), salt provided by dwarf merchants, and dried herbs cultivated from the local forests. All are used with the greatest restraint. In fact, the only regionally distinct flavor to be found in most Abanasinian cooking comes from "leathercaps," a bitter mushroom that sprouts in the autumn.

Hunting for these fungi is an annual ritual that Abanasinians look forward to with great glee. While in Solace working on a different project, I took time to question the locals regarding the practice. It seems that while those of intermediate age (those running businesses and raising families) are the ones who make the most use of the leathercaps, it is the youngest and oldest of the community who most enjoy the harvest.

"It's the only time I can go running through the woods by myself," one lad of eight or ten years explained. "Most of the year my folks are too scared that I'll wander off and get lost or eaten by a pack of wolves. There are so many people around during the harvest that it's nearly impossible to get lost, and we make such a noise that no animals want to get within a mile of us!"

Those of the older generation say they enjoy the hunt because it makes them feel young again. Tika Majere, proprietress of the Inn of the Last Home, says that going on the mushroom hunt "brings back the days of innocence.

"It sometimes seems as though all my life has been filled with war and strife and working for someone else's needs," she told me as she sat by the fire in the Common Room where her great adventure began so many years ago. "Collecting leathercaps has always been something I do just for me—well, and for those who enjoy my cooking!"

One may find it odd that a people who seem to prefer mild flavors in nearly every other ingredient have such a great affinity for a fungus with such a strong taste. Indeed, the mushroom is too bitter to be enjoyed by itself, but once dried and minced, it finds its way into almost everything the locals make—from bread to soup to meat seasonings. There are never enough leathercaps to last more than a few months, so if you are curious about this mushroom I suggest you travel to Abanasinia about the time of the autumnal equinox.

Abanasinia is also known for another edible fungus, although one that the locals eschew completely. The small, plump, juicy nodule known by gourmets as a "plum of the earth" has long been considered a delicacy in Solamnia and Ergoth. However the tiny fungus became exceedingly rare in these areas following the Second Cataclysm. Those that could be found were drier, more bland, and inferior in every way to their predecessors. It is only by chance that a Solamnic Knight, who happened to be the son of one of Solanthus's greatest chefs, was posted as an honor guard at the Tomb of the Last Heroes and spent his leisure time wandering through the local woods. There he came across the telltale stalk and six-pointed leaf that at the time was the only reliable method of finding the much sought after plums.

The Abanasinians laughed at the Knight. These fungi (which they describe as looking like the droppings of a burrowing creature) were considered subterranean weeds—where they grew the soil became incapable of sustaining crops or other "useful" plants. Moreover, the fungi were almost undetectable save by chance.

The Knight and a few other brave souls patiently experimented with methods of finding concentrations of the fungus, and eventually they discovered a remarkable fact: Domesticated pigs loved the fungus and could sniff it out from yards away. Herein lay an obvious, if somewhat odd, solution to the problem.

Now every spring the villagers take to the woods surrounding their farmland, leading pigs around by leashes and letting the swine nose out the fungus. Most local farmers are paid handsomely by merchants, chefs, and gourmets to restrain their pigs and save the plums of the earth for human consumption. Farmers who feel they are being offered inferior prices for their crop are wont to drive the bid up by tossing one of the larger specimens into the pig pen in dramatic fashion. In this way, many farmers have the wherewithal to avoid disaster in a year of drought.

SOLAMNIA

Being one of the few remaining bastions of both freedom and prosperity, Solamnia remains a nation where all foods from across the continent are still available to any who can afford them. There is, one must note, a distinct difference between the diets of the common folks of Solamnia and those with greater means. In particular, the eating habits of the Solamnic Knights tends to be somewhat dissonant from those of the common folk.

The great majority of Solomnians (approximately eighty percent) are farmers, craftsmen, and domestic retainers in the employ of the richest citizens (approximately ten percent of the population). The remainder are merchants, religious disciples, and a small number who have broken the social contracts that have held Solamnia's society together for centuries.

The commoners, like their brethren across the continent, eat whatever foods are available. Thanks to the prosperity of the land, though, it is quite routine for even the most provincial of general stores to be stocked with cloth from Kalaman, leather from Qualinesti, and gnomish confections from Mt. Nevermind. As a result, they have a significantly healthier diet than those in other regions. Most Solamnian families can serve daily meals that feature high quality meats, vegetable, and fruits.

As is often the case, though, the Solamnians choose to compare their situation to those with a better lot rather than those who are less fortunate. Instead of being thankful that their kettles are so well filled, they complain that they cannot have the even more extravagant fare that graces the Solamnian noble tables. Thus peasants from other regions, groaning beneath the despotism of the overlords, conclude that their Solamnian counterparts are nothing more than whining, petulant children who do not have the sense to enjoy their prosperity while it lasts.

The aristocracy, on the other hand, enjoys the best of everything (though its members, too, are given to bemoaning the fact that things were better in years past). The range of foods enjoyed by Solamnian nobles defies plain classification. They rarely eat anything so simple as roasted meat. Everything must be cooked according to intricate recipes that, more often than not, require significant preparation time.

More interesting than the particular dishes, though, is the mealtime ritual that is still common in many wealthy homes—particularly those belonging to members of the Solamnic Order. In such families, breakfast and lunch are small meals served cold from the remainder of the previous night's dinner. The center of daily society is the evening meal.

The meal itself always consists of five distinct courses: soup, appetizer, entree, salad, and dessert. The first course always features a cream-based soup, never one from a meat or vegetable stock (which the nobles consider fit for only the poor and the infirm). Appetizers usually consist of a dish that previews the main course for the following night, allowing the master or mistress ample opportunity to order the meal changed if the fare is not to their liking.

The entree is the most complex of courses. It must contain both meat and vegetable that are prepared in a harmonious and artful way. Some noble families make it a point of pride to serve only meals where the entree represents some manner of philosophical or political message. While this is most often a highly esoteric (to the point of being unfathomable) exercise, there are times when the meaning of the meal is quite plain—such as when a noble invited his political rival to dinner and served a plate arranged to mimic the other's family crest. He thus indicated that, if provoked, he would eat his rival and family. Rumor does not record the guest's reaction to this culinary challenge.

Solamnia's great addition to Ansalonian cuisine has been in the realm of baked goods. Dessert always features some pastry or torte whose recipe has been passed down through the generations with the same manner and solemnity as great swords and suits of armor.

Meals preceding a ball often include a sixth course—a second dessert, almost always with an inebriating theme—sponge cake drizzled with brandy, or hollow confections filled with sweet wine—served half-way through the evening's festivities.

NERAKA

The country of Neraka has been under the sway of the knightly servants of Takhisis for so long that the Order recently renamed itself the Knights of Neraka. Travel within the realm is tightly controlled, and I was unable to enter this dark land. Therefore I can only guess that the actual dietary regimen is similar to that I have observed among Dark Knights in other sections of the continent. Fortunately (in this instance), the city of Palanthas also falls under the jurisdiction of the Knights, so I may make some accurate guess as to the nature of Nerakan cuisine.

It seems highly likely that most, if not all, popular recipes in Neraka are judged by one standard above all others: can they be made quickly, easily, and cheaply in bulk?

The Knights, you see, have a tradition that is honored so uniformly that it might as well be referred to as law—all Knights at a given post eat the same food at the same place at the same time. No allowance is made for age, race, social background, or (most of all) rank. Every soldier eats just as well—or as poorly—as every other soldier. While this does build a laudable sense of community, it also brings the lowest common denominator to the arena of nutrition—something that is bound to have more negative than positive repercussions.

Most garrisons in my experience feed nearly exclusively on a breakfast of dried meats and hard breads, work all day with no further sustenance other than water, and finish the day with a communal stew containing more celery and gravy than any true meat or hearty vegetables. It is, I'm told, serviceable, though not particularly appetizing. Still, with so little in their bellies by the end of their march, who can doubt that the Knights, squires, and attendants consider Nerakan stew to be food fit for a king (or governor-general—as the case maybe).

There are, of course, some among the Order who do not feel that complete equality has any place at the meal table, those who believe that rank does indeed bring certain privileges and that chief among these is a more agreeable dietary regimen. More than a few reports and anecdotes have been brought to the library concerning Dark Knight talons where the commander, once out of the sight of more evenhanded superiors, takes meals alone in his or her tent—and dines on much more palatable fare than the rest of the company.

One such case is discussed in the journal of Sir Marcus Reddi (a Knight who has won some measure of fame in the campaign against Silvanesti). When Sir Reddi was a minor officer in a talon assigned to patrol the Khur border, his commander (whose name has been scrupulously excised from the document) was in the practice of eating apart from—and more elegantly than—his troops. When the wing commander heard about this, he ordered that the quartermaster dispense only lower quality rations to the talon until the Knight ceased this practice. Unfortunately, the hardship bore most heavily on the common soldiers. The commander continued to eat the best of the supplies, leaving the rest of the talon food normally fed to the hounds. The talon's rations were further reduced, but the commander still continued his practice until his men were stumbling through their assignments, nearly collapsing from hunger. Sir Reddi appealed to the commander for compassion only to be told in no uncertain terms that the men should take comfort in the knowledge that their commander was healthy, able-bodied, and ready to give his life for their protection.

In the end that is exactly what happened. The record indicates that the talon commander died single-handedly defending the hunger-addled company from a band of ogre raiders the very day a new supply of rations arrived in camp. Sir Reddi assumed control of the talon and ordered the commander's rations shared equally among the Knights as a way to honor the man's sacrifice. The entire talon swore an oath over that exquisite meal never to speak ill of their former commander and never to speak of that day again as long as they lived.

BLOOD SEA ISLES

Many things about the minotaur culture are considered exotic (to say the least) by other Ansalonian cultures. Their martial manner and immutably dour countenances do more to add to their alieness than do even their bestial bodies. [Though to many, especially to other minotaurs, the bull-headed men are handsome, with their muscular bodies, shining horns, and sleek, fur-covered shoulders. There is no place in the scholarly mind for prejudice against a civilization as complex as it is mysterious.] For all the foreign aspects of minotaur culture, though, their cuisine is surprisingly similar to that of peoples on the mainland. Perhaps, as some scholars claim, this is a clue as to how close our cultures really are—that the otherness that we associate with the minotaurs is one based only on appearance. Other scholars are just as quick, however, to subscribe to a theory best summed up by the phrase, "there are only so many ways to cook a pheasant."

Very few human or elven scholars have spent very much time or effort examining the cultures of the Blood Sea Islands—and the minotaurs themselves place so little value on such pursuits that they have never done so themselves (at least not in any form that has been shared with outsiders). Perhaps there is some depth of culinary tradition among these hulking brutes, but if so, it remains locked away on the islands of Mithas and Kothas.

Minotaurs that one is likely to encounter on the mainland eat a diet similar to that described for the Knights of Neraka. In other words, some kind of military rations (though, for obvious reasons, their particular rations tend to concentrate more on fish and other seafood rather than beef or pork). When traveling minotaurs gather in groups of five or more, though, they are likely to participate in a welcoming feast, though that term is used in the loosest sense possible. This feast is a very personal affair for the creatures, and they will perform it only if they are alone or in the company of no more than two or three intimately trusted outsiders. Several reports tell of nearly identical behavior, so it is safe to presume that this activity in some way mirrors a ritual enacted when sailors return from months at sea.

The festivities actually begin with a ceremonial boar hunt—though in regions where there are no boar, the fiercest local game will suffice. The minotaurs perform the hunt using only knives and spears, to symbolize the difficulty of the journey that brought them together, so it is important that the prey present significant opposition. At the conclusion of the hunt, the minotaurs bring the catch back to the beach.

Some of the minotaurs build a tremendous fire, all the while growling, chanting, and throwing large stones into the flames. Meanwhile the others clean the carcass. When the animal is dressed it is not cooked over the fire, but rather the stones are removed from the flames and stuffed into the beast's hollow chest. The entire creature is then wrapped in long, flat leaves of the grasslike vegetation that grows in great abundance on the shores of these isles. The carcass is buried in the sand for anywhere from four to six hours. During that time, the minotaurs wade in the surf in a contest to see who can land the largest fish using nothing but bare hands and horns.

When the boar is removed from the sand it has been cooked so thoroughly that the meat simply falls off the bones. The minotaurs peel off strips of meat and roll it with the leaves into surprisingly delicate wheels that they feed to one another. This exchanging of portions is part of the ceremony, and it is considered quite rude to actually eat any meat that one rolls oneself.

One colleague of mine puts forward the notion that this entire ceremony is a ritualistic recreation of the grazing and mock battles domestic cattle perform to determine dominance of a herd. The minotaurs, naturally, place no stock in any such ideas, and bodily threaten anyone they meet who repeats what they consider to be racial slander.

THE DRAGON REALMS

Another region—or, more correctly, set of regions—about which virtually nothing was known prior to the Second Cataclysm is the Dragon Realms. Each of the dragon overlords has had a distinct impact on the landscape of his or her realm, and those changes have brought about tremendous shifts in the dietary regimen of the poor souls unlucky (or pigheaded) enough to remain living in the area.

In most domains the culinary differences are few, and remain mostly centered on one or two particular species of plant or animal no longer available or, in some cases, new game that was not indigenous to the area prior to the dragons' arrival. In these areas, one can assume that the food fairly closely matches that found in its nearest neighboring independent nation. There are, however, three particular dragons whose impact on the regional cuisine have been more keenly felt.

Malys the Red transformed the former nation of Kendermore into a heat-blasted desert where no mortal can long survive. This area is now known as the Desolation, and not surprisingly, practically no game animals can be found, and vegetation is virtually unknown in this once-verdant region. Still, humans, ogres, and other races whose members can tend toward the sturdier than smart end of the spectrum continue to live in the Desolation. But for all the difficulty finding food, water is clearly the most precious of all substances here.

There is a new tradition among those living in the Desolation—the exchange of water skins. In any situation where an expression of trust or show of good faith is required, folks living in this region trade drink pouches. A complicated series of requirements and expectations have developed among these folk, and a person's reputation is very closely tied to the quality and quantity of liquid exchanged in this ritual. To hand over an empty skin is not nearly as damning a gesture as presenting one filled with befouled water—it is entirely possible that one drank the last of one's water, but presenting a skin full of unpotable liquid is tantamount to forgery or counterfeiting.

On the island of Southern Ergoth a whole new ecosystem has arisen, brought about by the radical climatic changes initiated by Gellidus the White. More than half the island has been transformed into a great glacier, and over the past twenty years or so many of the creatures found in the Icewall region have migrated to the shores of Southern Ergoth as well. Hunters and trappers can find abundant herds of seals and walruses as well as gigantic schools of cold-water fish. This has had an impact on the diets of not only the elves and humans of Southern Ergoth but also on those living on the western coast of Abanasinia and Qualinesti.

Perhaps the most insidious of changes came at the claws of Onysablet the Black. In her quagmire-covered realm live all manner of transformed, transfigured, or otherwise perverted creatures and plants. Onysablet's greatest joy lies in experimenting with the basic building blocks of life. Of all the dragon overlords, she is the one who most frequently creates spawn—half-human/half-draconian abominations.

The Black also enjoys developing new breeds of plants, insects, and animals whose attacks infect mortals with mutagenic poisons. In most cases, these effects are also transmitted when one ingests meat cut from the creature, so an amazingly stringent set of rules has developed for local hunters and foragers. Because the swamp itself is under the dragon's constant control, the indigenous people refuse to eat anything that grows there, making fresh vegetables and fruits virtually unknown. Furthermore, most hunters will kill only animals they have personally observed for a month or more. In all cases, unknown or abnormal creatures and plants are considered to be poisonous until proven otherwise.

In a situation such as this, with familiarity being the most reliable source of safety, even visitors from other lands are viewed through a veil of mistrust. Most residents of Sable's domain will not accept food from anyone from outside their community. One ought to consider it a sign of great respect and confidence if these folk so much as accept a small drink from one's waterskin, and the surest way to convey that one trusts these people is to eat even a tiny portion of a meal they prepare.

MT. NEVERMIND

I begin now a series of entries on foods served by the smaller races. [A more extensive version of this researcher's notes are on file in the library's archives.] Each race's culinary tradition has within it a great variety of regional distinction, but it becomes difficult to justify the required time and space necessary to do exhaustive research on, for example, the differences between meals served in Thorbardin, Thoradin, and other smaller dwarf enclaves. To that end, I shall take a fairly typical example of the race and allow it to stand as a cultural representative.

Thus the gnomish conclave in Mt. Nevermind is, by all accounts, considered to be completely representative of gnome culture across Ansalon.

Although one would expect such a diminutive and relatively lean race to partake of proportionally smaller meals that are light on fats and starches, the exact opposite is true of the gnomes. In fact, the only culture that eats greater amounts of fatty meats, thick creams, and heavy starches is the human rural farming community. Every meal in Mt. Nevermind centers around a meat dish. Sausages are often served hot as an evening meal, then commonly show up cold on the breakfast plate. Mutton shanks, legs of game fowl, sliced meat rolled with cheese or bread, and other easily handled foods make up the gnomes' midday meals, which are almost exclusively taken in the midst of whatever experiment or construction the gnomes currently have underway. In fact, the handiness of the food seems to have greater importance than the taste as preoccupied gnomes regularly pass up fresh, hot soup in favor of a three-day old, grease-soaked drumstick with only a few gristly bits of meat clinging to the bone.

The evening meal, however, is a time when most (though not all) gnomes will actually set aside their work in order to partake in a time-honored tradition of stuffing food into one's face while spewing forth conversation at breakneck speeds. Perhaps this commentary seems overly judgmental (or even hyperbolic) to some, but it is the best way this author knows to accurately capture the chaos that is a gnomish dinner. Since the day is spent at separate pursuits, and since any one of these activities might generate information that would be of use in another experiment, the gnomes share all their daily discoveries at the dinner table. However, since there are so many projects going on at any one time, and the researchers are anxious to return to work as soon as possible, they all speak more or less at the same time—and try to get food in between breaths.

As chaotic a scene as this paints, the fact is that quite a lot of meat, cheese, bread, and potato gets consumed at one of these meals. And unlike other communal meals, such as those in Neraka discussed earlier, the quality of the food is considered very important. "You can't have fresh thoughts with a belly full of stale bread!" is an expression often bandied about when a particular meal does not satisfy the discerning palates of the assembled gnomes. These folk prefer heavily seasoned meats, often rolled in crumbs or dipped in batter and fried. Many meals come drenched in thick, floury sauces or gravies that completely disguise the natural color or scent of the meat with their own unique aroma. These sauces are favorites among the gnomes, but most humans find them too overpowering, leading them to wonder what is wrong with the meat underneath.

Interestingly, cooking is considered by the gnomes to be one of the "fine sciences"—particularly because of the many opportunities for improving cooking hardware and developing laborsaving devices. There are those who devote their entire careers to developing improved recipes, experimenting with newly discovered spices and herbs, and creating menus with never before tried combinations. Gnomish cuisine is constantly evolving. Although dishes with the same names have been served for generations, it seems unlikely that any recipe remains fundamentally unchanged for more than a few years, and the food served today bears only superficial resemblance to that eaten before the Second Cataclysm, let alone the First. The only exception to this rule lies in the arena of confections.

Gnomes have long been known for making candies and chocolates that are exquisite to both the eye and the tongue. Unlike with other recipes, the gnomes consider the highest form of confectionery achievement to lie in reproducing exactly the same shape and flavor in a series of treats. Each year the confectionists of Mt. Nevermind create a new batch of their family specialty, and the results are judged against the products of previous years. There are, it is said, vaults throughout the mountain filled from floor to ceiling with ten generations' worth of candy. A chef is judged only against others from his or her own lineage, although in private taste contests they compare their work with those of their peers for the honor of chief confectionist (a title that carries no significance outside the bounds of the candy-making community).

Another area in which gnome chefs constantly experiment is the cooking process itself. Simply baking or frying is not good enough for the gnomes. They feel obligated to find better, more intricate ways to prepare food. Among the relative successes in this field are the "flavor infuser," which uses pressurized steam—always a gnomish favorite—to force spices and marinades into the heart of a roast or other large cut of meat, [With the occasional unfortunate consequence that the entree explodes during dinner.] and the "Solamnic slicer," a metallic cylinder filled with a series of swords, knives, and daggers connected to a gyrating engine. Vegetables or raw meat are thrown into the top of the cylinder and come out the bottom rendered into incredibly finely sliced portions. Both of these devices can be of great use when they function correctly but are dangerous when they malfunction.

THORBARDIN

Since the gates to the kingdom of Thorbardin have been shut for some years now, it is impossible to say exactly what their current diet consists of. However, in contrast to the gnomish diet, dwarven food has remained substantially unchanged for several centuries—so we will proceed with this entry under the presumption that the last decade has done nothing to alter that situation. (While we certainly could have sent a representative to Thoradin to obtain accurate reports on their eating habits, the fact that the dwarven nation has aligned itself with Neraka and may be preparing for an extended conflict with exiled Zhakar led us to rely on our existing Thorbardin information.)

There is nothing subtle about dwarven cuisine—it is a study in extreme tastes and textures. Since the race is often characterized as dour and grumpy, one would expect dwarves to eat many sour, bitter, and even rancorous foods. This is certainly true. Thorbardin cuisine features many different types of pickled foods, cured in brine and seasoned with vinegar and bitter herbs. They make a foul-smelling brand of pickled cabbage that is chopped thin and served slightly chilled atop nearly any warm meal. (They achieve a chilling effect by sinking watertight sacks of the concoction into deep, bitterly cold, underground rivers.) There is even a pickled meat recipe that the dwarves serve at celebrations and festivals. The dwarves maintain this dish has curative properties and produces a euphoric feeling, but as far as the record indicates, no member of any other race has been able to stomach the smell long enough to taste it.

Sour seasonings, however, do not represent the entire breadth of dwarven cooking. They are equally enamored of salty, tart, and spicy foods as well. In fact, with the sole exception of the Teyrian pepper mentioned earlier, dwarven foods are the most pungent I have ever tasted. The Thorbardinians serve a dish of vegetables and rice, known by the innocuous name of "summer bloom," that is so hot that a single mouthful at once completely numbs the mouth for several hours and sends shooting spears of pain from the center of one's chest to the hollow behind one's eyes. The one time I attempted to eat this dish, at a function for a visiting dwarf ambassador, my sinuses drained, my eyes teared, and I remained bedridden for nearly two full days. That having been said, the aftertaste the meal left when my composure finally returned was quite piquant and enjoyable—of course, that was the only thing I could taste for an entire week.

Even when dwarf chefs eschew overpowering flavors, they still create dishes based on a powerful sensation—texture. Dwarf breads tend to be coarser, harder, and more difficult to chew than even the stalest of hardtack. They enjoy painfully crunchy cakes and tarts and even sprinkle these with incongruous spices. It is reported that the dessert of favor in Thoradin these days is a zesty mustard pastry. The mind boggles.

The most infamous of dwarf culinary excesses, though, is their ale. In fact, all dwarf spirits pack a greater intoxicating effect than their human- or elf-brewed counterparts. They also, however, have a much heavier taste, making them too strong for many social occasions and. allowing the entire category of "dwarven spirits" to be dismissed with a single, uneducated rejection—and preventing the great dwarf distillers from being recognized for the artisans they truly are. The connoisseur will tell you that several Thorbardin and Thoradin vintages can be found on the racks of truly enlightened aficionados across the continent. One Palanthan nobleman of my acquaintance considers the prize of his collection to be a cask of dwarven brandy bottled in Xak Tsaroth in 39 AC—less than a month before the start of the Dwarfgate War.

Why do dwarves enjoy such powerful flavors and sensations? Several colleagues of mine subscribe to the theory that it is a reaction to the race's hardy nature. No one with even the slightest knowledge of physiology can argue with the fact that, on the whole, dwarves are a sturdier race than nearly any other. My colleagues argue that this means the dwarves' senses are blunted to the subtler flavors and sensations enjoyed by humans, elves, kender, and other races. He concludes that our food and drink are practically flavorless to the dwarves. In order to make this bland food more palatable, the dwarves began experimenting with the few spices and other ingredients that they found discernable. Not coincidentally, these are the ones we find most overpowering. Eventually they developed a cuisine based on the premise, "If we can taste it, it must be good." That doctrine dominates dwarf cuisine to this very day.

I cannot say that I wholeheartedly endorse this theory, but I do not have another more likely one to present at this time.

HYLO

While discussing this essay with some recent initiates to the Order of Aesthetics, I found that several of them were disquieted by the notion of kender cooking. When I pressed them on the subject, they answered that they had always thought kender simply stole whatever they felt like eating and "scarfed it down" as they eluded pursuit.

After a serious discussion regarding the place (or lack thereof) of colloquial phrases in official duties, [Excellent! A conscientious teacher as well as a methodical researcher. Such a thing is rare indeed.] I disabused them of the notion that kender are nothing more than a race of scheming thieves who think of nothing other than ways to separate honest folk from their rightful possessions. Nothing could be further from the truth. Kender have a very highly developed moral code and maintain the utmost respect for personal property.

If kender really were plotting to steal the items they wind up with, why do they forever begin sentences with, "You dropped this?" No, they are as surprised as anyone else that they have wound up in possession of another person's belongings, and they immediately set out to return them to the proper owner. What kender suffer from is not lapse in moral fortitude but rather the inability to focus on a single topic for overlong, coupled with a stunning shortage of what most would call "common sense."

It is this last lapse that is most alarming when it comes to kender in the kitchen. After all, who would want to eat a meal prepared by a chef who might well forget how much of any spice had already been thrown in the stew? It is a constant amazement to some that the entire race has not been eliminated through sheer negligence around the cooking pot. Still, if one walks through the streets of Hylo at evening mealtime all sorts of aromatic and appetizing smells drift past one's nose, and the overwhelming effect is to sharpen hunger rather than drive it away.

Perhaps kender cooking turns out so well because it is based on a series of simple, unrelated steps that can be taken one at a time (often in any order) to build a final meal that cooks all together in one pot. In fact, preparing the evening meal is often a family affair in kender households. Each member of the clan is given a single item to add to the pot—sometimes, when their duty has been fulfilled, they may be entrusted with a second ingredient. When everyone has returned with his or her contribution, the fire can be lit and the meal cooked.

These all-in-one-pot meals usually have a base of noodles or rice, with beef or chicken thrown in along with various fresh vegetables and whatever spices the family prefers. Snobbish gourmets pronounce this barely one step removed from barbarians who immediately eat anything they can kill or forage. Food connoisseurs say that the inexact order of ingredients and variable cooking time mean that the meal is often over- or undercooked. But they miss the point that no matter how long the meal simmers, it still tastes good.

Dinner is served hot out of the pot, and the anxious kender often sit on the floor around the fire rather than carrying their bowls back to the table. Sometimes the one dishing up brings out a fork bearing not meat, vegetable, or rice, but rather some other odd material that one of the overzealous cooks pulled from a pocket and threw in the pot. This propensity to find coins, baubles, and even small items of clothing in the final meal has earned this type of meal the name "kender surprise."

GULLY DWARVES

Finally, we have the interesting case of the gully dwarf. These unfortunate and much maligned creatures can be found in almost every nation in Ansalon, though they are most prosperous in abandoned ruins and other places that civilized (and even semi-civilized) folk scrupulously avoid. The truth is that gully dwarves are not some superintelligent form of vermin. They have a unique, long-standing culture and a society based on laws and clear social relationships.

Having said that, one must acknowledge that gully dwarf society is at the very least distasteful and often repugnant to people from more technically advanced civilizations. The diminutive creatures live in eternal squalor, subsist on refuse, and have no hope of coping with situations that do not involve the immediate and concrete world around them. Hypothetical reasoning is possible for gully dwarves, but when the culture has difficulty with numbers greater than two, the quality of such thought falls into grave question.

Much as with kender, it is difficult for people to imagine gully dwarves having any type of recognizable cuisine. Well corroborated stories abound describing how the creatures consider sewer rats a delicacy beyond compare. To tell the truth, even an impartial and thorough commentator such as myself cannot find substantial evidence to argue against such suppositions. The truth is that the vast majority of gully dwarves have not developed the mental acuity necessary to cook a full meal once, let alone repeat the process often enough for it to be considered a tradition.

Why include them in this treatise, then? Because of a widely reported recipe known as "gully dwarf stew."

In Palanthas, gully dwarf stew is made using scraps of beef, pork, and chicken. Butchers gather all their ends, tips, and poorly cut steaks into bundles and sell them as "gully dwarf fixin's," thus converting otherwise unsalable material into a quaint specialty. The recipe also calls for cabbage, celery, and several other vegetables whose abundant growth generally means their supply outstrips the public's demand.

On Northern Ergoth, the gully dwarf stew recipe begins with the pot scrapings of a regionally popular chowder and diced potatoes (of which there are no shortage, in or out of season). It is then bolstered by a few pounds of flitters, a common fish in local waters that often becomes entangled in nets but is generally considered too small to cook.

In Khur the stew most often consists of lizard meat, boiled in broth made from water-trapping roots and cactus shavings. It is garnished with a handful of the local insects.

Let me stress that according to the regional inhabitants, each of these recipes is exactly what "gully dwarf stew" has always been—anything else is a misrepresentation. In the end, it is this researcher's opinion that none of these recipes are any more authentic than another. Were one to task a gully dwarf with choosing the "real" stew from an array of regional recipes, the confused creature would (after much debate and consideration) declare them all to be correct. Real gully dwarf stew, as any gully dwarf can tell you, is made by taking whatever ingredients are at hand and mixing them in as pleasing a combination as possible. Relying on particular ingredients is not in gully dwarf nature. They are the ultimate pragmatists, who happily consider whatever they have to be exactly what they need.

Ansalon would doubtless be a happier and more peaceful place if more of the "intelligent" cultures could adopt that particular mode of thinking.

CONCLUSION

Writing this particular treatise has been an interesting experience. I am one a very few humans left who can claim to have widely traveled the continent both before and after the Summer of Chaos—and I am quite likely the only one who ever gave any serious scholarly consideration to the foods people ate in either period.

Even so, at least some of my information would have been woefully out of date were it not for the fact that I reside in the city of Palanthas, where one can acquire authentic recipes, ingredients, and prepared meals from nearly every culture in Ansalon. If one seeks to taste the gamut of global culinary experiences without giving up the years such a journey would take, then I heartily recommend a fortnight's stay in our fair city.

Clothing

Bertrem's Note

"Fashion is the history of the world writ upon the backs of its people," as one scribe has rather dramatically proclaimed. Certainly when I look about the streets of my native Palanthas, even in this dark time when travel has declined and the city is no longer the bustling center of trade it was fifty or sixty years previous, I can still marvel at the tremendous diversity of clothing styles to be seen in the streets or for sale in the marketplace.

Fashion often reflects not merely the geography of a land but also its moral and political character, as well as its economic well being. Thus we see that in our age, the Age of Mortals, clothing has altered to fit the needs of the day, when the overlords have altered much of the land, and outlaws have cut many of the traditional trade routes, restricting dyes and cloths to certain areas of the continent.

Even in these dark times, I have been astonished at how brightly many folk dress. Perhaps it is an attempt to banish the fear that fills many lives, to remind them of happier times before the coming of the great dragons. Whatever the case, it makes the streets of Palanthas and other cities carnivals of color in which bright silks and gauzes float upon the wind, leaving tantalizing traces of perfume in their wake.

In the sweet grasslands of the Vingaard River Valley, in Abanasinia, and on the slopes of stony hills in Khur where tough grasses grow, shepherds and their families tend their flocks. With dogs to guard them and to herd for them, they watch their sheep throughout the year, in summer and fall and winter, until the time to shear has come again, in spring. The sheep and lambs shorn, the shepherd's wife and children clean the wool and snip the mats. They tuck in the four leg pieces, make a rope of twisted neck wool, roll up the fleece, and bind it. With fleece after fleece this work is done until the wool rooms are filled, soon to be graded and stored. If the night after working is cool, one can see mist rising from these bundles, the heat of the shorn lamb or the now naked sheep still radiating. It is as though the fleece, the wool, were itself gently breathing. Once the wool is shorn from the fleece, packed and breathing in the wool rooms, it will be weighed. As it has ever been, in all lands, the standard of measure is the same:

7 pounds of wool we call a clove.

4 cloves of wool we name a todd.

6 todds and one half more is named a wey

and

2 weys we call a sack

12 sacks we know are 468 pounds

240 pounds we say, at last, is a pack

This is woolgathering, part of the seasons-long and many-layered tasks involved in making for you the shirt you are wearing, the hose that keeps your legs warm, your wife's skirts, and your sister's blouses. This time-honored task is thought about seldom by those who don't engage in it, and when it is, the term woolgathering is too often spoken in derision, another way to speak of wasted time and daydreaming. Who speaks this way has no idea what it is to gather wool or to spin or weave or fashion thread and cloth.

Yet, perhaps his ignorance can be forgiven, and perhaps we need not be hard on him. The one who sneers knows, I am sure, the tales of heroes, the doings of the lost gods, the politics of his homeland and even the lands of others. He knows these from books if he is well educated, and even those who have never seen the inside of a schoolroom know the deeds of heroes from songs and the poetry of bards. In praise of weavers, though, of spinners, in praise of dye-makers, fullers and carders, the herdsmen who raises sheep, the hunter who takes down the doe… in praise of these, few poems have been penned, few songs made and sung. Yet, where would the people of Krynn be without them, seamstresses in Palanthas, working late into the night for the sake of a lady's gown, tailors in Qualinost laboring to make a lord's costume, cobblers and armorers in Thorbardin, all the folk who clothe the folk of Krynn? Burned in summer, shivering in winter, and walking around as though we lived all our lives in caves wishing for tougher skin and more than tender down to cover our hides! So let us pause, before we pass, let us see how the fantasies of ladies are brought to life, the tough clothing of hunters made, the leather aprons of smiths and tinkers crafted.

We do love color, we of this world. In all lands, in all times, we have sought and still seek it. In Hylo, kenders grow the marigolds we use for dyes to make our silks golden, and henna to make just the right shade of yellow or brown. In Qualinost they grind alkanet root so they may export fabrics the colors of wine; they endure the collection of the insect dactylopius coccus that they may boil them whole and obtain the color fuchsia and the deep shades of purple so treasured by princes. From the heartwood of the mulberry, the humans in what is left of Solamnia make the extract fustic and happily apply it to their wools and cottons and silks so we may mimic the golden colors of autumn. We of Krynn would leach the colors from rainbows, if we could only devise a method.

These colors we feed to our fabrics: the wool grown by herders, the leathers obtained by huntsmen, the silk woven by worms. We employ weavers by the scores, armies of spinners, carders to comb the wool, and seamstresses to sew up our clothing. In the cotton fields, we pick the white fluffy bolls and bleed over the thorny hulls. Upon looms we weave the bleached or dyed threads to make bolts of cloth. With great care, in all nations, among all races, we set up a system of apprenticeship so that our craftsmen can pass down tools and knowledge, one to another. They are fine and fair in the lands of the elves, the Silvanesti and the Qualinesti; they are dour and steadfast in the lands of the dwarfs, but it is the same for each—the skills of the clothier, the weaver, the spinner are admired and appreciated.

There are, then, some things to be said about raiment in these after-days we now call the Fifth Age of Krynn. We will not speak as though all races are one race, for among the varying kindreds exist custom and traditions that guide, when it exists at all, fashion. We will speak of the garb of the men and women of elvenkind, humankind, the dwarven kindred, kenders and gully dwarfs and gnomes and minotaurs. We need not speak of children, for it has ever been that in every land of Krynn, among all kindreds, they are garbed as smaller versions of their elders. Neither will we speak of centaurs and dryads, for the former decorate themselves only at will, and the dear dryads will always clothe themselves as their trees do, in the shades of the seasons.

WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE MAGI

Perhaps the most interesting change to note among the clothed of Krynn is in the garb of the magi. No longer do mages go dressed in robes the colors of their affiliations, red or black or white. What significance hold the god-colors when there are no gods? The rites and rituals of magic, including those restricting the shape and color of clothing, are vanishing. [This change took place only gradually, as many mages for years clung to the hope that their old orders might be resurrected. The final blow was struck in 28 SC at the Last Conclave, when the old orders were formally disbanded. Shortly afterward, of course, Palin Majere founded a new school of sorcery near Solace.] What remain are vestiges of a time when the three Magical Children, those scions of gods, granted magic for a prayer and a pretty ritual. In these days of mysticism and sorcery, you will often not recognize a magic-user by his robe, for he is likely to be seen wearing the gear of a farmer or a hunter or a townsman, she is as often to be found wearing the silken gowns of a lady of Palanthas or the humble dress of a milkmaid's daughter. Do they miss the robe and the ceremony? I have heard it from the elders among them, those who remember the before-times, that some do, now and then, sigh for the scent of roses and exotic oils, and they miss the whisper of a dark robe at midnight, the sigh of a white robe in the dawning, or the startling suddenness of a red robe in the mist. "But times do change," says a mage of my acquaintance, he who is rightly known as wise among the wise. "And now we dress as we will."

He does, himself, though keep his white robe, if not always to wear, sometimes to take from the coffer and look upon. "Clothing," he tells me, "is first to keep a man warm in winter, a maid dry in the rain. But after, it is to signal to others who we are, perhaps who we believe we are. Or, who we wish the world around to think we are. Once," he said, his voice warm and wistful, "that white robe of mine told all the world I had made a commitment to a god I do still miss."

AMONG THE ELVES

Out of Silvanesti, to our sorrow, we hear little word. Do the elf women go garbed in softest velvet of midnight blue, of sunrise pink, the green of seas, or fiery orange? Can we say with certainty that they yet pile up their lovely tresses of silver and golden so they may wear the shimmering veils of sheerest silks flowing from their coiffures as clouds stream round the glimmering sun-shining mountains? Are their rich damask and silky satin gowns the backdrop for their fabulous jewelry? We have naught but questions, memories, and surmises when it comes to the fashions of the Silvanesti these days. Perhaps the women yet promenade in the Garden of Astarin wearing webs of tulle and lace or stiffened gowns of whispering taffeta. Perhaps the men still go draped in velvet robes or ride out to hunt in leather and silk. It may be that the Silvanesti, man and woman and child, sleep in linen in summer and warmest flannel in winter, and that their undergarb is of sweet silk.

We do not know, we can only imagine that elf men and women of high degree do still go shod in velvet and kidskin when they glide through the marble palaces, the far-famed towers of their homeland. Their children, we think must do the same as mother and father, the wealthy dressed in fabrics that are themselves treasures, the servitors geared in rough dun wool. We suspect that these servitors still go shod in stout boots, still fare forth in utilitarian gear the color all the world of Krynn has come to know as "servant's brown." This brown is obtained from walnut dye and not at all the same shade as the tawny color of an elf’s hunting leathers To dye these latter garments, the elves bleed acacia trees. The huntsman must blend with the forest, and his browns are meant to make him into a shadow. Neither are his muted greens much akin to the emerald of a lady's rich gown. His grays are not like the muted silver that once had a brief vogue of but three hundred years among the lords and ladies of the speaker's court. Huntsfolk wear the plumage of the forest, the green of oaks, the gray of bark, the brown of earth or a deer's pelt.

It has been known, and is yet assumed, that the soldiery of Silvanesti has ceremonial gear and fighting gear. The latter is of the same utilitarian kind as any warrior in the field, leather harness, leather trews, supple chain mail, tough woolen shirts and good boots for walking. This is the case for Wildrunners on the ground and Windriders who travel the skies on the backs of griffons. In ceremony, however, the elven soldiers wear a fantasy of armor, plumed helms of silver adorned with bright gems and enamels, breastplates of beaten gold, and mail of finest platinum. Their dirks and daggers are crusted in jewels, their sword hilts often crafted of one whole gemstone. "Jingling courtiers," say the dwarves, and the fierce minotaurs mutter worse insults than that, but the elves are proud of their ceremonial splendor and have not ever cared what those think whom they consider the less-beloved of the vanished gods.

Ah, the Silvanesti! They were not much for outlanders in any era, yet we miss them.

Not all elvenkind is lost to us, however. There are still the Dimernesti, the sea elves who ply the ocean's secret roads as we do the paths of the land. They have not flung aside their old fashions because the age or the world has changed. It is, of course true, that the great sea dragon, Brynseldimer made the Bay of Balifor a steamy bath for them, but undaunted, the Dimernesti move on or stay as they choose. [Brynseldimer was slain in 33 SC by a bold group of heroes.] Some of those who stay find themselves among the dragon's slaves, but others yet remain free. Go down to the sea, and you will find them in the shoals, lovely folk whose clothing looks like no more than kelp and seaweed to the unwatchful, clothing that is in reality spun on magical wheels by websters who know how to mimic all the colors of the sea, the thousand shades of blue and green, the smokey brown of fishes in cool climes and the startlingly vivid colors of the tropical fishes and their corals. It is, of course, true—by all accounts—that the Dimernesti who live in the warmer bay now wear shockingly less of their magically woven clothing than they had in the past been known to wear. Some land-goers will blush to see the long-limbed maidens clad in wisps, and avert their eyes from the well-made young men whose clothing seems naught but clouds. The wise will accept that the customs of others, no matter how strange-seeming, are born from need and so offer no judgment or chastisement.

Enslaved as a race by the green dragon Beryllinthranox, still some few of the elves of Qualinesti can be seen. [Though Qualinesti has been occupied by the Knights of Neraka, a small band of rebels led by the mysterious elf called the Lioness continue to resist their rule.] These fine folk, thought nominally slaves, are not reduced to rags. Rather, they keep their fair garb according to their status, their silks and satins of rare blues and purples, of shining gold. Bejeweled, they glitter as ever they have done. Theirs is a political servitude, for the dragon who rules them is a cunning beast who rewards traitor elves with power, whose minions punish the recalcitrant with death. She does not leave the Qualinesti ragged, only wretched.

Some few of the Qualinesti do wander abroad, and they are most often found in Abanasinia. These wayfarers are not, most often, the lords and ladies of the land. They are hunters and scouts and Wildrunners who work in the resistance, their efforts given to the cause of freeing their kin. Theirs is the gear of those who live rough in the wood: supple boots, shirts of sueded leather, trews of tough woolen weave. As their cousins in Silvanesti, these hunter-folk go dressed in woodland colors, slipping like shadows through the trees, looking like creatures from legend come into the towns when they are seen on the streets of Solace or Haven or Long Ridge. Roughly they dress, but their love of beauty is not betrayed. Adorning elf men and women alike, one finds earrings of gold and platinum; upon the finger one finds a ring set with diamonds; round the neck hangs a golden chain. Their quivers are of finest leather, their scabbards tooled in such complex designs that the eye cannot trace and the finger must follow.

Wild-seeming, the few Qualinesti you will see, but not so wild as the Kagonesti. Those people of Southern Ergoth have ever been the most colorful of elves. So said their distant kin of Qualimori and Silvamori, shocked by their gear and their body paints and. tattoos. Now, however, all elves in Ergoth, whether sophisticated Qualinesti and Silvanesti or wild Kagonesti, go dressed as warmly as they may, with little attention paid to fashion. That land, once know for its silvery sea strand and brooding mountains, fragrant pine forests, and shimmering glades, is now akin to Icewall, a frozen waste where man and woman and child alike dare not step out the door unless muffled in furs and hidden in hoods. Gellidus, the fearsome white overlord, has completely transformed the land into his own private paradise—one deadly for humans and others.

Indoors, though, the Kagonesti dress in leggings and shirts, gowns and dresses of flanneled wool. Their chosen colors are all the hues of sea and woodland, for if their homeland is a wintery waste, the Wilder Elves do not forget what it used to be. It must be mentioned, as well, that these are the folk who, in some quarters are known as the twice-robed, for in the privacy of bed or bath, it will be seen that the range of their body painting and tattoos is truly astounding. There is, by report of a Caergothian seaman whose word I have reason to trust, one clan of Wilder Elves who have recorded their history upon their own bodies, the births and deaths, the weddings and alliances all shown in a glory of tattoos slipping from neck to heel, from throat to toe. Of course, this peculiar custom is not to be taken for usual and the most of the Kagonesti content themselves with more modest displays involving illustrations of plant life, wildlife, or labyrinthine and lovely designs of their own devising.

IN THE LANDS OF THE DWARVES

If elves are abroad in the lands, they are not usually journeying by their own choice. However the history of dwarves in most ages of Krynn shows this doughty race is not disinclined to go among other peoples when they feel the need. The clans of Thorbardin are, just now, shut up in their mountain fastness, but there are still venturesome sons who leave the underground city, and there are those who chose not to retreat from their outland homes in the wake of the Chaos War. As well, some dwarves of the Hylar and Daewar clans have chosen to live in Garnet, the city beneath the ancient Garnet Mountains in Kayolin, and there are the Zhakar in Thoradin, though not much is known about them other than they are said to suffer from disease and madness. Of course, in all times there are the Neidar, the hill dwarves who range from Ergoth to the Astiva Mountains. Neidar or mountain cousin, you will never hear it said in any land, in any age, that a dwarf does not like to walk among his friends in gear that will rival an elf’s in worth, though perhaps his shirts and trews will never compete in sophistication of style.

Dwarves wear a wealth of history on their backs. Not a few of their swords are as old as the roots of the hills. The bucklers they wear, the helms to guard the head—many of these have seen service in conflicts as old as the Dwarfgate War itself. Treasured, tenderly cared for, these heirlooms are the pride of a dwarfs family, the jewels of his clan.

Though dwarves are far-famed as weapon smiths, the finest of their wares—when their cities are open—are priced highly enough to ransom an elven prince. Nonetheless they save their best work for themselves. So it is that when an ancient sword, breastplate, helm, or dagger at last fails, gone down in honorable battle, the smith who is commissioned to replace it goes to his forge and says to his anvils, his hammers, and his tongs, "Well, now, my children, we are met to make another heirloom." The least of the younger sons of the poorest clan can pass his armor, his weapons to his children knowing these are finer than those of any lord who ever ruled in Palanthas.

Thus for the soldiers. Now for the civilians. It is, of course, nearly axiomatic that few but dwarves can tell a thane from a clansman by his workaday gear. Thanes, as do the rest of the citizens of Thorbardin, favor plain clothing, rough fabrics of calm hue. Browns, whites, and grays are the colors a dwarf favors in his everyday use, the color of good and trusty stone. In his hall, as he walks the fabled roads of his underground city, a thane goes shod as all others do, in sturdy boots, for these are mountain folk and though, just now, they are seldom seen outside their city, their fashions are formed by traditions that grew out of need. He will gird himself in broad leather, as though he must, at any moment, be able to hang a warhammer from his hip, a sword from his waist. The fashion for wrist guards has never faded among the wealthy of the underground cities, leather bracers studded in silver and gold, adorned with intricate stitching. Utterly useless in a battle, nevertheless these fantasies of leather and metal do not fail to attract the eye. [Some bracers are believed by the more credulous to confer extra strength upon the wearer. The library, when administered by Astinus, contained several such bracers, but no one, as far as I know, ever tried them to test their supposed properties.]

Can the thane surpass his everyday wear with his festival wear? He can indeed, and though the formal festivals are few in Thorbardin and Garnet, a thane has a costume for each. He celebrates the festivals to herald the coming of spring, the full glory of summer, the last sigh of autumn, and he shows off the kind of subtle splendor that suggests he has bottomless coffers. He is, however, most resplendent at the Last Night celebrations at the beginning of the month of Cold Lode when all of Thorbardin and Garnet is filled with the light of torches and candles to hoard the light until the world turns again to spring. Dressed in warm colors of brown and golden and tawny, of red and wineberry, hung in furs, dripping jewelry, the clothing of the celebrants recalls warmer times and expresses the longing for spring, a longing felt even in the hearts of those who live away from the outside world.

As splendid as are the men of Thorbardin and Garnet, that quiet is the garb of their women, for dwarf maids and matrons are shy and plain, [Except, presumably, to dwarf males.] paying little attention to the color of their gowns, working clothes, or festival gear. They care not so much for any adornment but jewelry. Upon their gray gowns, the breasts of their brown blouses, platinum shines and diamonds glitter. They gird their waists with belts of soft leather studded with rubies, with emeralds, with opals and amethysts. In their dark hair, nets of sapphire and gold glimmer, and it is said that the dwarf woman who can bear the weight of be-gemmed earrings that hang down past her shoulder, she who can hold her head high and look her man in the eye, is a woman to be prized for strength and courage and pride (if not, say the elves, for good sense).

What then, must be said about the Neidar, men and women? Only this: They are not so wealthy as their cousins of the mountains. Bones have been picked over that matter for centuries, but the Neidar are no meaner at weapon smithing, no less skilled at the crafting of byrnies and breastplates and shields than the folk of Thorbardin or Garnet. "Dwarfs is dwarfs," say the grubby-handed urchins in the far-flung cities of Krynn, by which they mean, hill dwarf or mountain dwarf, the skill that blesses their hands is the same.

As proud as they are of their war gear, when the Neidar go among their mountain kin—and this is not often or happily—they take no shame from the homeliness of homespun, in the drabness of their shirts and trews, earth-colored fabrics, rough and nubby. This notwithstanding, it is a point of a Neidar's pride to wear the oldest, most valuable bit of jewelry he possesses in order to show wealthier kinsmen that he is not lost to any sense of what is handsome or fair. Lately, that is since the end of the Chaos War, the furs the Neidar wear in winter are fashioned to look as if they came right off the back of the beast who originally owned them, perhaps harking back to the days when, shut out of Thorbardin after the First Cataclysm, the Neidar were, indeed, forced to dress as barbarians to keep themselves warm against the driving wind and biting snows. Perhaps they are saying, to themselves and to others, "That hardship passed. So will this."

In private, that when they are not among their mountain kin, the custom of peacocks and drab peahens yet obtains among the hill dwarves, though it must be said that among the Neidar in general, wealth is not the rule. A man will have one good shirt for festival wear, perhaps a fine pair of boots he has long saved to buy, and the jewelry he inherited from his fathers, some of it as ancient as the time before the First Cataclysm. If he lives in a city such as Palanthas or Haven or down in Tarsis, a hill dwarf can make a good living for himself and his family, and then he will attend festivals in all his finery and forgive the unknowing human or elf who mistakes him for a mountain dwarf as he walks through a summer fair in linen, a winter fair in a cloak of white marten far, his rough hands warm in gloves of kidskin, his feet shod in boots of soft Ergothian leather. [It must be noted that those Neidar, or dwarves of any tribe, who make their homes in such places as the Desolation, the Northern Wastes, or the New Swamp are not such fine dressers at festival time or on regular days. As do all others who live in these stark regions, they dress for the harsh climate, and they have little reason to preen before any but their kin, for these are not lands where seasonal festivals are honored, the seasons themselves being turned on their ears and stood on their heads.]

So we have visited the dwarven thanes and the wealthy folk as well as the Neidar dwarf who has a bit of steel put by to celebrate the festivals. Now let us go among the working folk of Thorbardin and Garnet, and the Neidar. Dwarf workmen wear much the same gear as workmen the world over. A smith at his forge will wear tough leather trews, boots of thick leather, and shirts of the plainest make. He will not want the flowing sleeves that taverners sport. Rather he favors tight sleeves that will not brush the fire and inadvertently set him aflame. He will protect himself with a leather apron, and the timid apprentice will reach for leather gauntlets to keep his arms safe from forge-bites. It is much the same with any tradesman in Thorbardin and Thoradin, baker, candle maker, gem smith, the farmers in the warrens, the cooks, and barmen in the taverns. They dress in the homely gear that has ever been the uniform of their trade and craft, clothing devised over the generations for hardiness and to enhance safety. The gowns of the women are modest and full, the bodice high, the hem long and low. Depending on their trade or craft, they are covered up in aprons. Their boots are sturdy, their hair caught back in kerchiefs or chignons. Only their jewelry shines, and even this from the folds of collars or a glimmer beneath a sleeve or cuff. There has lately been, so rumor says, a fashion among dwarf seamstresses to wear their pincushions upon their wrists, little velvet balls into which pins and needles are stuck so that the women go about as though they had tiny porcupines perched on their forearms. Among the baker boys the tradition of the tall, slouched gray hat has fallen from favor—perhaps because that slouching hat has too often itself fallen into the soup or stew?—and tighter caps are now seen, made of the same gray cotton but worn cocked over one eye. The boys will do their best to seem dashing, no matter if they are but fetchers and carriers for their masters.

Plain folk, indeed, the working men and women of Thorbardin and Garnet, but it is with them as it is with their masters: When the working folk put off their workaday gear, they are as wont as their thanes to dress in finery. It has been said, by outlanders of course, that a dwarfs clothing is but backdrop for the true artistry of the race—the fabulous metal work, gem-craft, weapon-craft, but those who truly know dwarves do not discount the weavings of their websters.

Now, perhaps you wonder what is to be said about the Aghar, that benighted race known outside of the dwarven clans as gully dwarves. What indeed? How has the fashion in rags and ruined shoes changed? Not at all, one might say, and as well as it changes for any of the races of Krynn who have the misfortune to suffer gully dwarves among them. What the fine folk discard, the gully dwarves will wear, and so it is not unheard of to see a female of that kind flouncing in a nearby gutter dressed in gingham and tulle and a rag of shimmering silk (with a daub of someone's breakfast egg on the collar, a splash of something foul on the hem). Neither is it strange to see a male scurrying by, one foot thumping in a too-large boot, the other scuffing in a ragged velvet slipper, his trews held round his waist by a velvet bellpull, the hat on his head not but a human woman's discarded coin purse. Through war and cataclysm, the comings of gods and the goings of gods, the fashion sense of the gully dwarf has remained unchanged.

FAR FLUNG, THE HUMANS

Humans range Krynn from Gunthar in the west to—the bravest or most foolhardy of them—the Desolation in the east. They are shut out only from Silvanesti and Qualinesti, and from Thorbardin. Otherwise, you find them everywhere. I am not sure why it is, though I am studying the matter, but the fashion of clothing among humans changes with the swiftness of the season. The change, perhaps, is slight among nomadic barbarians, the Plainsmen and the mountain dwellers and the sea-folk, but still it is noticeable.

While it is true that some barbarian tribes are now nominally part of dragon realms, the wonder of these folk is that they wander. They have always done so, following the game and the seasons, and if it is more difficult to do that across new borders, still they are not wholly checked. We in the cities have word of them more often than one might at first imagine. We know, for example, that in the mountain regions of the Kharolis, the Khalkist, and the Dargaard ranges, the tribes clothe themselves in what is available: bearskin, the pelts of wolves, the leather they tan from the hides of deer. These are traditional and functional materials, but the stylings of them subtly change. I have noted the feathers worn in bunches behind the ear one year are the next tied into the hair at the back, the year after worn at the hip. The symbolism attached to the wearing of these feathers—that here is a tribe of Plainsmen who depend upon birds for food and clothing and so wear the plumage to honor the creature who gave its life for their sake—remains constant. So it is with barbarians of the mountains who dress warmly in fur according to what beast is currently plentiful and decorate themselves with the claws and fangs of their prey. Sometimes those toothy adornments are earrings, other times necklaces, again they stud belts or decorate boots, depending upon the trend of the season.

However constant are the barbarians of the mountains and plains, those we know as sea barbarians are more changeable, their taste in clothing as fickle as the oceans they ply. Of course, at sea, the costume is always the same, belted trousers with enough room in the seam to let a man or woman range freely in the ratlines, thick boots and wide-neck shirts of thick warm wool. Ashore, however, the matter is a very different one. One season you will see these sailor-folk striding around a port city bedecked in satins and silks, another in linen fair with earrings of gold and brooches of agate, or eschewing earrings altogether and girding themselves in belts studded with brass or with enameled pins. The women are not modest, being used to their bodies and as unashamed of them as any warrior woman; the men are not dissimilar. Each sex shares a love for color and style and, always, change. This love of change, we think, is because they come so often into contact with the humans of the port cities. In port or inland, it has been said that city dwellers think of their bodies as canvasses and their tailors as artists.

Rich or middling or poor, in Free Realms or Dragon Realms, the humans who live in cities willingly set themselves in thrall to style and fashion, the creations of the wealthy being imitated by the rest. Kaleidoscopic! It's the only word to use to describe the fashions of those who can afford to support tailors and milliners.

What was the rage in Palanthas last year is the height (or, shall we say, depth) of pitiable bad taste this year. It must not be assumed that what the stylish are wearing in Palanthas even as I pen this screed will be happily borne upon the back of the elite in Tarsis. May Fate be kind to the mule who must carry the trunks of the Palanthian lady to a reception in Hargoth, for she leaves the city dressed in that pleasant style of a huntswoman—sueded leather trews, boots of softest kidskin meant to imitate an elven hunter's footgear, a blouse of billowing silk the exact shade of shadows, and her hair braided with silk and leather to look like a hunter's queue—and must carry with her trunks overflowing with gossamer gowns, fur wraps, and hats winged with white-and-blue feathers in order to arrive at her destination robed in the Hargothian mode of the day. Last year in Hargoth they all looked like pirates, the year before the women of Tarsis looked like desert barbarians, robed from head to toe with only flashing eyes showing.

We have, till now, discussed the clothing and styles among the wealthy, or at least the burgher class who can afford to spend their steel on changing styles. These things being said, you must not think that humans have not, in some places, had to scramble to learn how to make clothing for themselves out of the offerings of a land whose climate and features have changed drastically within living memory.

Imagine the joy of the farmer who inherited his father's hardscrabble farm in what used to be the stony desert running right up to Thorbardin's door? He now lives in lush woodlands filled with game and covered in rich black soil! He knows the stories of his father and grandfather, the tales of wresting a living from the unyielding earth in that place where only rocks and snakes and scrubby brush live. He looks upon the land he has cleared of trees and sees his cattle thriving, his family warmly dressed for a cooler clime than his fathers knew. He must, indeed, tithe to a dragon's overseer, but he has enough left to purchase (or barter for) cotton fiber from the marketplace, shipped down river from Haven. His wife spins while his daughters weave contentedly through the winter. They have not much steel, but they have, in the main, a better supply of food for the table and clothing for the back. If they fear Beryllinthranox, the dragon who rules the land now, they do not fear nakedness before the elements.

That self-same joy in abundance seems a distant dream, perhaps a mad memory, to the few humans who live at the edges of the New Swamp. The lives of their families for generations had been the contented, self-sufficient lives of farmers who worked the round of the seasons, eating what they grew, clothing themselves in fabrics of their own weaving, wool from the sheep, linen from the flax fields. Their materials were plain, the patterns in them came not from dyes but from the shades of the wool and the bleaching of the sun. No more, no more, for nothing good lives in the swamp. Clothing, or the means to make it, must be bought in the towns.

On Ergoth, humans have learned to go in fur and wool where once they enjoyed four seasons. Gone are the light cotton blouses of milkmaids and the gaily colored skirts. These are replaced by leggings of wool. Man and woman and child, these folk haven't worn less than three layers of shirts to bed in years, and no one much complains when the household dogs want to pile onto the beds. The same obtains for the folk who live along the southernmost rim of the Plains of Dust. No dust flies in the winds now! Only snow and sleet come. The days are spent fishing while the nights are spent skinning seals and ice bears for their pelts. The people go no more to Tarsis to trade, for the way now is icy and long. They receive few traders in their little hamlets. They are in another world from that their parents knew, and while in Tarsis the women imitate their traditional garb of robes, the people who live in the desert now are constrained to learn how to dress as the folk of Icewall dress. Let us not forget those poor wretches found not at the edges of the New Swamp but actually living in the miserable place. There the undead roam, and the fashion of the day is whatever it was they perished wearing.

We have spoken of the self-sustaining farmers, and the wealthy of the cities who have steel to spare, and now we turn to the craftsmen among humans, the carpenters and cooks and bakers and chandlers, the forgemen and the farriers, the weavers, the seamstresses and the tailors. As we have said about dwarves, the human craftsman or tradesman will wear the comfortable gear of his work, unofficial uniforms, time-honored and true. However, among humans those "uniforms" do vary from region to region, from season to season. If the baker boys in Thorbardin are wearing tight caps cocked over the eye this year, the baker lads in Palanthas are wearing tall hats that do not slouch but are stiffened by starch. The taller the hat, the closer is the lad to leaving his apprenticeship and attaining journeyman status. Seamstresses, however, mark their state in just the opposite way—the shorter their apron, the closer they are to becoming journeywomen. [The researcher does not mention the garb of the Order of Aesthetics to which I belong, so I shall briefly mention it here. To guard against the cold that envelopes the library (for obvious reasons, we permit no fires in the place), we wear heavy robes, the color of which signifies our place in the Order's hierarchy. The robes are shaded from pale gray for the youngest novices to dark green for the highest levels of the Order. Beyond those robes we wear no adornments, believing the attainment of knowledge is the greatest possession toward which one can aspire. Some few, though, trim the hems of their gowns with fur. They allege this is for warmth. I suspect vanity to be a greater force.]

In Tarsis seamstresses wear no aprons at all, while baker boys deliver their masters' goods wearing brightly colored cloths tied tightly around their heads so they look like pirates come in from the sea. In Solace, no matter if the world turns in peace or rocks in calamity, the baker boys each wear a feather in their square, billed caps. The feathers are blue and green and brown and golden, all the way to white. The color announces how far the boy is from the end of his apprenticeship. The proximity of Solace to the Plainsfolk who trade these around the countryside ensures a good supply of such feathers.

Some say the peculiarity of whirling fashion among humans is a reflection of their short lives, the mad dash to see and taste and feel everything before the candle is burned to the nub and they slip into the darkness of death. Perhaps, and perhaps it is that many humans live in those parts of Krynn where flax is easily grown, the mulberry orchards are filled with silkworm nests, the meadows are fat with fleecy sheep, and the forests teem with game whose pelts are readily obtained.

THE FASHION SENSE OF THE GNOMES OF
MT. NEVERMIND, OR A SWIFT TOUR
OF A DANGEROUS REALM

It cannot be said that the realm of the gnomes, the subterranean tinkers' warrens, the noisy villages, or the great halls of Mt. Nevermind are dire places, but they are dangerous for a human or elf or dwarf who doesn't know the thirty-six other ways to say "Watch out!" The places where gnomes live are filled with whirling things, exploding things, erupting things, flying things, falling things, and things that, though perhaps unintentionally, are as apt to kill a person as a well-flown arrow.

The reader will understand if no one not a gnome has undertaken a survey of the clothing and fashions among these industrious, tinkeringchangingadaptingfixingimprovingtweakingbuilding… folk. It can be said, by account of those who have had recent experience with gnomes (mostly the people of Solamnia, denizens of the southern part of that land and those who live on Gunthar and who yet maintain trading relations with the gnomes) that as far as what they put on their backs and how they feel about it, little has changed for the tinker folk since the Chaos War and the coming of the dragons. Men or women, gnomes have never had much sense of what they are wearing, caring only that the trousers are warm when they need warmth, the shirts are cool when they need coolness, the leather aprons are thick, and the pockets on anything they wear are frequent, deep, and easily able to bear the weight of the tool straps gnomes clip to everything. From collar, from belt, from pocket, hem, and sleeve, you will always see a gnome's tool strap dangling. Knights go clanging into battle, their armor clanking, their ringed mail jingling, their greaves creaking; you will always know a knight by the song of his gear. The same can be said about gnomes on the way to work, for they rattle with tools and half-made gadgets, with rulers and tape measures and hammers and tongs and notebooks and pincers and pencils and… well, you see how it is with a gnome. No sense of fashion at all, but he can always put his hand on the tool he needs, wherever he is, eventually. [Though rumor has reached the library of ail industrious gnome who attempted to invent steam-powered self-cleaning boots with a built-in cooling mechanism for walking on hot lava.]

IN HYLO, WHERE THE RENDER LIVE…

In Hylo, that forested land near to Ergoth and across the water from the lands of the blue dragon Khellendros, the kender live, just about all of them who aren't at the moment, indulging bouts of wanderlust. Those who once dwelt in Kendermore fled west when Malys, the red dragon, came, and they are as prosperous there as they are anywhere, but they often recall their lost homelands and fall into what kender can only call the Affliction: a deep sorrow until now unknown to their kind. Whether afflicted or not, the kender have not lost their absurd sense of style. In Hylo they dress for the seasons, having ample opportunity to obtain wool and silk and cotton and leather from those who trade with the new kender homeland. ["Trade," of course, is a relative term where kender are concerned. Any merchant who enters the land of the kender must allow for inventory shrinkage in the range of seventy-five to eighty percent.] The wilder the colors, the more intense the patterns of the materials of a kender's clothing, the happier he or she is. Hats and scarves of flowered silk, leggings of red wool and a shirt of blue all covered by a bilious green jacket—these are kender-wear.

ON THE SAD MATTER OF THE LOVELY IRDA

Since the coming of the great dragons, we have lost our gods, our old ways, the very shape of our lands and the old familiar climates. We have, as well, lost the oldest race ever to live among us, the Irda. As fair as the gods themselves, so it is said about these folk, as wise and witty and prone to deep-thinking. They axe gone now, all of them killed in the days before the Chaos War. What do they wear now, but the sighs of those who regret their passing? Ah, the Irda…

And so, clothed in memory and sighs, as are the lost Irda now, or in furs and wool, in samite and damasked silk, roughly clad or finely dressed, we make our way in Krynn, the humans turning to fashion's giddy whim, but none of us beyond the will to wear our finery, as the wise mage said, "to signal to others who we are, perhaps who we believe we are. Or, who we wish the world around to think we are."

The Light of Learning

Bertrem's Note

Education is, of course, of special interest to my Order, dedicated as we are to chronicling the events of Krynn and of studying its wisdom. I myself learned my letters at an early age from members of the Order. Reading and writing opened a new and wonderful world to me, an ocean in which I happily dived and swam, sporting among historians, essayists, poets, and storytellers.

Astinus, though, ever a stern taskmaster, did not allow me long to enjoy this undisciplined reading. He and others in the Order set me assignments: read a book on this subject, write an essay upon that subject. The work was hard, and I shed many tears over it, even occasionally blotting the manuscripts upon which I labored.

As I grew older, Astinus allowed me once to again wander freely the shelves of the Great Library, but now, thanks to his training, I did so with knowledge and purpose. In this new spirit of discipline I reread many of the hooks I had perused earlier and found much in them that had escaped me before.

It was a sound system of education, and I recommend it.

The great sage Astinus wrote in his Commentaries on the History of the Elves, II, 16: "The one sure shield against darkness is light."

The wise chronicler meant this in more than one sense, of course, but nowhere is the sentiment stronger than in his esteem for learning, which was the cornerstone of his life. Whether combating chaos, dragons, or the ignorance of mortal men, knowledge is the first, best defense against the forces of darkness. Evil thrives where knowledge and thought are extinguished, so the preservation of learning is best accomplished by spreading it to as many living, breathing folk as possible. Books burn, scrolls decay, but life tenaciously goes on even in the most barbarous circumstances.

Education is not all about struggle, however. While the knowledge of making good steel and building stout walls can make a country strong, it is arts and letters that make a nation great. Battle would be a bloody, repugnant business without poets to sing about honor and courage. The air would be dull and lifeless as a desert without sweet music to lighten it. Houses would all look the same, palaces would resemble prisons, and temples would be unknown without the skills of architects, artists, and builders.

Yet our age is not kind to learning. Wars and lesser struggles for power have left the land bereft of many good things, scholarship being one of them. How then does learning continue in the lands of Ansalon?

EDUCATION AMONG THE ELVES

As befits their ancient culture, learning is greatly valued among the Silvanesti and Qualinesti elves. Elves have the oldest known written language, and their scribal class has always enjoyed prosperity and privilege. The state could not run without them.

Today, as in the past, scribes choose their apprentices from the ranks of elf boys, for only males are allowed to become scribes. The young sons of commoners are preferred, as they have the ambition needed to insure accurate work. Thrice yearly the guild of scribes hold a fair in Silvanost, and families come from throughout the realm to test their sons for this lucrative career. Only one boy in ten hundred attains the highest level of proficiency in the guild, but many less-qualified youths serve in the halls of trade and power, doing great service to the elven nation.

An apprentice scribe usually begins his training at age eight. He is expected to master the complex elven script by age ten, and then for twenty years to serve his master as copyist, ink mixer, and quill shaver. At age thirty, the apprentice scribe takes examinations for master status (there being no journeyman grade). If he passes, the scribe can expect lifelong employment anywhere in the speaker's kingdom at a good salary. He can also finally marry—apprentices are not allowed wives. The elf playwright Sanakendes wrote a famous comedy, Apprentice Nath, about an elf lad's struggle to keep both his bride and his scribal career. Nath manages to hide his wife and four children from his masters for most of the play, and in the final scene, as a rival is about to expose him, the stars rise to mark the end of Nath's ten-year apprenticeship.

Elf boys not inclined toward a scribal life receive more general education from members of House Bardic, the clan of poets and musicians, and from House Measure, the clan of mathematicians, surveyors, and architects. Elf families tithe in gold, silver, or gems to the houses for their teaching, the exact amount being based on the weight of the child attending. Poorer families, whose children are more likely to be thin, thus pay less than rich families. In rural Silvanesti districts, itinerant scholars of House Bardic and House Measure circulate, often remaining in a village for four or five weeks at a time, receiving little more than room and board for their work. City or country, elven schools are always held outdoors. The elves believe thoughts do not take root in young minds very well unless they arrive in the full light of day.

Despite the prohibitions of the scribal system, girl children are more highly educated in elven countries than in any other. Indeed, while elf boys can end their schooling at age fourteen, elf girls are expected to remain under instruction until they marry. Boys usually go on to a vocation—farming, trades, the army—but girls are expected to learn the arts and sciences. Elf women are the guarantors of culture in Silvanost, and status among them depends as much on their knowledge and taste, and less on vulgar wealth.

This system that I have described persisted unchanged in Silvanesti for millennia. After the Kinslayer War, hatred of foreigners caused the elves to look inward and backward. Their education system became more rigid and antiquarian. According to many Silvanesti, their civilization peaked before the war, and all that has happened since is decadence and corruption. Resisting foreign ideas and influences is now the "duty" of elven scholars. Innovation and experimentation are suspect. This stagnation has served the Silvanesti state ill during the turbulent years of our own time.

The Silvanesti's more cosmopolitan brethren, the Qualinesti, kept most of the old methods of education intact but incorporated new ideas and the latest discoveries. The scribes' guild was opened to females in Qualinost (largely due to the influence of powerful and independent females in the royal house), and there were female warriors, architects, stargazers, and mechanicians, as well.

One product of this equality, a Qualinesti woman named Cylu Simunjuntac, invented the method of block printing. She began as a student of the master calligrapher Anzianash, but had great difficulty making certain decorative uncials.

One day, as Cylu sat in the atrium garden of her home, trying to master the four cursive sibilants, she saw the family cook chase one of her father's hounds out the kitchen door. The dog had trod in some spilt jam, and left purple paw prints on the gray marble stepping-stones in the garden. Cylu realized every paw print was the same, and made the leap of logic that by carving a letter in wood (reversed, of course) and using dry, thick ink, perfect copies of the letter could be made every time. She passed her calligrapher's test using block printed letters, and the method has since spread throughout the world.

Anzianash, when he found out Cylu used blocks to print her letters, revoked her certificate of mastership. She promptly printed a new one, creating the title of "Master of Printing," and bestowing it on herself.

In basic education, the Qualinesti follow their roots, with children taking their lessons under the spreading shade of an oak. Schoolmasters are scholars from the western branches of House Bardic and House Measure, with a few distinctly Qualinesti touches added, such as natural philosophy lessons from members of House Celestial. Qualinesti schools are open to all races, but attendance is not compulsory. Depredations of dragon forces, the Dark Knights, and other disruptions have led to a drastic decline in Qualinesti schools.

Of the other elven races, hard knowledge is spotty. We have a few glimpses of life among the Dargonesti (deep sea elves) taken from the account of Princess Vixa Ambrodel of Qualinost. Her fleeting contact with Dargonesti society revealed a very regimented, militaristic world where slavery was normal and even the most common activities were organized along strict military lines. Sea elf children (chiefly males) were grouped into bands called "regiments," where they lived and worked together until they were old enough to serve in an adult warband. Their instructors are all old warriors, who taught them tactics and spearmanship along with reading, writing, and ciphering.

Female Dargonesti have a pleasanter time. Their chief areas of study were natural history and aquaculture, which is to say, the husbandry of sea animals and plants. The Dargonesti all have an innate ability to communicate with sea life, especially whales and dolphins, and these sea beasts live in harmony with their elven neighbors. Princess Vixa recalled hunts in which dolphins acted as hounds for the Dargonesti, chasing schools of fish into net ambushes. If the dolphins are unhappy with the results of the hunt, they may take all the fish, or else depart and not return until their tempers are soothed. Hunts had to be negotiated by a priestess, usually a mature Dargonesti female. Whales and dolphins prefer to speak to female elves, judging the males to be too harsh and violent. In spite of the strong military emphasis in Dargonesti culture, sea elf women enjoy great prestige and power, thanks to their mastery of sea-life. Girls train in aquaculture until they mate. If they never join with a male, they may remain in a temple all their lives.

Writing presents insoluble problems underwater—no jest intended. Paper and parchment are unknown among the Dargonesti. Their usual method of writing consists of branding syllabic symbols on sheets of eel hide. The forty-nine syllables of the Dargonesti tongue are represented by forty-nine small irons, each kept in a dish of mild acid. A Dargonesti scribe presses the irons to the hide, branding the symbols indelibly. Another writing method observed by Princess Vixa consisted of painting on eel hide with ink made from the beards of rose-colored mussels. This scarlet ink was completely waterproof, but so expensive only the highest officials used it for the most important documents.

The Dimernesti, or shoal elves, live at the crossroads of land and sea, and as a result use many techniques unique to these opposite worlds. They have never forgotten their land-based script, though a Silvanesti scribe would be horrified at the "decadent" form of writing the Dimernesti use. The shoal elves even have their own scribal schools, where talented children are trained not only to write on parchment (salvaged from shipwrecks, mostly) but to carve their letters on driftwood and terra cotta.

Basic education for children of both sexes begins at age five. Classes contain both boys and girls, who receive the same teaching until age fifteen or so. Then the Silvanesti pattern tends to recur, with males going into trades or military service, and females honing their cultural skills. The Dimernesti esteem music and cookery as high arts, and pride themselves on both. Masters of the arts are accorded great respect and influence.

Curiously, the shoal elves have the most free society of any of the elves. Forms of an old monarchy remain, but Dimernesti society is governed by the votes of all resident adults. Unlike some human countries where property or wealth is a qualification to vote, in Dimernesti settlements the sole criterion of franchise is education. If a shoal elf can read the bill of law being voted on, he or she may vote on it. The Qualinesti, who pride themselves on the equality and justice of their history, have never approached the coarse-looking shoal elves in terms of liberty.

Why this strain of aquatic equality? Perhaps the answer lies in the freedom of the shallow, open sea, where any elf who dislikes his neighbor or his town's policy, can simply swim away and found his own settlement. Food and space is so abundant in shoal water (and the dangers of deep water less prevalent), it is hardly worthwhile for the strong to try to dominate the weak. In the absence of a natural aristocracy, the Dimernesti are governed by learning and wisdom alone—a strange but noble custom.

At the very highest levels of scholarship, elves are strangely absent. There is no elven counterpart to the great sage Astinus, for example. Partly this is due to the fierce isolationism of the Silvanesti homeland. It is also true the finest elf minds inevitably turn to politics or the spiritual realm. The achievements of the Silvanesti in the Age of Light are ample evidence of their success in matters of state and magic. No doubt many great treatises on government and thaumaturgy are stored in the ancient halls of Silvanost, but no outsider has ever seen them. Humans crave to share their learning with others, but the elves hide theirs away, considering their highest achievements too sublime for the uninitiated.

Whatever their shortcomings, the elves succeed well in producing a general population that is both literate and appreciative of learning. Having clans of devoted scholars to serve as teachers to the young is perhaps the greatest achievement of the elves in the realm of education. [The researcher says little about elven xenophobia, a prominent and unattractive feature of their educational system. Elf children are, from an early point, taught the inferiority of all races to their own. This accounts, perhaps, for the general sterility of elven literature.]

EDUCATION IN THE HUMAN REALMS OF THE WEST: ERGOTH, SOLAMNIA, ABANASINIA

All know the name of Ergoth and well remember the mighty glory of the empire of that name. The power of Ergoth, both military and trade, rested on the vigor of its people and on a constant striving for progress. When Ergoth became too rich and too corrupt, the empire passed its vigor to others, and so lost its strength. One of their failings was in education, as we shall see.

In the early years, there was no organized education in Ergoth. What teaching existed was the fruit of the apprentice-journeyman-mastership system of trades. Thus a boy seeking entry into the guild of barrel-makers would apprentice to a master barrel maker, and be taught those skills his master deemed necessary. Elementary reading, writing, and ciphering were part of most apprenticeships. Many trades, such as stockman or farmer, required no such skills, and most Ergothians in the countryside remained ignorant of higher learning.

By the reign of Emperor Quivalin II (called "the Learned"), contact with Silvanesti elves in the east showed up the backwardness of Ergoth, so the emperor embarked on a plan to improve the knowledge and welfare of his subjects. A Guild of Sages was created by imperial fiat, and philosophers from every corner of the continent were offered gold to come teach in Ergoth. Many went, including a sizable number of Silvanesti from House Bardic and House Measure. All towns in Ergoth subject to imperial levy were granted a teacher from the Guild of Sages. Schoolhouses of specified size were to be built in every town, and any subjects not gainfully employed were encouraged to attend. Note education was not limited to, or even aimed at children, who nonetheless made up the largest contingent in the new schools.

Though no more than one-third of Quivalin It's schools ever actually opened, their presence had a profound effect on Ergoth. Trade increased, invention flourished, and after many years of stagnation, the population grew as well. People no longer feared what lay over the next hill, once their schoolmasters had taught them about maps and geography. Literacy improved from nearly none to the point that one Ergothian in four could read.

The old, clumsy Ergothian system of record keeping, consisting of notched wooden staves, was abandoned in favor of elven-style writing and numbers. Quivalin II convened a council of sages in the twelfth year of his reign, and a script was created for the Ergothian tongue. Modified down the ages, the Ergothian alphabet is now used throughout Ansalon, save in elven lands.

What one ruler can create, another can demolish. A later emperor, Quivalin III, was a wild, barbarous young man who cared only for conquest. To fund his wars, he cut off the stipend to the Guild of Sages, and many of the foreign-born teachers went home. Enough remained to put the guild on a cash basis, charging its students tuition. Despite the cost, enrollment in levy-town schools increased early in Quivalin Ill's reign. Once the smaller schools began to fold due to lack of patronage, student numbers plummeted. Hungry for more learning, some young people left their home villages and traveled to larger towns, where a wider variety of subjects were still taught. This led to young people remaining in school longer, some as late as their twentieth year.

THE ARGON MUTINY

In 2488 PC an incident occurred that forever tarnished the role of learning in Ergoth. In Daltigoth, a band of older male students were forcibly pressed into service in the emperor's army. Angry at being taken into service against their wills, the thirty-six boys plotted their escape. They wrote a manifesto on their rights as free men, and managed to spread discontent throughout their company. In 2487 PC this inspired the infamous Argon Mutiny, in which four companies of the Imperial Army refused to obey orders. Noble officers were seized, and the imperial standards were thrown on a bonfire.

Quivalin III never liked "scroll learning," and he liked it even less when he heard of the mutiny. He dispatched a warband of cavalry to capture the mutineers, which they did with much unhappy bloodshed. All thirty-six students were beheaded, and Quivalin III had their heads displayed atop the palace wall with scrolls protruding from their mouths.

Harsh edicts followed, banning philosophy and "scroll learning" in Ergoth. Trade skills flourished—metal working, building, pottery—but higher learning all but died. The study of magic was severely curtailed, an economy Quivalin III learned to regret. The emperor was eventually forced to hire wizards from outside his realm, which proved more expensive than retaining native sorcerers.

The lamp of learning flickered in Ergoth but didn't die out. The great age of the wandering scholar began. These men and women traveled throughout the empire, exchanging information with each other and holding public lectures for which small admission fees were collected. Many of these scholars were also wizards and healers. They kept the light of knowledge glowing in Ergoth, but they could not repair the damage done by Quivalin III and the Argon Mutiny.

As Ergothians became richer and more concerned with spending money than making it, the real work of the empire fell more and more to outsiders. Solamnic horsemen became the backbone of the army, and trades fell into the hands of dwarves, elves, and human tribesmen from the great plains. By the time Vinas Solamnus wrung independence from the emperor in 1791 PC, Ergoth was bereft of vitality and ingenuity, in large part due to the enervating lack of general education.

The lesson was not lost on the great Solamnus. Looking back almost 800 years, he took the lesson of Quivalin II to heart and opened free schools in Solamnia. Only children were allowed to attend, and the schools met from dawn to dusk, four days a week—Solamnic children were still expected to do chores at home! [In our own degenerate times, this fine tradition has died out.] Every town and village owing fealty to the Solamnic Knights was required to have a schoolhouse. Scholars wandered the land, teaching here and there, remaining in towns they liked. They were paid mostly in kind, but they enjoyed special status and respect. Many of the traveling schoolmasters were from the old Ergothian Guild of Sages, but a major contingent among Solamnic scholars were retired knights, who lent the strong moral character of the Measure to their country's education.

A typical school day in Solamnia began at 6 a.m. with each child washing (this was a special command of Solamnus, who highly valued cleanliness). There was a light breakfast at 6:30 a.m., and lessons commenced promptly at 7. All students were kept in a single room, and advanced students were expected to help teach younger and more backward ones. The curriculum was simple and never varied: in the morning, letters, writing, and recitation. This last was usually poetry or history extolling martial virtues and knightly honor. After a modest lunch, the afternoon was taken up with ciphering, measuring, and geography. Formal instruction ended an hour before sunset, and the children were then taken outside for physical training. Boys and girls fenced with staves, climbed trees, and rode horses. The three non-school days of the week were devoted to home chores and trade apprenticeship. When boys reached military age—about seventeen years old—they could apply to an academy where the duties of a squire were taught. Knighthood was their ultimate goal. Boy and girls not drawn to a warrior's life could enter trade guilds wherever their aptitudes took them.

This rational system should have been widely imitated, but it never was. Other nations lacked the cohesion of Solamnia and its dedication to higher principles. Some states were too poor or too thinly populated to allow children to spend four days a week in "idleness." They had to work in field and shop to make ends meet.

After the First Cataclysm, the education system of Solamnia revived with no loss of prestige. While the common folk blamed the Knights for the Cataclysm, no one blamed the scholars. All through the Time of Darkness, village schools struggled onward. Student numbers waxed and waned according to the fortunes of the nation. The system really only failed at the onset of the Chaos War.

Today, Solamnic schools are few in number (and largely confined to settlements on Sancrist Isle), but their memory is a model all countries should look to. [Many valuable treatises on Solamnic education were held in the library before the Chaos War, but alas, they vanished with Astinus in the war's wake. Today we are just beginning to reassemble this collection, but the original can never be duplicated.]

The Knights of Takhisis adopted the old Solamnic system wholesale, substituting their own propaganda in place of Solamnus's strictures on hard work, duty, and the Measure. It is evidence of the effectiveness of the Solamnic system that the Dark Knights have managed to hold onto their country, even if it is surrounded by territory ruled by the great dragons and their minions.

Abanasinia, the crossroads between the lands of men, elves, kender, and dwarves, has always been a tolerant place where ideas and knowledge were traded as freely as good ale, fine leather, or tempered steel. Every settlement had its own ways, but in general they followed the Solamnic model of education—a single-room schoolhouse, instruction three or four days a week, taught by itinerant scholars. In Abanasinia, the schoolmaster was as likely to be a Thorbardin dwarf or a half-mad gnome from Sancrist Isle as a human or elf. The children attending were also likely to be from many races. Abanasinia has never produced a famous sage, but many skillful brewers and tanners began their careers there.

Of late the land has been under the occupation of the Dark Knights, who have brought a certain heavy-handed stability to the region. Gnomes and dwarves are not to be found teaching any longer, nor are Qualinesti elves very welcome. The Knights have tried to pry apart the comfortable mixing of races in Abanasinia, in order to divide and rule. Most schoolmasters installed by the Dark Knights are elderly and retired warriors of the order, for whom the schoolhouse is seen as an honorable sinecure. The thrust of education these days centers on obedience and loyalty to the order.

LEARNING AMONG THE DWARVES, GNOMES, AND KENDER

Though descended from common stock, there are not three more dissimilar races than the dwarves, gnomes, and kender. [Dwarves indignantly deny that they share a common ancestry with gnomes and especially with kender.] It is beyond the scope of this treatise to ponder why they are so different, but their temperaments wholly guide their views of learning and how they go about educating their young.

Dwarves are stolid, hard-working, practical folk, seldom disposed to airy philosophy and artistic speculation. A dwarf asks two questions of life: What is this thing I hold in my hand, and how can I use it?

Given the down-to-earth nature of dwarf minds, one might imagine they have no schools at all. This is quite wrong. Save for the gnomes discussed below, dwarves maintain the most structured school system of any race in the world.

At a tender age, a dwarf child is required to go a special room in the caverns, called a "playmine." This is a large chamber filled with tools, blocks of stone, metal implements, and such. The children are left to play as they will, under the watchful eyes of Skillmaster dwarves. Preferences and talents are noted and recorded. If a child shows interest in hammers, he may be guided into a career in stone cutting. Interest in metals may lead to apprenticeship in a smithy, and so on. This system serves the dwarves very well.

Subjects such as writing and ciphering are taught to all dwarf children up to the age of physical maturity. Maturity is measured in a curious, genuinely dwarfish way: When the child feels the time is right, he is led by his elders down a narrow passage cut in the rock. Without warning, stone blocks are lowered, blocking the aspirant's way forward and back. To escape, the child must shift one of the blocks somehow—either by brute strength or by some mechanical stratagem. If he fails or cannot escape for a day and a night, he is released by the adults and goes back to school. If he frees himself, he is deemed an adult and can enlist in the guild of his choice.

Schoolmasters in the dwarven kingdoms are invariably dwarves themselves. Aside from competence in a special skill (like metal working), dwarven teachers are expected to have traveled abroad. Knowledge of the world beyond the mountains is deemed the best qualification of all for a scholar. It is no coincidence that the dwarvish word for "learned" is the same as their word for "well traveled."

Dwarves excel in one skill above all others: the shaping of stone and metal. Techniques for these arts are jealously guarded by the clans that possess them, and are passed down only from one master artisan to the next. Betraying the secrets of a guild means shame and death to the betrayer. No one enters a dwarf guild lightly, nor leaves the august company for any reason short of death. Family and name are as important to dwarves as they are to any proud people, but the guild is even more sacred.

Just as heads of a lodestone oppose each other, so the gnomes are the opposite of their dwarf cousins. "Practical" is a not a word used in gnomish lands. That fact aside, gnomes revere knowledge more than any other race, but only knowledge of the most useless, cumbersome kind. Hero of the Lance Sturm Brightblade once observed, "A man can bridge a stream with log, an axe, and two strong arms. A gnome needs a mountain of tools and more lumber than in a house, and will spend a fortnight drawing plans." [In the end, of course, a gnomish bridge will include a catapult, two ladders, and a device for boiling eggs. One scholar has remarked that the peculiarity of gnomes arises from their tendency to focus on a solution to the immediate problem to hand without seeing any of the implications of that solution. Thus their solutions inevitably extend themselves further and further from the original problem until whatever they are working on bears no resemblance whatever to its original design. Sooner or later, of course, the problem is resolved by an explosion, and the industrious gnomes begin again.]

If anything, Brightblade is too generous to the gnomes, for whom he had a tolerant affection.

Made as they are, gnomes never stop thinking, talking, or inventing. Their schools are scenes of chaos, with every "student" lecturing and no one paying the slightest attention to what anyone else says. Still, more than one visitor has commented on the fact that reading and ciphering are universal among the gnomes. How do they learn? For the first time in these annals, I propose to reveal the origin of gnomish education.

Visitors to the gnome haven of Mt. Nevermind often remark on the vast amount of writing there. Every surface has scratches and scrawls on it; the walls and ceilings of tunnels are covered with random numbers and letters. Gnomes write memoranda on anything that falls to hand, from their shirt cuffs to ostraca and other rubbish. The halls of Mt. Nevermind are littered with this debris, the thoughts of thousands of erratic gnomish brains.

This is the first school of gnomish children.

Youngsters of both sexes are often left on their own at very young ages, or worse, committed to the care of some scatterbrained theorist with a mechanical baby-minder he's just invented. Children will wander, and the rubbish of the tunnels is their bounty. It takes a swift, clever mind to link symbols on paper to words spoken aloud, but the mercurial minds of gnomish children make the connection and have for many generations.

Once old enough to grow a beard (usually around age eight), gnomes can attend technical school. There are many of these, centered around the person of some (self-proclaimed) famous inventor. By all accounts the daily routine of these technical schools consist of the "master" endlessly lecturing while chosen assistants demonstrate his noisy, ineffectual machinery around him. The "students" make loud (and sometime rude) suggestions on how to improve the master's wonderful inventions. This goes on all day, and if the inventive spirit seizes the students, all night as well. [Like all things gnomish, such sessions usually end in an explosion.]

As the amorous poet Lefilo said, "If the song makes them happy, they sing until they die."

Formal education, as such, does not exist among the kender. There is a certain amount of apprenticeship in their country, for skills at picking locks and pockets are best learned from a tolerant master and not by experimentation in a local inn. Reading and numbers are quite widely known among kender, but the subject matter doesn't usually consist of anything more than warning signs and price lists. Many kender never read anything longer than KEEP OUT, BEWARE OF THE DOG, or TRESPASSERS WILL BE VIOLATED.

Still, kender are subject to enthusiasms of the moment, even for higher education. It is recorded that during the Peace of Istar (460-280 PC), a kender named Everus Droplid plastered every tree in Hylo with a circular proclaiming:

COME ONE—COME ALL to the
Academy of Master Droplid!
Graduate of the secret
schools of Silvanost!
Former Instructor to the
Lords of Ergoth and Solamnia!
Master DROPLID will be in Hylo
but two and twenty days!
Subscribe now to this rare and
valuable curriculum. Five silver
pieces per child, eight per adult.
To be held under the big vallenwood
in Hylo, next Waters Day.
SPACE IS LIMITED! Subscribe today!
Master Droplid will be in Gajar's
Tavern to accept your tuition payments.

This sort of thing was irresistible to kender, and many found their way to Gajar's grog shop. Master Droplid, dressed in patched velvet academic robes (bright yellow, alas), received their tuition fees with solemn gravity. No one thought to ask what the marvelous curriculum was, but rumor had it Master Droplid was going to teach his students how to change lead into gold.

The following Waters Day came, and a crowd of nearly 300 gathered under the great vallenwood tree. They waited until the appointed hour, and the schoolmaster never appeared. They waited an hour more, and there was no sign of Droplid. At last someone ran to Gajar's to inquire after the absentminded professor. He was gone. Gajar the barkeep could not tell them where Master Droplid had gone, only that "he departed in a hurry with a wagon, much laden."

In some locales, "kender scholar" is a term used to mean "an impossible thing." No one who knows the clever, resourceful little folk doubt their native wit, but higher thinking is not something they waste time on. In this way, they are opposite to both the gnomes (who think of nothing but useless higher things) and the dwarves (who never waste anything, including thought). [There were, I have heard, attempts by well-meaning idiots to spread literacy among kender after their exile from Kendermore to Hylo. These philanthropists argued that since many kender now suffered from fear, their minds were steadier and more open to formal education. An intrepid band of five itinerate scholars set off from Palanthas to Hylo, armed with books, quills, paper, and the will to succeed. They returned three months later with nothing but the clothes they wore and a severe case of nervous tics and twitches, as well as a tendency to scream loudly for no reason. The venture was deemed a failure.]

EDUCATION AMONG THE PLAINSFOLK, NOMADS, AND OTHER HUMANS

It was once common among people of the larger cities, such as Daltigoth, Palanthas, or Schallsea, to regard the plainsmen and their kind as uncivilized barbarians, without education or refined culture. Evidence of the past few years has thoroughly refuted these high-handed notions, most especially the gallant, though ill-fated crusade of the Qué-Shu against the red dragon Malystryx, and the subsequent emergence of the Qué-Shu seeress and Hero of the Lance Goldmoon as one of the great spiritual leaders of our time. People of such stature do not emerge from a low barbarian culture.

That being said, it is true the plainsfolk hold most of their knowledge in spoken form, as tales and lessons handed down from elder to younger. The Qué-Shu make no use of writing, but plainsmen in other lands have learned to use the common script, derived from the ancient Ergothian alphabet. In Qué-Shu proper, plainsfolk sometimes use "story beads," small strips of doeskin on which beaded pictures have been sewn. These bead strips are used as memory aids by Qué-Shu storytellers. Some bead strips are enormously long—the saga "The Life and Death of Karada" is said to make a roll as tall as a man. Usually bead strips are kept in shorter length, and carried about by thrusting a slim rod through the center of each roll.

The Qué-Shu excel in tracking, as befits a sylvan people, but they also have a highly accurate system of surveying the land. Rather than carry cumbersome maps, Qué-Shu hunters and trackers learned to recognize over 500 trail signs, which indicate things such as "fresh water available, 200 paces north," or "this valley is infested with poisonous snakes."

Qué-Shu are expected to update the trails signs if they observe changes. In some mountain passes, signs scratched on rock stretch for yards, chronicling not only the local conditions but also the time the plainsfolk have lived in the region.

Trail signs are taught over the entire life of a plainsman. A young boy or girl may receive instruction in basic trail and weather signs from a grandparent. (It is usually the duty of the grandfather or grandmother to teach the very young what they know.) Other skills such as archery, herbal medicine, cooking, and so on are taught only when the child demonstrates a desire to learn them.

Shamans and seers of all types live among the plainsfolk. In every case, these gifted people were chosen by fate or the departed gods for their role. No one chooses to become a shaman. One day, a person is possessed by the spirit of a god or totem animal. If the bond thus forged is strong, the episode will be repeated many times until the budding shaman learns to summon and dismiss the spirits at will. Seership is more complex. Glimpses of the future may be revealed to a nomad, or they may make earnest efforts to peel back the veil of time and see what will be. The Qué-Shu believe asceticism summons seership. Apprentice seers go off on their own and experience all types of hardship in order to tune their mind to higher forces around them. Cold, starvation, and thirst are not only tolerated, but positively sought after as aids in their spiritual education.

The plainsfolk are the most sensitive people in the whole of Ansalon. Living as they do in the midst of natural and unnatural forces, they must heed signs and portents city-dwellers might never notice. The nomads impart what they can to their young people, but for them life must be experienced. It cannot be taught.

Simpler, homelier skills are taught, of course. The Qué-Shu make excellent arrows and often earn gold fletching for settled folk in Abanasinia. They are not so skilled in metal work, but their woodworking is reckoned first rate. It's not unusual for farmers or villagers to hire Qué-Shu men to build fences and barns. Four Qué-Shu men can turn a pile of tree trunks into a barn in four days without using a single nail or cleat. Carpentry skills are handed down parent to child almost exclusively. It's very hard for the son or daughter of a basket weaver to find anyone willing to teach woodworking. In time, this fashion of family craft skills may lead to the formation of guilds among the nomads.

Every season, some nomads leave the plain and settle in cities and towns west and east of their homeland. Within a generation they are as sedentary as their neighbors, and succumb to the life of settled people.

Education for the human nomads of the plains thus fall into three categories. The basics are taught by their elderly relatives. Older children are guided through further learning by sheer experience. More advanced skills are handed down within families, or in the case of mystical enlightenment, are sought by the seeker in person.

Nomads of less hospitable climes keep their secrets. While inquiries have been made about the lives and learning of the Icewall wanderers, or the sanddwellers of the Plains of Dust, little has been gleaned. Since neither group exists in larger bands than single families, or at most a family clan, it seems likely the older teach the younger what they know.

Neither the ice nomads nor the sanddwellers have a written language, which makes it all the more puzzling to consider that large carved stelae, covered in arcane hieroglyphs, have been reported in the icy wastes of Frisindia. These glyphs do not resemble any known system of writing. A pupil of Astinus, Cottas by name, wrote a short treatise on the hieroglyphs of Frisindia. His original manuscript was lost in the Cataclysm, [That is, it was one of the manuscripts that vanished along with Astinus.] but other scholars refer to it approvingly. Apparently Cottas's theory was that the ice realm was once a temperate place inhabited by a race of intelligent giants. He believed these giants may have been the first thinking inhabitants of Ansalon, the antecedents of the better-known Irda.

OTHER RACES AND COUNTRIES

Ogres of Blöde give little thought to learning for its own sake. The harsh life of the Khalkist Mountain range gives them little time or pleasure to consider life as anything more than a struggle for existence. Animal husbandly, foraging, and gardening are the tasks given to ogre women and children. Males raid and pillage or else trade for warlike goods on the fringes of human and dwarven settlements. Ogres of Blöde have no written language or numbers, but in some locales they have adopted trail signs and other habits of the Qué-Shu.

The ogres of Kern have a higher culture than their brethren to the southwest. They are just as violent and coarse but are wealthier and more stable. In their settled towns, the Kern ogres have rudimentary guilds that train apprentices in the trades most important to them, namely metal work, rope making, tanning, and butchery. Keeping accounts in their trades requires the Kern ogres to use basic Ergothian numbers and letters.

Minotaurs, despite their fearsome appearance, possess considerable cultural and technical skills. Inhabiting islands in the Blood Sea has lead them into maritime pursuits, at which they excel. Minotaur traders and (let us speak plainly) pirates are masters of shipbuilding and navigation. They use a script derived from the writing of ancient Istar, greatly simplified and cursive. [Using this script, scholars at the library have reconstructed the form of ancient Istarian writings, though almost all Istar's books were destroyed in the First Cataclysm.] The bulk of minotaur literature consists of handbooks of navigation, sea lore, and a kind of rough poetry. Their sagas describe great voyages, terrible storms, and sea battles in vivid, blood-drenched language. There was vogue for minotaur poetry in Palanthas once, and older book shops in the city still stock titles like "The Rage of Captain Edzi" and "Windwave Ballads."

Education among the minotaurs follows the apprentice-master pattern. Formal schools are nonexistent, though minotaurs have occasionally enrolled in schools in foreign lands. There is a line in "The Rage of Captain Edzi" that says, "the fo'c'sle was my school, the sea my education," and that about sums up the minotaurs' experience of learning.

Centaurs of Duntollik live like human nomads, only in their case they are horse and rider in one. They lack writing and numbers. Their chief art form is dance, which can range from the most delicate to the most violent clashes, like barehanded combat. Family is the unit of education among the centaurs; parents and grandparents teach their own what they know about life.

Centaurs have a lordly manner, which does not incline them toward seeking out the knowledge gathered by other races. Though they have trade and social contact with Thorbardin dwarves and Qualinesti elves, the centaurs best relate to human plainsfolk, whose lives their own most resemble.

Arms and Armor

Bertrem's Note

Much of the history of our land is, sadly, the history of war. Run your eyes over the chronicles of Ansalon and it may seem as if our world has been nothing but a neverending struggle between contending armies. Though there have been long periods of peace and prosperity, it is in the nature of historians to record most fully those times of strife and disaster and let the good times take care of themselves.

Nonetheless it is true that the art of arms and armor-making has reached a high pitch among the various folk of Ansalon, and it was with this in mind that I asked my researcher to gather information about this. Some information on this topic was already available, most notably in the compilations by Caramon and Tika Majere, titled Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home and More Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home. Further information can be found in the Solamnic Compendium of the Military Arts, Velna's The Science of War, Lord Gunthar's War Journal, and other books. Though some of these were lost in the disaster of the Chaos War and Astinus's departure, I have recovered many, thanks to the military libraries maintained by the Knights of Solamnia and Knights of Neraka, as well as various copies scattered in private households throughout the land. My researcher, though, as befits a true scholar, did not confine his attentions to these documents. In addition he went among the people, compiling information not only on the arming of well-equipped soldiers but on how the common folk defend themselves in times of war, and what weapons they bring when called to join an army. Thus his portrait of Ansalon armed is, I feel, more comprehensive than any previous attempts, and for this I am grateful.

The first genuine weapon was the hand. This is true even more so than the teeth or nails, because the hand is not a weapon until the fingers close into a fist. Teeth and nails are as they are.

They can be used to fight or tear or chew, but they are tools first, and weapons second. All other weapons, no matter how elaborate or magical, are but extensions of the hand. They enable a warrior to strike harder and farther than is natural, but they only extend and multiply the power of the hand manyfold.

As a boon to the noble art of the warrior, I offer this treatise on the arms and armor of peoples of Ansalon. Rather than go by nation or race, I have chosen to write about types of weapons, and within those categories I shall describe the variants found in different lands.

SHORT-EDGED WEAPONS: KNIVES, DAGGERS, STILETTOS, AND DIRKS

The simplest and smallest of edged weapons is the knife. Barbarians and other primitive folk once used stone knives, laboriously chipping out serviceable blades from shards of flint or obsidian. Flint was much preferred, as it was harder, stronger, and could be knapped to quite a keen edge. Flint comes in many colors, from milk-white to black. Yellow flint from Dargaard was reckoned to be the most durable, and backward folk 5,000 years ago did a brisk trade in it. Gray waxstone flint, found in the Kharolis region, was second best and is still used by many Kagonesti elves for arrowheads.

Obsidian was, and still is, popular in regions with active volcanoes—for instance, in Neraka, now an almost deserted area. A brittle, glassy stone, obsidian was more popular for ritual knives than fighting or working blades. Obsidian can be even sharper than flint, but it breaks easily and cannot be re-knapped to a new edge. Once broken, it's worthless.

The finest makers of stone knives were the Irda. Using techniques lost in the mists of history, the Irda were able to soften hard stone and reform it into almost any shape they desired. Farmers and miners have turned up buried Irda blades and thought they were iron or bronze weapons magically changed to stone. In truth, they were stone from the beginning. The exact nature of the Irda's mastery over stone is not known. It may have been magical, or some lost alchemical process.

Most flint knives were given a single curved cutting edge to make best use of the natural serrations made when the stone is chipped. Obsidian knives were usually long and thin because of the way volcanic glass cleaves. In later times, barbarians learned to lash stone blades into wooden handles, but the weapons remained single-edged. True double-edged stone knives were only made by the secret technique of the Irda.

Copper and bronze blades were first made by the eastern elves (not yet the Silvanesti) in the fifth millennium PC. Copper weapons were oddly made, being hollow-cast in clay molds from a carved wax model. They had sharply triangular blades, and no fuller. Some of these hollow copper knives were equipped with reservoirs for poison. Because of the affinity of copper for gold, rich elves often had their copper blades coated with fine gold. Such blades were not much use for fighting, but they made handsome badges of nobility, and were often awarded as tokens of honor to valiant warriors.

Late in the forty-first century PC, elves discovered how to make bronze and brass. Bronze is a mixture of copper and tin. Brass is made of copper and zinc. Legend has it the elves collected the scales of bronze and brass dragons, studied them, and learned to make the alloy themselves. Bronze is much harder than copper and can easily be cast in solid form to make sturdier, longer blades. Blade length began growing at once after bronze was perfected. The first daggers appeared by the mid-forty-first century, with blades a full span long. Semsianac, or short swords, followed soon after, and the first true bronze swords by the early 4000s.

Bronze knives and daggers were diamond-shaped in cross section, and double-edged. A common practice of early warriors was to sharpen only the tip and one side of a double edged knife. This allowed the warrior to use his thumb to apply pressure to the dull side. It also meant as the sharpened edge wore down, the other side could then be brought into use. This accounts for the deeply curved blades found on very old bronze knives. The sinuous edge is a product of wear, not design.

The supremacy of bronze lasted 1,200 years. During the Graystone chaos (2900-2700 PC), dwarves digging tunnels at the future site of Thorin discovered the first iron ore. Dwarves used iron to make superior digging tools and helmets to spare their skulls from falling debris in the mines. In time, some dwarf tools found their way into the hands of human plainsmen in the west and Silvanesti to the south.

Unfortunately, the Thorin dwarves also found the Dragon Stones. In the ensuing Second Dragon War (2690-2645 PC) iron blades in the hands of dwarves, elves, and humans helped stave off the invading hordes of dragon-led bakali, lizard-men.

Iron is the standard metal for knives and daggers to this day. It is seldom worth a smith's time to spend days working a bar of steel into a knife when forged iron serves as well. Iron is softer than steel, dulls faster, and wears sooner, but it has certain advantages over steel. It rusts less. If kept oiled, it rusts not at all. It is easier to sharpen and is more ductile than steel.

The development of the dagger did not end with the discovery of iron. The elves, though they love red bronze, learned to make slender, pointed iron poignards ten inches long. These were used to finish off a fallen foe encased in armor. The point of the poignard punched through mail and could be slipped between the seams of plate. Spikelike stilettos became common in all countries where armor was worn.

In Ergoth, the emperor's bodyguard carried jewel-hilted daggers of evil design. These blades were taken hot from the forge and tempered by plunging them into the bodies of condemned prisoners. These "blood daggers" were fitted with garnet pommels of sanguinary color. In the tumultuous history of the empire, more than one high-born Ergothian found his life ended by a blood dagger, including an emperor or two.

The Knights of Solamnia never favored the dagger, considering it an assassin's weapon. Most Knights carried a general purpose single-edged blade, four to six inches long, of good Khalkist iron. For a period after the First Cataclysm, fork-tipped knives were popular with traveling knights. These were prized for their utility, not as weapons. The normal clip point of a basic sheath knife was divided into two or three tines, and served its owner as an eating implement as well as for general cutting. Fork-tip knives are still popular among the kender and gnomes as eating utensils, but the divided point can inflict a nasty wound.

The Knights of Neraka use two kinds of short blades—a folding blade knife, issued to their scouts and goblin allies, and a full-span war dagger with a black blade. Dark Knights swear oaths on their black daggers, which have small cupped hilts and pointed, skull-cracker pommels. Assassins of the Order have revived the ancient elven hollow blade, this time in black iron. A thrust of the blade delivers a normal stabbing strike, but pressing a stud on the handle released a plunger that injects poison through the hollow tip. In most civilized countries, possession of such a weapon rightly carries an immediate death sentence.

Further east, the ogres of Blöde esteem a type of dwarf blade made specially for them by the smiths of Thoradin. It has a wide, almost square blade, eight inches long, and comes to a blunt point. Both edges are left dull, and only the tip is honed. Propelled by an ogre's brawny arm, these can punch through plate armor—if the owner can get close enough to use it.

Other variants of the war knife include the draconian kris, with its wavy blade, designed to cut the tough hide of scaled creatures like themselves. Minotaurs and pirates of the Blood Sea also use curved knives, suitable for everything from scaling a fish to slitting a throat.

One last type of fighting knife should be mentioned: the dirk. This is a miniature two-edged blade, a finger's length long. Today they are most often used by women, or short-statured folk like kender, who find a large dagger awkward. The dirk developed in the intrigue-ridden court of Imperial Ergoth. Forbidden by law to wear swords or daggers in the emperor's presence, noble Ergothians developed the concealable dirk. The usual style was like a miniature sword, fancy hilt, jewels, and all. By the time of Vinas Solamnus, dirks were worn openly and made with glass or crystal blades strictly for show. These nearly useless toys were indicative of the decadent state of the empire. The glittering pretense of menace was still there, but the threat was not real.

Dirks are common trade items today. Dwarf smiths turn them out by the hundreds, cheap iron blades or bronze ones stained black to look like iron. If in doubt about the metal of your blade, remember that a lodestone will attract iron but does not stick to bronze.

SWORDS, SABERS, CUTLASSES, AND SCIMITARS

The first swords were lengthened bronze daggers made by elf craftsmen in Silvanost, sometime after the ascension of Silvanos as the first Speaker of the Stars. At first the elves tried the semsianac, a short, straight sword with a triangular blade two spans long. When their bronze-casting technique improved, they brought out the first dosemsianac, "double blade," meaning a true sword at least four spans in length. These early elven blades were made exactly like daggers—cast in sand or clay molds, of a thick diamond shape. There were no grooves or fullers in the blades to lighten them. Elf warriors used them primarily for thrusting, like a dagger, and only the first six inches or so of each edge was sharpened.

Neither the plainsmen nor the dwarves ever took to swords, preferring spears and bows (plainsmen) or axes and maces (dwarves). Further west, the emerging nation of Ergoth wholeheartedly embraced the sword. The warrior horde of Ackal Ergot, founder of the empire, were chiefly horsemen, and for them a new type of sword was needed. The long, straight, thrusting sword of elven pattern was not suitable for cavalry warfare. Sometime around 2600 PC, Ergot's host swept through the ruined lands of the Irda. Needing weapons capable of cutting down the ogres from horseback, human smiths developed a long, curved blade. The purpose of the arc was clear: by curving the blade, one increases the cutting edge without increasing the overall length of the sword.

Early experiments produced bizarre weapons resembling backward scythes, but the general shape of the saber was well established by 2500 PC. Ergothian blades were iron, never bronze, though they often employed bronze or brass for hilts and pommels. Iron blades carried the Ergoth Empire ever eastward, till the twenty-third century PC, when they ran into the western borders of Silvanesti.

The dwarf realm of Thorbardin began about this same time, and from them issued a new metal: steel. Available at first only in small quantities, steel was used exclusively for armor rather than blades. The secret of steel would be lost for a time after the First Cataclysm, only be revived shortly before the War of the Lance.

The new nation Qualinesti adapted elven designs to human metallurgy, producing some of the finest swords ever made. These cut-and-thrust swords, called rapiers, were one of the strongest factors in the fast development of plate armor. Neither mail nor scale could withstand the straight thrust of an iron Qualinesti blade.

A different approach reigned in Solamnia. The Knights of Solamnia fought primarily on horseback, but the spread of armor since Ackal Ergot's time made sabers obsolete in pitched battle. (Ackal's warriors wore little more than leather cuirasses, bronze helmets, and some ring-mail). To cut through heavier mail and light plate, the Solamnic Knights used the broadsword, a massive weapon with a five span blade, three fingers wide at the hilt. Less pointed than a Qualinesti rapier, the broadsword is as much axe as sword. Two-handed versions were wielded by the tallest and strongest warriors.

One such weapon, "Tondar's Tickler" (now preserved in the Hall of Heroes in Solanthus) has a blade seven spans long, and weighs twenty-two pounds. Tondar Longstrider, a giant of a man, was a friendly rival of the great Huma Dragonbane. A story is told how once Tondar was boasting of his strength in a very unknightly fashion. Huma suggested to him that will was as important to a warrior as muscle. Tondar replied that will was simply a recognition of strength.

Thereupon Huma proposed a challenge. Tondar could hold his mighty two-handed sword in any fighting position he wanted, and Huma would make him drop it. (The wager was for a tun of rare Silvanesti nectar.) Smiling confidently, Tondar drew his sword and held it drawn back to his right shoulder, his favorite striking position. Huma walked around his giant colleague a few times, studying him.

"It's a very strong hold you have," said Huma.

"Break it if you can!" Tondar replied.

From the camp cookhouse Huma procured a chicken feather. He proceeded to tickle Tondar's nose with it until the big man sneezed uncontrollably. By his third terrific blast, Huma was able to pluck the dangling sword from Tondar's fingers.

The nectar Huma shared with his comrades.

In current times, sword design has degenerated. Every nation now has its own style of long blade, but no one has added to the glory of the sword since before the First Cataclysm. True, there have been enchanted weapons, but powerful spells can be placed on the homeliest of blades. Steel spread out from its dwarf home in Thorbardin, but the hardness of steel stumped many swordmakers. The grace and purity of line known from elven blades, and the power and strength of Solamnic broadswords are forgotten arts.

The Knights of Takhisis favor a broadsword, lighter than the old Solamnic pattern, with mirror-polished blades and a cup hilt. For a brief time they carried swords with mystic runes engraved on the blade, but these weakened the metal. After a crop of broken swords cost many Dark Knights their lives, the practice stopped. The Dark Knights have access to good iron ore from the Khalkist Mountains, territory controlled by the vile dragon Malystryx.

The draconians of Teyr have a flamberge sword, much like the wavy-bladed kris they use as daggers. Flamberge, or flame swords, have a wavy double edge. Such blades make wicked wounds, but the swords themselves are hard to forge. It's a military axiom that a nation's weapons reflect the conditions under which they were made. The flamberge is one of the best weapons to use against draconians, as the serrated edge easily cuts their scaly hide.

The men of Nordmaar favor a round-tipped short sword. Their weapon of choice is the longbow anyway, so a short sword is as good as any to them. The round point is no good for thrusting, but it cuts very well the thick hide of ogres, who often menace Nordmaar's borders.

The ogres of Kern and Blöde value weapons above all other possessions. They prefer a good axe or halberd, but prize swords, taken from slain enemies, are much valued. Native-made ogre swords tend to be thick-bladed sabers, or scimitars. One of the Grand Khan of Kern's badges of office is a beastly scimitar, inlaid with jewels and bits of bone from slain enemies. This ugly weapon is not used in war but to chop off the heads of the khan's domestic foes.

Inhabitants of the Blood Sea Isles have their national weapons, too. Pirates of Saifhum are plentifully equipped with cutlasses, cheap, flat-bladed sabers cut out of sheet iron and given an indifferent temper. Though ungraceful, the pirate cutlass is as lethal as any other sword, and surprisingly durable. Minotaurs of the Blood Sea have their double-headed axe, but many have adopted the tough, cheap cutlass as a easily obtained substitute.

Given the deep-rooted conservatism of the Silvanesti, it can be assumed their swords have changed little over the centuries. They switched to iron swords before the Kinslayer War, but held to their ancient pattern of long, thin blades of diamond section. As far as can be determined, they make them that way to this day.

Less advanced peoples, such as human plainsfolk, centaurs, goblins, and the like, generally do not produce swords of their own, but buy them from traders. Plainsmen, as noted before, are not great exponents of the long blade, but when they do use them, prefer a medium-weight blade in the late Solamnic pattern. Centaurs are archers first and foremost, but have some affinity for sabers. The Ergothian type saber suits the centaur style of fighting well. Goblins, hobgoblins, and other minions of darkness make do with what their overlords provide for them. Despite the limitations of their stature, goblins prefer a long sword, to keep the enemy as far away as possible. This is due to their basically cowardly nature.

Kender are fond of swords, even if they seldom use them. All patterns of swords, from broadswords to rapiers are made for sale in Hylo, suitably shortened to suit kender length of limb. Eastern kender, exiled from Balifor and Kendermore, brought with them a taste for curving, scimitarlike weapons, while the natives of Hylo tend to favor Solamnic blades.

POLEARMS: SPEARS, LANCES, HALBERDS, AND BATTLE-AXES

Next to the stone knife, the wooden spear is probably the oldest weapon. Soon after early humans learned to knap flint edges, they fixed broad stone heads to tree limbs, creating the first spears. Early variants among the elves and the Irda include obsidian tipped spears, spears with stone counterweights on the butt, and the Irda all-stone spear. As described earlier, the Irda learned to soften stone and work it into amazingly complex shapes, and remnants have been found of short handled spears made entirely of stone. It is hard to see how such weapons could have been practical. Stone is too brittle for rough thrusting and throwing. A stone spear shaft would soon break when used at all. It may be the Irda stone spears were ceremonial weapons, carried by priests or temple guards.

When the early plainsfolk ran into competition with the elves of Silvanost, a popular weapon of the human nomads was the short spear, or assegai. This consisted of a narrow flint head about one span long, lashed to a shaft no more than three times as long. Legend credits the plains warrior woman Karada with inventing the assegai. The chief advantage of the short spear was its handiness. It could be thrown, thrust, or used as a slashing weapon with equal facility.

Once the plainsmen learned to ride horses, the short spear faded, and the stone-tipped lance appeared. This was merely a spear with an extra long shaft, useful for riders to engage enemies on foot or horseback.

The general spread of metal—bronze at first, later iron and steel—did not change the spear much. In some locations, like Ergoth and Solamnia, spears retain long narrow heads, suitable for punching through foes' armor. Further east, where large-bodied enemies dwell, a broader head is favored against ogres, draconians, giants, or trolls.

The lance underwent considerable refinement in Ergoth and Solamnia during the latter days of the empire. Ergothian cavalry used a twelve-foot lance with a square iron head. Two-thirds of the way down the shaft, a brass or iron hilt was installed to shield the rider's hand. In early Solamnia, lances were as long as fifteen feet. The fore part of the shaft was hardwood, but the butt end was rolled iron tubing. At full gallop, a Solamnic lancer could pierce up to three armored foes with a single thrust. As it was impractical to wear armor heavy enough to turn a Solamnic lance, most opponents of the knights chose to improve their mobility rather than thicken their armor.

The Silvanesti used lancers on a smaller basis. Like all elf weapons, their lances were graceful, slender, and made of exotic substances. The crystal used to create the glittering towers of Silvanost also made fine, straight lance shafts. Crystal shafts were very hard, lighter than the equivalent length in metal, but not too flexible. Too much sideways thrust on a elven lance, and the shaft might shatter into a thousand glittering shards. After the Battle of Stars' Hill, during the Kinslayer War, so many elf lances were broken charging against the Ergothian infantry, the ground was covered with bright broken crystal. The Silvanesti bard Horio wrote:

"Upon the hill where blood did flow
Ten thousand stars on earth did glow."

Only the decision to mount their cavalry on griffins kept the elves from producing the finest lancers in the world. Once they'd chosen aerial mounts, ordinary lances were of little use anymore.

The most extraordinary lances ever made by mortals are the dragonlances. Solamnic Knights of the eleventh century PC, led by Theros Ironfeld and Huma Dragonbane, were inspired by the god Paladine to forge a weapon capable of bringing down the plague of evil dragons. Using the great Hammer of Kharas to forge the lances, the Knights created both a footman's model and a rider's model.

The infantry dragonlance is eight feet long of solid forged iron through and through. The even larger mounted model (lofted by a friendly dragon) was sixteen feet long and had an integral shield instead of a conventional hilt. The aerial lance was so heavy not even a hero could wield it; it had to be mounted on a flexible pintle, part of the dragon rider's saddle. Old stories speak of the foot soldier's dragonlance being cast like a spear, but not even Tondar Longstrider could hurl a solid iron lance.

The warheads of a dragonlance were steel, a metal not fully understood in those days. Infused with magical power, steel lance heads could puncture the hide of the largest dragon. It's said even the Dark Queen herself felt the sting of a dragonlance. Immortal, unable to die and end the pain, she agreed to withdraw with her evil dragons if only someone would remove the lance from her body. The great Huma had already perished in the battle, so the task fell to his minotaur companion, Kaz.

In our time, the proliferation of missile weapons has reduced the value of the lance to almost nil. Slow moving armored lancers on horseback cannot hope to survive under a barrage of arrows, bolts, and catapult stones.

This is not to say that long arms are obsolete. The rise of mass armies, such as follow the banner of the Dark Knights, has made it necessary to arm large numbers of ill-trained troops as effectively as possible. The best weapons to accomplish this are pikes, halberds, and battle-axes. Coupled with new tactics, polearms have come to dominate the battlefield.

The pike is cousin to the spear and the lance. Twelve to fifteen feet long, pikes have a simple, dagger-shaped head, usually mounted on the shaft by means of a long tubular socket. A metal crossbar behind the head prevents the tip from going in too deeply. Pikes are too long to be thrown, and too light to use as lances, but they are ideal for arming a block of infantry. A company armed with pikes and commanded by a steady officer can stand up to almost anything.

Pikemen fight in ranks, three to five soldiers deep. The front rank hold their pike low, at waist level. The second rank couch theirs under their arm, and the third hold theirs at shoulder height. The rear ranks hold their pikes aloft, ready to swing them down into any gaps that form in battle. This makes a tough hedgehog of points that is death to any cavalry who get in the way. Skilled swordsmen can beat aside a wall of pike heads and get at the soldiers behind them, but such tactics call for high skill and tight discipline.

Many of the early victories of the Dark Knights were due to their employment of pikemen, chiefly goblin and draconian mercenaries. They defeated the ogres of Kern, slaying Grand Khan Muklun in the Battle of Styx (383 AC), by using massed goblin pikemen to crush the wild ogre infantry against the sea. The hardest part of the battle for the Dark Knights was controlling the exuberance of the goblins, who had never before defeated the ogres in battle. Several times the goblins broke ranks to pursue fleeing ogre bands, only to have the fierce Kernites turn and fall on them. Eventually the Dark Knights' army surrounded the ogres on a dune outside Styx and mowed them down. Khan Muklun perished along with thousands of his warriors.

The Dark Knights' armies, aided by seditious magic and the spreading terror of their success, conquered Palanthas, southern Ergoth, Qualinesti, the Estwilde, and Kendermore, pushing right up to the Silvanesti border. They took parts of western Solamnia and Abanasinia as well. Areas defended by terrain, such as Northern Ergoth, Sancrist Isle, and the mountain realms of the dwarves, held out. The Solamnic homeland remained free only because of the heroic resistance of the Solamnic Knights.

This kind of rapid conquest was possible only because the Dark Knights employed marginal soldiers with superior weapons and tactics. Many of the defeated peoples were far superior warriors to the Dark Knights' forces, but they could not adapt to fast-moving formations armed with pikes and halberds.

The halberd is a pike fitted with an auxiliary axe head on the side. The shaft of a halberd is shorter and stouter, and a halberdier is well equipped to defeat sword-armed cavalry, like the Solamnic Knights.

A recent case during the times of trouble and conflict between the Solamnic Knights and the Knights of Neraka illustrates very well the value of tactics based on correct use of pike and halberd. During the campaign for Fangoth, the Solamnic general Harbard Uth Farnan was defeated by a Dark Knight force commanded by Burnond Everride. Burnond had 2,000 goblin pikemen backed up by 1,000 mercenary halberdiers, mostly hired men from Saifhum Island. A small force of 500 mounted knights completed Burnond's force. To oppose him, Harbard had 4,000 mixed infantry armed with sword and shield, 600 archers, and 400 Solamnic Knights.

Fangoth is surrounded on three sides by forest. Harbard drew up his army in a half circle to defend the open ground east of the town. He put his archers fifty paces in front of his shield-wall infantry, with orders for the elves to withdraw if pressed too hard. He kept his mounted knights in reserve below the walls of Fangoth. He did not expect to need them.

Burnond Everride, a hard-driving commander, marched forty miles in one day to engage Harbard's army. He sent his tired goblin pike phalanx in first, straight at the Qualinesti archers. The elves rained arrows on the goblins, killing many, but the huge block of bristling spears slogged on, driven by Burnond's whip-wielding lieutenants. The gallant archers stood their ground to the last moment, aiming "over the knuckles" at the mass of approaching goblins. Finally they broke ranks and streamed back behind Harbard's wall of shields.

The Solamnic infantry were good men, hale and confident, but they had never seen anything like Burnond's phalanx before. The goblins lowered four ranks of pikes and charged, driving deep into the stationary line of warriors. Men were impaled where they stood, unable even to swing their swords. The twelve-foot-long pikes kept the Solamnic swords at such a distance that scarcely a goblin fell to them.

Seeing his infantry yielding under the attack, Harbard rallied his cavalry for a charge. Emerging on the right flank of his own line, he saw a double line of Saifhum halberdiers waiting for him. They seemed unsupported and vulnerable on the open plain, so Harbard attacked them first. This was his crucial mistake.

Instead of falling into a protective square, as footmen usually did when menaced by cavalry, the halberdiers closed ranks and counterattacked. The Knights' charge slammed to a halt, and they were rapidly cut to pieces by the deadly poleaxes. With hooks and axe heads, the halberdiers dragged the Knights off their horses and hacked them to pieces. Harbard Uth Farnan died in the melee.

The Solamnic infantry remained on the field even after Harbard's death. Pushed back to the gates of Fangoth by the pike phalanx, they only broke when Burnond's Dark Knight horsemen appeared and threatened to cut them off from the city. The rear lines of the shield wall broke and ran, covered by arrows from the archers. Those men who couldn't disengage from the pikes were slaughtered. Burnond's victory was completed six days later when Fangoth surrendered. The city was not prepared to withstand a siege, and Burnond threatened to sack the town if they resisted. Fearful of the goblin horde outside, Fangoth capitulated. [Such are the tragic times in which we live. Battles between Solamnics, the Knights of Neraka, and the Legion of Steel rage through the land, and we are powerless to stop them. All Ansalon appears breathless, as if awaiting some apocalypse that will free us from this tyranny or destroy us all.]

As might be guessed, the halberd was invented by the pirates of Saifhum. Needing long-reaching weapons to attack ships alongside their pirate vessels, the men of Saifhum developed the halberd with hooks and blades for snagging and cutting their victims' rigging. The halberd proved equally useful on dry land, snagging horses and riders.

Thus we see how the pike and halberd changed battle tactics in our own time. Since the early successes of the Dark Knights, their enemies have learned to counter their weapons and tactics. Archery is the answer to the pike phalanx. Meeting a block of pikemen with another block of polearmed soldiers holds them up and makes them vulnerable to a hail of arrows. Horse archers, armed with fast-drawn composite bows, are the nemesis of halberdiers. By keeping out of reach and peppering the foot soldiers with arrows, the halberd is no longer invincible.

One other polearm should be noted: the battleaxe. Even shorter and heavier than the halberd, the battle-axe lacks a spear point or hooks. It's basically a very heavy axe head on a strong shaft four to five feet long. Minotaurs of the Blood Sea Isles have a characteristic double-headed battle-axe, and a fearsome weapon it is at close quarters. Battle-axes are not suited to mass formations. A favorite weapon of the dwarves, battle-axes are best suited to close combat in tight terrain, such as the tunnels and high mountain passes of the dwarven realms.

MISSILE WEAPONS: BOWS, SLINGS, AND DARTS

The origin of the bow is a mystery. The early elves did not know of them, nor did the nomadic humans of the plains. The earliest mention of archery is in the military chronicles of the Silvanesti general, Lord Balif.

The Silvanesti had long been plagued by border raids and skirmishes with nomadic human tribes north and west of their homeland. Around 3995 PC a lull of several years ended when the barbarians returned in force. The whole northern border of the elf realm was in danger from mounted bands of humans armed with a new weapon, the bow.

Using diplomacy and superior strategy, Balif was able to defeat the nomads. Captured raiders told stories of the bow's origin. Supposedly the barbarians had encountered a dark-skinned race of humans far to the north, who came across the great ocean in boats to the shores of Ansalon. These dark seafarers were armed with bent wooden staves that threw small, sharp "spears" a considerable distance. The strangers were few in number but friendly enough. The nomads acquired a few bows, learned to make them, and took to archery with fierce excitement.

These early bows were short ones—acsemthani, the elves called them, "half-bows." They were cut to be half the height of the archer, or two and a half to three feet long. Tough, springy wood was best for bows—yew, hickory, pear—and stiff, straight-grained wood best for arrows. The nomads tipped their arrows with flint heads and fletched them with wild goose feathers. Bowstrings were cow sinew strands, woven into a thick string. Once the elves learned to make bows, they used the same woods but equipped their war arrows with rakish bronze points. The Silvanesti also used flax for bowstrings, which made their strings thinner yet stronger.

Like the discovery of iron, the bow quickly spread to every other people who came in contact with it. Men of Ergoth developed the longbow (semthani to the elves), where the staff was as long as the archer was tall. Curiously, the Ergothians made scant military use of the longbow. The empire was built by saber-wielding horsemen, and the complacent Ergothians never felt the need to change their tactics until it was too late. The greatest exponents of the longbow were the people of Nordmaar, and the Qualinesti, who also used them extensively for hunting the deep forests of their land. [The chronicles tell of Lauralanthalasa, Hero of the Lance, shooting and wounding a messenger of the Dark Knights as she and Sturm Brightblade stood together on the Tower of the High Clerist at the height of the War of the Lance.]

Short-statured folk found the hand-drawn bow unsatisfactory. Dwarves, kender, and their kind found of little use any size bow that would fit their height. It fell to another small race, the gnomes, to create the missile weapon for their sizes, the crossbow.

The tunnels and caverns of the gnome city inside Mt. Nevermind were hardly suitable to archery practice, but the gnomes discovered they loved propelling all sorts of strange missiles through the air. Over the years they built catapults, rock throwers, potato launchers, even gnome flingers. The unsung artisan who turned a short bow sideways and mounted it on a stock created a truly useful weapon, maybe the most useful thing any gnome ever made.

Being gnomes and unconcerned about practical value, the careless little folk gave away their invention. Kender took up the crossbow with enthusiasm, chiefly for hunting. The crossbow slowly spread eastward, reaching Silvanesti around 2200 PC. Dubbing it hothsemthani, "sideways bow," the elves applied their own sort of genius to the device. They were by that time already making composite bows of horn, wood, and sinew, tripling the power of the allwood short bow. Many of their archers had trouble holding composite bows at full draw, and the crossbow was the answer to their problem.

The elven-style crossbow inflicted terrible casualties on Ergothian forces during the Kinslayer War, especially during sieges. Ergothian chroniclers estimate a third of the deaths their side incurred at the siege of Sithelbec were due to crossbow sniping from the fortress walls. General Giarna's younger brother was slain by a crossbow bolt during the siege. Young Giarna was standing a full 400 paces from Sithelbec's Griffon Tower. It was a windy morning, and the stream blew in Giarna's face. Assisted by the breeze, a bolt loosed from the top of the tower pierced the young officer in the throat. A few inches up or down, and the missile would have been stopped by his armor. Such is the wind of fate.

Currently archery is part of the arsenal of every nation. On the battlefield, arrows are used to harass and weaken the enemy and pick off exposed commanders. The Nordmaarans use their longbows to good effect against marauders from the Estwilde and the ogres of Kern. Except for the former Qualinesti army, Nordmaar is the only country to field entire corps of archers. In other armies, archers are mixed into other formations. In the Solamnic army, bowmen are formed into companies of 100 and spaced between or in front of infantry battalions. Crossbows are favored over longbows because crossbows are easier to use and take less skill to operate. The yeomen of Nordmaar spend many days per year practicing with their longbows, but most other armies cannot spare the time for such training.

The Knights of Takhisis greatly reduced the number of archers in their army as part of the strategy of rapid movement. They relied on barely trained pikemen and halberdiers instead of professional archers. So long as they faced slow-moving traditional armies, their gamble paid off, but once their enemies adapted to their tactics, the Dark Knights have won no easy victories. The Legion of Steel, many of whom were former members of Takhisis's order, have evolved horse-archer tactics that proved as deadly to the Dark Knights' pike formations as the pikes were devastating to old-fashioned shield walls. It's believed the legion learned horse-archer tactics from the centaurs of Duntollik, who are natural "horsemen," and adept with the short composite bow.

A small-scale battle in Throt territory showed the way. Two hundred horse archers of the legion stumbled upon a column of Dark Knights' pikemen in marching formation. One thousand pikemen, equal parts goblins and hobgoblins under the command of Nerakan officers, were marching through a long ravine southwest of Throtl, on their way to bolster an attack on Solanthus. Both units were surprised to see each other, but the better-trained legionnaires recovered first. Rather than charge the block of pikes, as Solamnic Knights had tried to do many times, they kept their distance while peppering the formation with arrows. The unwieldy mass of goblins lumbered uphill and down, trying to snag the swift horsemen on their pikes. It was to no avail. In two hours the legion force expended 2,000 arrows and took down several hundred of the enemy. The last arrow loosed won the battle. It claimed the life of the Dark Knights' commander, Horn Ramsteed. Without their master, the goblins broke ranks and scattered. Satisfied with their victory, the legion horse archers rode way.

The crossbow remains a favored weapon in dwarf lands. Skilled metal workers, the dwarves have made very powerful spring steel bows, capable of piercing plate armor at short range. There are stories from Silvanesti (now shrouded behind its magical barrier) of repeating crossbows, that is, bows that loose more than one arrow at a time. How this is accomplished is unknown.

More barbarous nations use what bows they take in raids. Ogres, draconians, and other muscular races often employ very stiff bows, but they seldom have the discipline to use them in large numbers. Barbarians have a fondness for fire-arrows and the like—useful for burning villages, but not very effective against well-armed troops.

The small races have their own affinity for slings and darts. The sling is a birding weapon, used in marshy country to knock down ducks and geese. It consists of a pouch at the end of two long strings. By whirling it rapidly around the head and suddenly releasing the outer string, a pellet of stone or lead can be hurled with nice velocity at a target. Darts are arrowlike missiles, with sharp warheads and fletching. They're thrown with a short launching stick equipped with a cup on the end to hold the butt of the dart. By whipping the arm in a wide arc over the head, a dart can be thrown a considerable distance. [This is the principle behind the kender hoopak, which has been more fully described elsewhere.]

In primitive times, such weapons counted for much. The bow made them less important. Bows far outrange slings or darts, as in the Kinslayer War incident when Ergothian bowmen annihilated a force of Kagonesti slingers in the forest near presentday Garnet. Slings and darts are mere nuisances to modern armored soldiers. [A line of hoopaks might not frighten a troop of mailed knights, but a couple of dozen kender cheerfully wandering over the horizon is enough to put many armies to flight.]

OTHER ARMS: CLUBS, MACES, AXES, AND STAVES

Clubs possibly predate even knives as the first handheld weapon. Barbarian tribesmen dispatched trapped game and fought one another with simple wooden clubs. Later, heavy stones were lashed to wooden handles to improve the bludgeoning power of the club. When these crude stone clubs became metal, the mace was born.

Ogres to this day prefer the mace to any edged weapon. The battering force of a flanged mace is very great, and even plate armor cannot protect against its blows. Other brawny warriors, including giants, trolls, draconians, and men have used the mace in combat. More gracile fighters naturally prefer to keep their distance from such foes.

The woodsman's axe, a humble tool, has cleaved more skulls than all the swords ever forged. Enlarged to suit the size of the bearer, the axe remains a formidable weapon of close combat. It is the national weapon of the dwarves.

Prior to the discovery of iron, axes were not much used, save by the minotaurs. The bull-headed men of the Blood Sea Isles used an ancient form of double-axe even when bronze was the only metal available. The stout iron axe, forged in the smithies of Thoradin or Thorbardin, kept peace and justice intact in the mountains realms for centuries.

Today, in an era of fast-moving armies and missile weapons, the axe is too old fashioned. It is still used by the primitive infantry of Kern and Blöde and found in the strong hands of dwarf warriors, but its time is past.

Simple staves, thick wooden shafts without warheads, are the peasants' weapon. Whether full staff or quarterstaff, staves serve common folk in safeguarding life and limb through the rough and tumble of dailylife. Many armies use staves to train new soldiers how to handle polearms, but aside from that, they have no real military use.

ARMOR: CLOTH, LEATHER, FUR, AND WOOD

Once wars began, it was obvious some protection against the enemy's blows was needed. Early warriors used the same materials they wore as clothing, layering them to muffle blows and stop spear thrusts. Plainsmen covered their bodies and heads with leather and furs, studded with harder objects as reinforcement—shells, bits of bone, even small stones. Nomadic horsemen of the fifth millennium PC used strips of hard wood, such as oak, lashed together with twine and rawhide. A wooden breastplate could turn aside club blows and spear jabs. Against stone weapons, this was enough. With the advent of bronze in the hands of the Silvanesti, primitive armor was insufficient. It was a long time before metal was common enough to make entire suits of armor, however.

One species of nonmetallic armor deserves mention. The ancient Irda made cuirasses of stone-hard ceramic. The exact technique has been lost, but Irda armor turns up now and then when a farmer plows a field or digs a well. Tests with modern steel weapons show the ceramic armor is impervious to piercing. Attempts to cut Irda armor apart to study its composition have always failed. No saw can cut the diamondlike surface. How the Irda made this substance and how they fought against it are still mysteries.

Humans of the cattle-herding tribes on the northern plains learned to boil hides in molten beeswax. This toughened the leather greatly, and they made helmets and breastplates of boiled leather. If thick enough, boiled leather could blunt a bronze blade. Ergothians of the early empire imbedded bronze discs, smooth stones, or tortoise shell between layers of boiled leather to make stronger breastplates. The lumpy appearance of this armor was what cause the Ergothians' enemies to dub them "toads" and "warthogs."

ARMOR: BRONZE, IRON, AND STEEL

The advent of bronze also caused armor to spread over warriors' bodies. Early fighters wore fur caps and breastplates of wood. By the time of the Kinslayer War, soldiers sported boiled leather on their arms, legs, and feet. Wealthy elves and lords of Ergoth wore the first bronze plate armor during the war. At first the Silvanesti rode forth with their red bronze flashing in the sun, but this attracted so much hostile attention they learned to paint their armor more subdued colors.

For lesser warriors, bronze was used to make coats of ring mail or scale mail. Ring mail is made of rings of metal, sewn to a leather jerkin. Since the threads are exposed, the rings can be cut off by repeated sword cuts—an awkward situation in battle. Scale mail consists of many small metal plates, sewn to leather backing in such a way that the upper plate overlaps the lower, protecting the binding from cuts.

When iron made its way to the battlefield, fine bronze plate became as backward as plainsmen's wooden armor. A simple iron spear or arrowhead could punch through bronze easily. Iron swords split bronze helmets asunder. Since iron was so much harder to work than bronze, plate armor was not considered possible to make. Dwarf smiths at the time of the Rose Rebellion (1799-91 PC) made the first true mail, made of tiny iron rings interwoven into a dense, flexible metal "cloth."

Vinas Solamnus and his followers took up mail from the dwarves and, clad in it, wrested a homeland from the weakening grip of the Ergoth Empire. Despite its evident success, mail was slow to spread to other countries. It was hard to make, it seemed wasteful of iron (one coat of mail held enough iron to make six to eight good swords), and it wasn't very successful at stopping small, sharp weapons like arrows, poignards, and pike heads.

Smiths in Solamnia labored continuously to improve their armor. At first they laminated small iron plates on top of vital spots. The plates got bigger and bigger to cover more and more. True plate iron plate armor did not arise in Solamnia, however.

One of the forgotten Kingpriests of Istar conceived the fantastic notion of a bodyguard clad entirely in articulated iron. He set his best alchemists and artisans to the task, and they made what's now known as Istarian plate. They kept articulation to a minimum, which resulted in suits of armor shaped like tall cones. The guard's head and arms protruded from holes at the top and sides, but his feet were hidden behind the long iron skirt. Thus encumbered, the Istarian guards resembled bizarre gnomish machines more than fighting men. The suits were largely ceremonial, as no warrior could maneuver on an uncertain battlefield in such unwieldy armor. In the smooth, marbled halls of Istar, the armor worked well to impress visitors with the might of the Kingpriest.

The First Cataclysm set back all things, including the arts of war. Mail remained the dominant form of protection until steel became common in the first century AC. Steel was perfect for plate armor. It was hard, smooth, and rigid. It turned iron blades easily, and caused mace blows to slide off. Steel semiplate became standard among the Knight of Solamnia and Knights of Takhisis. Full plate is still very rare, and reserved for the richest and highest lords of battle.

Elsewhere, semiplate was adopted by the draconian minions of the Dark Queen. Ogres, goblins, and their ilk use whatever armor they can find, usually stripped from the bodies of fallen enemies. One ogre chieftain, Ungrah the Mad, was celebrated for decorating his breastplate with the skulls of his many victims.

Seagoing fighters, such as the men of Saifhum, Schallsea, and Sanction still use bronze armor. Bronze does not rust in salt air as iron does, and the lesser protection of bronze is thought better than untrustworthy, corroded iron. Their counterparts, the minotaurs, seldom use armor at all. They call it a hindrance, unworthy of a brave warrior. Besides, it's hard to swim encased in metal, and any sea battle carries the real risk of a plunge into the water.

Silvanesti, where metal armor began, has shut itself away behind the greatest armor of all, a magical shield. Not even the dragons who bedevil our land cannot penetrate this shield. What armor the elves wear behind their magical barrier, no one knows. They are deeply conservative folk, and I would not be surprised to find them clad in bronze plate, like their ancestors.

Speaking of shields, shield design follows the course of body armor closely. Wood still serves a useful purpose, backing metal-plated shields. Bronze, brass, iron, and steel are all commonly used in shields. Generally the finer the metal, the smaller the shield. The horsemen of the Legion of Steel favor a small buckler about two spans wide, which they normally wear slung on their backs so as not to interfere with their bow draw. Knightly horsemen used large triangular shields with heraldic devices painted on them. Infantry of the Dark Knights' pike and halberd companies carry no shields at all.

Helmets too, grew from barbarous fur caps into the great iron helms of later knights. The trend in modern warfare is toward smaller helmets, covering the skull and neck, leaving the face bare. Iron is universally used for helmets. Very rich commanders may have steel ones, but the rank and file are generally given simple iron pots of indifferent workmanship. It's a pity the artistry of helm making has declined so. In the days of Huma Dragonbane, helms were fantastic demonstrations of the metal worker's art. [For a more complete discussion of the matters herein described, see "A Complete History of the Martial Throwing Engine," "Armoring the Knights of Neraka," and "The Science of War," in Caramon and Tika Majere's compilation More Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home.]

The Everyday Politics of Ansalon

Bertrem's Note

"Politics," a more than usually cynical mage once observed, "is the last refuge of the scoundrel." This may, sadly, be true more often than not, but it does not make the political structures of our world less important. Indeed, for the common folk of Ansalon, how the great institutions such as the Knights of Solamnia, the Knights of Neraka, and so forth rule themselves is far less important than who is elected mayor of their village.

In the annals of Krynn, this is a curiously underexplored topic—perhaps because there are so many different means of governance in our world. In most cases these are the result of long, patient experiment, trial and error, and necessity when faced with a lack of rule from above. The essay below does no more than touch upon some of these systems, but I trust it will enlighten readers and possibly stimulate some villages and settlements to reform their political thinking.

Though the coming of the great dragons has plunged Krynn into a new tyranny, the everyday structures of political life continue to function much as they have, in some cases for centuries. The dragons have made life far more hitter and difficult for many, yet people often attempt to ignore their influence as much as possible and to respond to purely local authority. How successful this has been, as we see below, varies widely from place to place.

Power descends from above. this is a fact of nature, commonly proved by everyday events. Lightning strikes the ground from heaven, where once the gods looked down from on high and judged the affairs of mortals. So too do great kings, emperors, lords, and masters dispense law, justice or injustice to those horn of lower station. It seems to be the order of nature that the High govern the Low, even as humans rule over dogs, dog over sheep, and sheep over the grass of the field. The history of our world is the story of the doings of the mighty, but days pass in the life of ordinary folk at the same rate they do for kings. How then do people of lesser station order their lives? In this treatise I will examine the government of village, town, and guild in every free nation of Ansalon. Let the ways be compared and judged, so that wise rulers can take up good ideas and discard bad ones, and the lives of ordinary folk be improved thereby.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS AMONG THE ELVES

I begin with the eldest of our races, the elves. Back in the most ancient days, the first elves lived much as the earliest humans did, in small family bands. Unlike humans, who had to range the woods and plains for food, elves were settled from the first. Endowed by the gods with innate magical senses, elves did not have to struggle hard to live as did early humans. As a result, they had little impetus to develop their society beyond the idyllic existence they already possessed.

Within elf families, strong personalities dominated, though there was no predilection of males over females, as often happens in human or dwarven families. This is because males and females of the elf race are quite similar in size and strength. Moreover, since elves are only periodically fertile, the sexual politics of male-female relations are far less important to them. In some families, fathers might be dominant, but in others, the mother might rule. It was strictly a matter of personal ambition and natural authority.

The elves might have remained contented forest-dwellers of no great civilization had they not come into competition with other budding races, chiefly ogres and humankind. Priestly writers claim this was the will of Reorx, the god who favored innovation and invention. [The elves, on the other hand, see their evolution into a great civilization as absolutely inevitable.] It was this god who set people into competition, as a way to try their strength and wits against each other. Being neither as fierce as ogres nor as numerous as humans, early contests between the races showed up the backwardness of the elves. Shocked by the savagery of their neighbors, the elves withdrew deeper into the forest. Their population became concentrated along the Thon-Thalas River, and this led to closer cooperation between elf families, intermarriage, and the beginnings of national feeling.

In those early days, elves of a certain village would meet in a sinthal, or council, made up of all adults in the vicinity. Problems were discussed (or plain argued), solutions proposed, and plans voted upon. There was no schedule to holding a sinthal; they were convened as needed.

When ogre civilization fell into savagery (circa 6000 PC), their former human slaves ran riot, looting and killing anyone who resisted them. Elven villages in the western forest were burned, and the terrified inhabitants found their simple village councils could not meet the threat of hard-hitting human raiders.

Out of this trouble rose Silvanos Goldeneye, the great founder of the Silvanesti state. Around the year 4000 PC, he convened a special council, the Sinthal-Elish, to forge a union of elves to resist foreign invasions. One fundamental change Silvanos made in the old method of summoning a council was to exclude whole classes of people—females, for one; those younger than 100 years or older than 800, and those too poor to provide themselves with a bronze spear or sword. The 990 elves who did meet his criteria were the beginnings of the aristocratic warrior class that was to dominate the elven nation for the rest of its history.

The Sinthal-Elish was not a coronation for Silvanos. He was challenged for power at the meeting by a number of factions—the Oak Tree Alliance, the Blue Water Elves (not sea-elves yet, but the maritime ancestors of the Dargonesti and Dimernesti), the Greenwood Rangers, and the powerful shaman society called the Brown Hoods. Through the long, contentious meeting of the Sinthal-Elish, one notable rival emerged to Silvanos' claim to power. This was Balif, called the Fair. He was the champion of the Oak Tree elves, who hailed from the north, and favored by the Rangers, ancestors of the Kagonesti forest elves. For a time, as many elves favored him to lead them as favored Silvanos.

When it looked as though the budding elven nation would sunder into angry, warring factions, Balif asked the Brown Hoods to send him on a spirit journey, to discover the future fate of the elves. Several shamans refused his request, deeming it blasphemous to pry the secrets of the future from the gods, but one Brown Hood agreed. His name was Vedvedsica, and he lurks in the background of much of early elven history, part watcher, part puppet master.

Balif, given certain herbs and subjected to certain potent spells, went on spirit journey forward 4,000 years. He saw the path of greatness lay with Silvanos and his descendants, and not with him and his. When he awakened, he returned to the Sinthal-Elish and announced his support of Silvanos. Thus was born the kingdom of Silvanesti.

In gratitude and in recognition of Balif’s talents as a warrior, Silvanos named him first chief of House Protector, the elves' warrior society. Balif went on to perform many deeds of wisdom and valor before succumbing to a very strange fate indeed (a story outside the scope of this treatise, alas).

The aristocratic-monarchical pattern was established for Silvanesti, and continues to this day. Outside the city of Silvanost, however, traces of the old village council system remain. Most elven towns have a governor, often a warrior of House Protector or a senior scribe from House Recorder, appointed by the Speaker of the Stars. In some provinces, the lord of the land rules in the Speaker's name, though this happens in only the most rural areas. For day-today matters, most elves outside the cities still rely on the old village sinthal, in which all the local adults participate.

What happens, one may ask, when the orders of a royal governor and the will of a local sinthal clash? This seldom occurred until the era of the Kinslayer War, when the edicts of Speaker Sithas cause hardship and resentment in the provinces. The groundswell of support for the founding of Qualinesti came in large part from elves in the western provinces who'd felt the heavy hand of Sithas' taxation, war levies, and loyalty purges. Most independent-minded elves took the opportunity to depart the despot Sithas.

Since the erection of the magical shield around Silvanesti, little information has emerged as to the health of the elven state. Given the increasingly harsh attitude of the Silvanesti toward foreigners and change in general, it is not unreasonable to assume things will go on as they have for thousands of years. [Some rumor, possibly garbled, has reached us of a band of rebels, led by Alhana Starbreeze, who seek to penetrate the shield. Mayhap they will be successful, and we will at last hear more than rumor out of Silvanesti.] In several hundred villages, the royal governor collects taxes and dispatches them to the capital treasury, while in a humbler house not far away, concerned elders and matrons meet to decide when to plant, when to hunt, when to hold the village fair, and what to do with their wild sons, who ride fast horses late at night, drink too much, and disturb the rest of the neighbors.

It might be imagined given their history as rebels, the Qualinesti would have a freer, less aristocratic form of local government, but such is not the case. Building a nation from scratch as they did, the Qualinesti chose to build a highly centralized system based on logic and military necessity.

Each province in Qualinesti has a governor, appointed by the Speaker of the Sun upon recommendation of his high council of elders. True to the polyglot nature of the country, governors are not always elves, but elves do predominate. The governors rule the province in the Speaker's name and enact laws based on the written code of Qualinost. Leading subjects of the province have the right to petition the governor about specific matters, but the governor is ultimately responsible to the Speaker and not to the residents of the province. Despite their authoritarian style, provincial governors of Qualinesti have been generally remarkable for their generosity, fairness, and forbearance.

One Qualinesti governor who came to a bad end was Hidduna Makyarthar, appointed during the reign of Speaker Silveran. Hidduna was named governor of Halfmoon province, land now submerged under the New Sea. Aside from a few Qualinesti retainers and a smattering of human tradesman, the vast majority of Hidduna's subjects were Kagonesti elves.

The Kagonesti, who lived in tribal bands much like the human Qué-Shu and other plainsfolk, resented having royal authority imposed on them. They regarded any decision made without consulting them as tyranny, and believed it was their moral duty to resist it. Even modest matters, such as deciding what days would be market days and regulating the hunting of game, caused fierce resentment among the Kagonesti. Resistance to the law led Hidduna to use troops against the recalcitrant forest elves. Forty-four days after assuming the mantle of office, Hidduna ordered the trial and execution of three Kagonesti hunters as bandits. Their crime consisted of killing one more deer in a single hunting trip than royal regulations allowed.

Following the trial, scores of Kagonesti came to Hidduna's capital, the village of Demilund. The day the three hunters were to be hanged, forest elves stormed the jail, freed their comrades, and put the building to the torch. Hidduna's guard, consisting of forty lancers, sixty-two men at arms, and a corps of archers, could not contain the hundreds of Kagonesti. The guard holed up in Demilund's town hall, all the while sending frantic messages to Qualinost for relief.

Hidduna himself, a spare, haughty elf of common lineage, fell into Kagonesti hands when they seized his home the next day. Stripped naked, he was pelted with mud and dung until he stumbled out of town, alone.

That wasn't the end of the conflict. Through skillful lies and astute political maneuvering, Hidduna persuaded the commander of the Qualinesti army, Lady Verhanna, to lend him a squadron of cavalry to hunt down the "criminals" who deposed and humiliated him. (He made the Kagonesti out to be bandits rather than disgruntled subjects with legitimate grievances.) The cavalry surrounded several Kagonesti haunts, capturing their ringleaders. On their way out of the forest, the soldiers were set upon by a large force of enraged Kagonesti, led by the redoubtable former Wildrunner Khamkeli. Using nets and stones, the Kagonesti disabled large numbers of cavalry without killing them. When Hidduna was captured a second time, he was hog-tied and carried off by the Kagonesti, never to be seen alive again.

The truth came out about Hidduna's heavy-handed rule, and the Speaker Silveran set things to right by appointing Khamkeli himself as governor of Halfmoon province.

On the village level, Qualinesti government is more democratic. Most settlements have a mayor, or headman, to oversee public projects, settle disputes, and see to the collection of taxes. Males and females are eligible for the job, and nonelves can serve if elected. The right to vote for headman belongs to every taxpaying resident of the village. Upon paying yearly taxes, a Qualinesti subject is given a clay or wooden token with the royal arms on it. The day of an election, this token is also a ballot. Baskets are set up in the village square, and subjects drop their token in the basket bearing the name of the candidate they favor. [Such was the case before the Knights of Neraka's occupation of Qualinesti. Under the military rule of the Knights, the authority of elven councils has been much restricted, though they have been permitted in most instances to continue their existence.]

In Silvanesti, judges and officers of the law were temporary posts, usually filled by appointed priests or soldiers. The Qualinesti created a full-time system of judges and constables. Judges were chosen by the governor of the province from the ranks of righteous clerics. On occasion a secular judge, a scribe for example, might be chosen instead, but this was not usual. Constables were volunteers. Persons wanting the job had to apply to the local headman, and were subject to confirmation by the governor. Most constables were retired veteran soldiers. In Kagonesti country, experienced rangers were actively recruited to police the wildwood.

The most famous Kagonesti constable is an elf of our own time, Robien the Tireless. Robien tracked down and captured the murderous bandit Tycon, who was wanted in Ergoth for killing twenty-seven people. It took him fifty-nine days, but he trapped Tycon on a cliff top in the Kharolis Mountains. Rather than face justice, Tycon jumped to his death. Even then Robien didn't give up. He carried the broken body of the murderer back to Ergoth to prove he had done his job.

Many people in Silvanost and human lands predicted the Qualinesti experiment would not work, that people of different races could not live in harmony. Time has shown these prejudices to be false. Now Qualinesti groans under the heel of the Dark Knights, but the people endure, and will endure, so long as they preserve the institutions and values that made them who they are.

The Kagonesti, or forest-dwelling elves, owe no allegiance to the Speaker of the Stars in Silvanost. For centuries they paid the Speaker homage, but never acknowledged him as their overlord. With the sundering of the elven nation, many Kagonesti embraced the new state of Qualinesti, but their infatuation with the new nation didn't last long. Gradually they fell back into their timeless ways, hunting the trackless forests. They profess to despise all authority, all government, yet they run their affairs in a very hierarchical way. Family groups combine into clans of cousins and other near relations. These clans associate into tribes or bands, but only in the loosest sense. Power resides in the hands of the clan elders, who interpret age-old traditions and apply them to modern problems. Age, wisdom, and ancestry determined who can or cannot be an elder.

Even with this structure, no Kagonesti feels bound to submit to the judgment of anyone else. If accused of wrongdoing and found guilty by his elders, a forest elf can simply move to another clan territory and resume his life. If his crime is serious enough, avengers may track him down and mete out rough justice. The Kagonesti assign no shame to voluntary exile. As their saying goes, "one part of the woods is as good as another."

Because of their isolation, not much is known about the politics of the Dargonesti or Dimernesti. Virtually all we know about the deep sea elves comes from the account of Qualinesti princess Vixa Ambrodel, who was captured and enslaved by the Dargonesti but ultimately escaped. The sea elves apparently have a very militaristic society, organized along army lines, with a speaker-monarch at the top. Unlike their dry land counterparts, Dargonesti rulers are most often female, a curious fact in a social order that puts males ahead of females.

Undersea settlements are organized on military lines, with a commanding officer, subordinates, and rank and file inhabitants. Considering the harsh, hostile environment of the deep ocean, this is not a surprising arrangement. Leaders tend to work their way up through the ranks rather than ascending by appointment; success in battle and fighting skill are more important than connections.

The shoal water elves resemble the Kagonesti in their love of independence. They also live in family type clans, ruled by councils rather like the old pre-Silvanos sinthal. Like the Kagonesti, if life deals a Dimernesti an unwelcome blow, he or she can swim away and start anew elsewhere. The shallow waters allow for this freedom, something the dangerous depths where the Dargonesti dwell cannot.

LOCAL LIFE AMONG HUMANS IN ABANASINIA, ERGOTH, GUNTHAR, SOLAMNIA, AND ELSEWHERE

Lying on the northern border of Qualinesti is Abanasinia, a land where people of many races have settled. The chief inhabitants currently are humans, dwarves, centaurs, and goblins. Many elves fleeing Qualinesti ahead of the Dark Knights have settled there of late. Protected by forbidding borders of swamp and mountain, Abanasinia has escaped the worst attention of dragons and Dark Knights alike.

Abanasinia is a confederation of city-states and tribes of the plainsfolk. The cities of Long Ridge, Zaradene, Ankatavaka, Solace, New Ports, Haven, and Crossing have differing forms of government, but cooperate for the common good of the country.

The port cities are devoted to trade, and all are ruled by merchant-princes. Zaradene's rule is shared among eight princely houses, all of whom owe their wealth to sea trade. One prince is elected by the other seven to be Seal-bearer of Zaradene for a period of three years. During that term the Seal-bearer acts as head of state, but his (or her) power is not absolute. The other seven princes act as a privy council to the Seal-bearer, and power is divided among them so that no one prince can seized sole possession of the throne. Certain pairs or trios of princes have the authority to name judges, set taxes, and appoint commanders of the army and navy. The only significant outside opposition to the merchant princes are the priests, who once held great sway over the common people. Since the Summer of Chaos, clerics have lost their standing. Many temples were looted, and the empty buildings closed by the princely council.

Money talks in Zaradene. There are no elections, but successful merchants can buy influence with the princes. This is done quite openly, and is not considered corrupt.

Crossing, another port, is also ruled by the merchant class, but on a broader scale. Every tradesman in Crossing, no matter how grand or how base, is considered a member of the Scales Society, whose symbol is (naturally) a money changer's balance. Society members tithe one twelfth of their yearly income to the city, and from that Crossing pays its city guard, coast guard, and bureaucrats. Most of the city services run on their own, but the annual Crying of the Budget is a heated, contentious process. The Scales Society meets in a great hall and debates the allocation of funds for the coming year. Factions exist within the Society—the Cloth Hat group, wealthy merchants who no longer dirty their own hands doing business, and the Black Nails faction, made up of those tradesmen who toil for their own benefit. As you might expect, the Black Nails are more numerous, but the Cloth Hat richer, so their struggles never end. Nonmerchants, no matter how highborn or wealthy, cannot participate in Crossing's government.

New Ports was founded by a fleet ship captains after the second Cataclysm. Not surprisingly, the town is run like a merchant ship, with each trading house having its own "captain" and "crew." The houses deal with each other with the same etiquette as ships, bartering for goods or services they need. While this works well enough on the small scale, it does limit New Ports' ability to interact with other towns. There's no central authority, no mayor or city council to speak for New Ports. Attempts have been made to found a Captains' League, in which every ship master and house captain would have a say, but as of this date, the concept remains merely an idea.

Ankatavaka is ruled by a college of former priests. This harsh oligarchy consists of fourteen senior and thirty-eight lesser ex-clerics who still maintain sacerdotal titles and costume. For decades, passing ships put in to Ankatavaka for supplies and spiritual protection. The priests and priestesses did a brisk trade in charms against storms, pirates, and sea monsters.

Common folk abandoned the temples when the Summer of Chaos ended and the gods departed the world. In Ankatavaka, the priests converted their temple treasuries into worldly power. They hired mercenaries and seized the town from the civil government. Now, bolstered by soldiers of fortune, the clerics maintain a pose of spiritual authority for all they do. How long they can remain in power is the question. Few ships call at Ankatavaka for magical purposes anymore. Mercenaries fight for pay, and when the money runs out, they will depart, or else take the town for themselves.

The inland towns of Abanasinia have distinct populations, traditions, and strengths, but their method of government is quite the same. Solace, Long Ridge, and Haven all have mayors, elected headmen. In Solace, anyone who lives within the shade of the great trees may vote when an election is held. The only requirement for mayor in Solace is age; humans must be at least 40 years old to serve, dwarves 80, elves 200. This is to ensure wise, experienced leadership.

Long Ridge's mayor is chosen at a harvest festival. Candidates have to stand before a bonfire on the last night of Harvest Home and declaim their qualifications for the job. After that, all the candidates compete in various physical and mental tests, the most famous of which is "Shifting the Log." A large branchless tree trunk is sunk into the ground in a clearing. The candidates have thirty minutes each to try to move the log. They can only use tools they can carry, and they are allowed no help from other people or animals. One legend tells of candidate Rufus Wrinklecap (not the Rufus Wrinklecap), a kender who decided to try to become mayor. While his burly human rivals tried felling the tree with axes or digging under it with shovels, he watched idly with just a hand auger on his lap. None of the candidates could budge the massive trunk. When at last the kender's turn came, he strolled to the tree, climbed it, bored a hole in the top two inches wide and four inches deep, and planted an oak seedling in the crevice.

Rufus was declared the winner, even though he seemingly hadn't disturbed the tree at all. It was pointed out that in time, the oak seedling would split the old trunk asunder—thus his action moved the trunk, albeit very slowly.

Alas for history, Rufus was not a good mayor. He slept through council meetings, hated collecting taxes, and spent the town treasury on crystal wind-chimes for every home in Long Ridge. [This is not necessarily bad. It could be argued that on the whole it is better to be a mayor who does too little than one who does too much.]

Haven, as it name implies, is a peaceful place. Shielded by fortune and nature from much of the evil in the world, Haven is ruled by the descendants of its founders. Fiercely conservative, Havenites grant privileges according to the blood relationship a resident has to the founders of the town. Elaborate genealogical charts are drawn up, showing how the current resident is descended from this founder or that. Votes are apportioned accordingly, which accounts for bizarre situations such as one person having nineteen thirty-seconds of one vote, and another one and one-twelfth vote. Ballot counting takes days and a team of scribes with counting beads to process it. For all this complication, Haven is no better run than Solace or Long Ridge. A mayor is a mayor, whether chosen by casual voters in Solace or the athletic prowess of a young blood in Long Ridge. Their duties are much the same each place, and all mayors commonly serve for two years. Proud townsmen in Haven, Solace, and Long Ridge would defend their own system, but in the end, they all get the government they desire and deserve.

North and west of Abanasinia lie the two halves of Ergoth, once a solid land before the First Cataclysm. The terrible warlord Ackal Ergot united the human city-states around 2600 PC and founded the mighty Ergoth Empire, a savagely splendid tyranny that once dominated the western half of Ansalon. For eight hundred years the emperors of Ergoth ruled, sometimes well, sometimes ill, from their capital of Daltigoth. The government of the old empire was based on naked power, though ostensibly there were rules of succession. Emperors usually named their eldest son as their successors, or in some cases, younger brothers. In practice, barely half the designated successors ever gained the throne. The rest were deposed by ambitious generals, assassinated by their own families, or bewitched into uselessness by the legion of wizards that clustered around the seat of imperial power.

Provincial life in Ergoth was hardly better—it was little more than heavy-handed despotism, in which favored cronies of the emperor were rewarded with districts they could rule as they saw fit, so long as taxes were delivered to the Imperial Treasury. The history of provincial rule in Ergoth is one of shameless exploitation of the common folk, who in desperation often resorted to banditry and rebellion just to stay alive.

There were points of fairness and justice in the empire. The city of Caergoth, now on the Ansalon mainland, was a haven of industry and culture, far outshining the vulgar splendor of the capital city. The north of Ergoth, along the border of the kender state of Hylo, was blessed with a favorable climate and a dynasty of generous governors, who ruled with temperance and good humor for several centuries. It was the fall of this beneficent administration that first incited the great Vinas Solamnus to raise his hand against his liege lord, the emperor. [Among the manuscripts acquired by the library since Astinus's disappearance is a chronicle of Vinas Solamnus's rise to power.] The land known now as Solamnia was once contiguous with Northern Ergoth, and the plight of oppressed farmers and ranchers was plain to Solamnus. His grievances with the empire increased, until in 1801 PC, he led a march on Daltigoth to force the emperor to surrender his northeastern provinces to Solamnus's control.

The reduced state of Ergoth continued on as it had before, but the forms of imperial glory became increasingly false and ceremonial. As the power of the throne waned, the power of the provinces increased. Governors became hereditary lords of their domains, and paid less and less heed to orders from the capital. Industry and agriculture expanded, and the period from 1700 PC down to the time of the Cataclysm were known as "the Fortunate Years" for the common folk of Ergoth. They still lived under arbitrary rule. They had few rights but those granted to them by their overlords. It was the enlightened, open-handed rule of individual provincial governors that enabled the people of Ergoth to prosper.

After the land was broken by the First Cataclysm, things changed. The warrior class, so long the undisputed masters of Ergoth, found their numbers severely reduced by disaster and disease. The more numerous and resilient peasantry were able to assert themselves by withholding their labor from lords they did not like, and in some cases emigrating to escape a cantankerous governor. Northern Ergoth was depopulated for just such reasons, large numbers of people moving to Solamnia in the first two centuries PC. In their place came kender from Hylo and goblins, neither of which were as valuable as subjects to the emperor. Being neither reliable nor hard-working, the new residents of northern Ergoth assisted in the general decline of the empire's fortunes. The ogre occupation of Southern Ergoth was the last straw. The imperial court moved north to a new capital, Gwynned, and once the ogres were evicted from the south, a new and greater threat appeared in the form of the white dragon Gellidus.

Today Ergoth is divided politically as well as geographically. The north, with Solamnic garrisons at Gwynned, Lusid, and Manic, is free of dragons and Dark Knights. Local town councils on the Solamnic pattern have sprung up, replacing the corrupt old imperial bureaucracy. Townsfolk and peasantry are relatively safe and comfortable, and in return, they look to Solamnia as their masters, not the court in Gwynned.

Southern Ergoth languishes to this day: an inefficient, graft-riddled imperial system of appointed officials; a puppet court at Daltigoth that wastes money on the pretense of being a true imperial capital; and the shadow of the dragon Gellidus, whose baleful influence has turn the once-temperate isle into a frosty wasteland. The people of Southern Ergoth have no rights and live under the constant threat of death and oppression.

Solamnia assumed the mantle of leadership from the faltering Ergothian Empire. For twenty centuries Solamnia stood for justice, tolerance, and courage, and despite lapses in its national fortunes, still retains those virtues today. Founded by the wise Vinas Solamnus, and protected by the knightly order he founded, Solamnia avoided the error of Ergoth and became a nation ruled by law, not by naked force.

Early in his reign as uncrowned king, Vinas Solamnus had a code of laws drawn up, based on the honorable tenets of the knights' Oath and Measure. One of the first laws in the code established the right of free people to choose their own mayors and headmen. Qualifications varied from district to district, but the usual mayor of a Solamnic town was an older man, possibly a retired Knight or soldier. Though not specifically forbidden by the Solamnic Code, women rarely became mayors. This was probably due to the influence of the Knights' own order, from which women were excluded.

As discussed in the section on Qualinesti, the franchise in Solamnia was extended to every subject who paid taxes. Upon paying their taxes, Solamnic subjects were issued a certificate on parchment (earlier ones were stamped on clay disks), which they turned in as their ballot when an election was held.

Today judicial and police tasks are handled entirely by the Knights. Any Knight in good standing may convene a court and judge cases. Any Knight in good standing can act as a constable and arrest malefactors where found. Lesser members of the order—squires, men at arms—can act as police, but they have no judicial authority.

Where Solamnia has extended its rule, so too has gone its political system. The isle of Gunthar is thus ruled, and the northern island of Ergoth has almost entirely gone over to the Solamnic system.

Factions tend to develop in cities with a dense population, so it is surprising to learn that factions exist in Solamnic politics. Smaller groups come and go, but three main factions have remained important since the time of the First Cataclysm. The Rose Party is the faction of the Order itself. It seeks to align every aspect of domestic life to the ideals of the Solamnic Knights. In a way, the Rose Party is a civilian limb of the Order, joined by those who could not enter knighthood themselves. The Rose Party is widespread and well respected by the common people.

Frequent opponents of the Rose Party are the Sunrisers, a group that sprang up in the turmoil that followed the First Cataclysm. The Sunrisers believe the Knights (and therefore the Rose Party) are backward, conservative, and an impediment to progress. The Sunrisers unfairly blame the Knights for the havoc of the first upheaval. [This view was, in fact, widespread before the War of the Lance. Sturm Brightblade's sacrifice upon the High Clerist's Tower in 352 AC did more than any single incident to reverse this prejudice. Since then, this view has found adherents among some—though, by no means, all—members of the Legion of Steel.] They believe in progress—as they say, "Look to the sunrise, not the sunset"—and think the Knights are the biggest problem Solamnia faces.

When the Knight of Takhisis first appeared as a force to be reckoned with, they received enthusiastic support from the Sunrisers. Later the Sunrisers realized the Dark Knights were not the force of progress they took them for. Still, it is a common charge today for people to label the Sunrisers as dupes of the Dark Knights.

The third prominent faction in Solamnic politics is also the newest. The Stars by Day Society began as a secret cabal of religious fanatics who plotted to take over Solamnia (and the rest of the world) as part of their plan to bring the gods back to Krynn. The Stars by Day Society even had an armed force, the Summoners, who sacked several towns in the lands north and east of Solamnia proper. The Summoners came to grief when they tried to take on the blue dragon Khellendros, who destroyed them to a man in the Battle of Midnight (6 SC). The Stars by Day Society still exists, though they now claim to eschew violence. Their influence is perhaps greater in Nightlund and Throt, but nowhere are they strong enough to threaten the established order.

Nightlund, the dark land, has no law but the sword, no power but Chaos, and a population ridden with legions of the Undead. What few normal folk who remain within the borders of Nightlund band together for protection. Matters of trade and liberty take second place to safety. The shipbuilding center of Kalaman still exists, as do the city's traditional guilds. The old league of guildmasters that once ran the city has given way to a city guard, chiefly manned by ex-pirates and other soldiers of fortune. The commander of the City Guard has nearly absolute control over Kalaman, though the day to day running of things is left to the guilds.

The kingdom of Nordmaar suffered badly during the Summer of Chaos. Whole villages perished during the fighting, and no one knows what became of them. In former times, the king of Nordmaar ruled with the help of the Hundred Elder Thanes, warriors of long service in the army. This sounds militaristic, but in fact Nordmaar was a prosperous and free country. The yeomanry have considerable rights under the law, and any free subject can serve in wartime and acquire the status of thane to the king. Nordmaar produced powerful women warriors, and at least one notable warrior queen, Kithri, called the Long-limbed. Kithri fought the Knights of Solamnia to a standstill in the War of the Sky (202 AC), so-called because most of the fighting took place in the high Khalkist Mountains. The war ended amicably, with Kithri pledging friendship to the knights. Kithri's treacherous nephew, Orbald IV, tried to dissolve the thane council and rule autocratically, but he was brought to bay by force of arms at North Keep. He signed the Warrant of Nordmaar in 229 AC, which forever granted the free people of the realm the right to resist tyranny of the crown. Even in its weakened state today, Nordmaar people are proud of their independence and their fierce tradition of self-determination.

Neraka, once the personal fief of the Dark Queen, is now home and haven to the Knights who bear her name. The Order rules Neraka in military fashion, with the governor-general of the Knights being the supreme law of the land. [Gen. Mirielle Abrena led the Dark Knights from the time of the Chaos War until her assassination earlier this year. Since then the Order has been controlled by Sir Morhain Targonne, though it is rumored that his position has become less stable than it was formerly.] The country is administered at the common level by hirelings of the order, former men-at-arms or local collaborators who take the Order's coin in return for keeping the common folk quiet. Every town and village pays tribute to their overlords in specie or in goods. In return, the Knights keep order and protect the local inhabitants from outside harm.

Though tyrannical, the Dark Knights do impose a certain kind of grim justice on the land. Malefactors are dealt with severely, and all members of the Order have the right to impose high and low justice (this makes them police, prosecutor, judge, and jury, all in one).

The internal politics of the Dark Knights are still hidden from view, but the outlines are easy to imagine. Efficiency and ruthlessness with the Order's enemies is one road to success for an ambitious member, but unlike the brutal tyrannies of the past (such as the Ergoth Empire), the Knights expect honor and duty to remain guideposts to a Knight's behavior. A Dark Knight may be ruthless, but not treacherous; harsh, but not cruel; patriotic, but not acquisitive.

The most dangerous aspect of the Knights' policies is the their willingness to work with the great dragons. As the beasts have lost control of many of the draconian slaves, having the Knights as their allies means the overlords can keep large areas under their control. The Knights are, in effect, mercenaries for the dragons, keeping order and extorting tribute as the monsters demand. It is hard to reconcile this work with the Dark Knights' claims of honor.

The sorcerous city of Sanction was almost destroyed during the Chaos War by three volcanoes surrounding it, known as the Lords of Doom. The destruction was stopped by the magician Hogan Bight, who not only turned aside waves of lava, but has also led the successful defense of Sanction against black dragons, ogres (from Blöde), and the Dark Nights of Neraka. The city that was once the byword of evil and violence has become a beacon of freedom in a dark region of Ansalon.

In the bad old days, Sanction was ruled by a syndicate of sorcerers, pirates, and slavers. The city itself was rich and handsomely appointed, but the luxury was paid for by the profits of indescribable wickedness. The city suffered considerable damage during the war and subsequent eruptions, but the current reign of Hogan Bight has led to a restoration of Sanction's former grace. Styled lord governor, Bight rules autocratically, but with considerable skill and fairness—so far. Arbitrary power is always difficult for one person to manage without lapsing into tyranny.

Sanction is constantly besieged by hostile forces, chief among them the Dark Knights. The city trades vigorously with other free ports in the New Sea and maintains relations with the Knights of Solamnia. The lord governor has made it plain he considers the chief threat to Sanction the red dragon Malystryx, and concentrates his prodigious magical talents against her.

Sanction has a City Guard that is both army and police force. The Sea Guard is active in suppressing piracy in the eastern end of the New Sea. Officials and bureaucrats keep the city-state running smoothly, but everyone owes his or her life and position to the lord governor, whose power is therefore absolute.

In the center of the New Sea lies the island of Schallsea. Best know for the wondrous Citadel of Light, the island has grown steadily in population and importance since it was formed after the First Cataclysm. Schallsea city, on the west side of the island, is a modern, prosperous town of humans, Qualinesti elves, and dwarves.

The civil administration of Schallsea lies in the hands of the hereditary lord of Schall. The current dynasty, the family Anithas, is descended from human and elf ancestors, though the human quotient is much higher. The current lord (or lady, in this case) of Schall is a young woman, Hyreny n. The court at Schallsea city is run by a high chamberlain, appointed by the lady, and a cabinet of leading townsfolk, nominated by the chamberlain and approved by the lady. Since Schallsea is an island, most of the cabinet members are prominent merchants and sea captains. The island's dwarves represent mining interests on the east coast of the island.

That said, the real rule of Schallsea falls to the great prophetess Goldmoon and her court at the Citadel of Light. A plainswoman, Goldmoon's mystical powers have attracted pilgrims and enlightened seekers from around the world. Supporting the pilgrims, housing them, and feeding them is a major part of life on Schallsea. In effect, Goldmoon is the true ruler of Schallsea, as everyone there looks to her for guidance, if not actual commands. Lady Hyreny is a devoted follower of Goldmoon's. There are factions in the city who are not so impressed with the prophetess's powers, but they are few and not influential.

A garrison of Solamnic Knights was placed on Schallsea at Lady Hyreny's request, to help, safeguard the island against the Dark Knights' ogre raiders from Blöde. The Sea Guard is a small but highly potent force of galleys, who've kept the western end of the New Sea free of pirates for many years.

THE RULE OF NONHUMAN REALMS:
Blöde, the Blood Sea Isles, Duntollik, Estwilde, Hylo, Kern, Teyr, Thoradin, Thorbardin, and Throt

The ogre realm of Blöde sits astride the Khalkist Mountains, stretched out like a grasping hand, reaching for the verdant lands of the Silvanesti. For all their fierce prowess as warriors, the ogres have suffered reverses at the hands of the black dragon Onysablet. Pushed out of the lowlands (which have become swamps under the dragon's malign influence), the ogres rule over a mixed kingdom of humans, giants, dwarves, and a draconian or two. Those not of the ogres' race have little say-so over the affairs of Blöde.

The Blöden are ruled by their chief, currently Donnag by name. The main requirements of the chieftainship are size, muscle power, and a black sense of survival, no matter what the cost. Succession is a bloody affair, wherein challengers fight each other to the death for the right to rule Blöde.

As chief, the ogre king is an absolute monarch. His word is law, and his judgment final. It is not uncommon for an aging ogre chieftain to acquire a band of advisors—usually warrior cronies and drinking companions from his youth—to counsel him when his physical powers grow weaker with age. Membership in the chiefs band is not sought after, however, as the next chief often begins his reign by slaughtering the old chiefs allies and friends.

The Blöden live in the ruined remains of their once fine capital, Blöten. What art they once knew has long been forgotten. Ogres of our time are rough and ready tradesmen in herd animals, minerals, leather, and so on, but they lack guilds to regulate production or prices.

Female ogres are not often chiefs, but they work and fight alongside their lumpish counterparts in fair equality.

Law and justice in Blöde can be summed up in the phrase "Might makes right." Disputes are commonly settled by duels, thieves are routinely killed if caught, and there is no redress for the grievances of the poor or weak.

Blöde's closest allies are their fellow ogres of Kern. Retaining some of the lost splendor of their past, the king of Kern styles himself grand khan. There is little else splendid about the role other than the title. The grand khan is another pitiless despot who rules only so long as his axe is sharp and his enemies die faster than his friends. More so than perhaps in any other country, Kern is ruled by an individual, as no grand khan trusts his lieutenants enough to grant them fiefs within his own country.

The burden of running even a barbarous country down to the smallest detail wears out many an ambitious warlord. There was period of almost thirty years in which the throne of the grand khan was vacant because no one wanted to rule. The impasse was broken by the famous Duel of Ten Days in which two ogre champions, Ungrah and Tono, fought for ten consecutive days. The irony was, the loser had to become Grand Khan, not the winner. Tono eventually killed himself, laughing as he fell on his own sword. Ungrah became Khan, and had an exceptionally long reign, fifty-nine years. In the latter part of his reign he could be heard frequently cursing the memory of Tono, and executing any male ogre within his realm guilty of the "crime" of being named Tono.

The pine wastes of Kern offer little in the way of livelihood, so the chief trade of Kern is brigandage. More honest ogres hire themselves out as mercenaries. The Kernites do breed excellent hunting dogs, which they sell for high prices to wealthy Dark Knights.

Of late, minotaurs have been crossing the formerly impassable Blood Sea to explore Kern. The physical equal of ogres, minotaurs are much more advanced and capable. The time may come when the minotaurs push the Kernite ogres back to the borders of their brethren, the ogres of Blöde.

The Blood Sea Isles consist of four major islands: Karthay, Mithas, Kothas, and Saifhum. The farthest island, Karthay, has no regular inhabitants and hence no government. Seafarers from Balifor and Nordmaar have landed on the island and report it is covered with ruins of ancient origin. It is widely believed to be haunted, and cursed as well.

Southwest of Karthay lies Saifhum, ruled by the grand mariner. As his title implies, the grand mariner is master of a society of human seafarers, whose chief activities are fishing, trade, and piracy, in that order. The office of grand mariner is purchased. When the previous chief dies or announces his intention to retire (they sometimes do), an auction is held. Pirate captains and merchants bid huge sums for the right to become the next grand mariner. The winner has one year to pay up, or be executed. Many are the hopeful pirates who have pledged large sums they haven't stolen yet only to find themselves short when their year was up. They are shortened by a head and the auction held again.

Lesser posts in the government of Saifhum are allotted on a patronage basis. As a result, the island is administered like a business. This sounds hard for common folk, but in fact they do rather well for themselves. Labor is limited on an island, and skilled labor is worth a premium. Guilds made up entirely of working folk exist on Saifhum, and they wield considerable power. The support of, say, the shipwrights' guild can bring a lot of money to a grand mariner candidate, and make him or her beholden to the shipwrights ever after.

The climate of the island (like the others) is balmy and humid. Work is done mainly in the mornings and evenings, and at a slow pace even then. The Saifhumi are sharp traders, skillful sailors, and swift pirates, but at home they are easygoing folk. Political struggles may be settled with a dagger thrust or cup of poison, but seldom involve blood in the streets.

The most famous pirate hailing from Saifhum was Artavash the Red. In the fourth century AC, Artavash contended for the throne of Saifhum and lost to Pertinex "Moneybags," who outbid her by an insulting one silver piece. Outraged, Artavash sent her squadron of sixty ships against the northern port city of Pearl. Repelled by sorcerers in Pertinex's service, she sailed away, striking at port cities along the north coast of Ansalon. She sacked Jotan in Nordmaar but failed to capture the great city of Palanthas. Continuing south by west, Artavash eventually took the island of Kernaf and ruled it as an eccentric pirate queen for many years.

Artavash died during the War of the Lance. A seaborne force of draconians attached to the Red Dragonarmy tried to take Kernaf as a base for outflanking Ergoth and Qualinesti. Though nearly sixty, Artavash donned her armor and led the Kernafi pirates to sea against the draconian squadron. The Kernafi fleet was wiped out, and the pirate queen went down, lashed to the wheel of her flaming flagship, Sea Raven. Her sacrifice was not a vain one. The draconians lost eighty percent of their ships, so they turned back from Kernaf and did not menace it again.

The island of Kothas is home to the seagoing minotaur race, which shares the island—reluctantly—with a colony of human pirates. The master of Kothas currently is Boruz IV, king of all the minotaurs. It should be noted that the minotaurs of Mithas island do not recognize Boruz's claim to be their ruler.

The kingship of Kothas is hereditary, passing through the female line. Like the king of Nordmaar, the king of Kothas rules with the aid of a band of warrior thanes who govern in his name, administer justice, collect taxes, etc. By law, all property on Kothas belongs to the king, all wealth, and all the people are his "children." This leads to some very stylized titles among the minotaurs, such as "King's Warrior Cousin, Twice Removed, of the Mother's Line." Anyone so marked "of the mother's line" is favored indeed, as succession and power passes through the female line. [That fact makes this society unique on Krynn.]

The minotaurs are reticent about their politics and do not like to discuss them with outsiders. Factions on Kothas are therefore unknown beyond the island.

Mithas is a fiery, inhospitable island. The minotaurs have their capital at Lacynos, on the northwest shore. The island was once covered with a dense forest of hardwoods, but over the centuries the Mithasians cut them all down for shipbuilding.

The island is ruled by an oligarchy of ten noble families, all descended from outcasts from Kothas. The ten lords divided all endeavors by ten, apportioning a few to each family. Thus the family Praz rules over rope making, grains, bronze and copper work, brick making, and so forth. Other commodities and trades are under the auspices of other nobles. The facets of life were divided in such a way as to insure cooperation. For example, the Praz make brick but not mortar, so they must deal with the mortar makers' lord, just as the carpenters need Praz rope to outfit a new ship. The oligarchy works well, and keeps the minotaurs close-knit in the face of human pirates from Saifhum and their own minotaur competitors on Kothas.

Duntollik is a relatively young nation, formed by human plainsfolk of Duntol and the centaurs of Willik for their mutual protection against the incursions of dragons. The two races cooperate but seldom coexist. The plainsmen follow their traditional tribal ways, which are too dissimilar from the centaurs' way of life. In fact, their methods of choosing their chiefs is almost identical, though developed independently of one another.

When a chief grows elderly or sick, or is badly injured, he calls the males of his tribe together in a great conclave. Candidates for the new chieftainship are named by approbation, and they compete in feats of strength, endurance, and wit. The contests can go on for days, even weeks if the field is large and the contenders well matched. The winner is usually so obviously superior, no dispute breaks out.

Thereafter the chief rules in consultation with the tribal elders and special subsidiary chiefs—a war chief, a hunting chief, and so forth. [From the few reports brought back out of Darken Wood, the centaurs in that mysterious place are ruled by a council of elders known as the Circle. The Circle is presided over by the high chief, but the dominant leadership belongs to that half-mythic figure, the Forestmaster.] These are usually young males of the tribe who have distinguished themselves in their field.

Females among the centaurs are not without power. Spiritual and clerical matters are in their hands, and in matters of peace or war, they have equal say with the males. Females have been known to fill out the ranks of a war band as well.

Centaurs are exceptionally tough, able scouts, and are highly sought after recruits by other armies. They live in some of the least hospitable terrain in Ansalon, deserts of sand and ice. Centaurs complain little, strive hard, and pride themselves on their self-sufficiency. Government is not something they give much thought to; indeed, they see tribal organization mainly as a way to wage war, trade profitably, and regulate mating practices.

The Estwilde is a land without law or sovereign government. Often crossed by hostile armies, it tempts conquerors as a warm, fertile province, but the inhabitants are so blackhearted and stubborn, no one has ever managed to control the region and make it yield any bounty.

The population is a wild mix of goblins, human, dwarves, centaurs, and giants. Such disparate people are not likely to get along, and they don't. Living in isolated clans, tribes, and warbands, Estwilders war with each other as much as they fight outsiders.

The dwarves of Estwilde pay allegiance to the head of the Neidar clan. Particularly quarrelsome and grasping, the mountain dwarves' chief living is hiring themselves out as prospectors. They're very good at finding valuable mineral deposits but very bad at reporting accurately to their erstwhile employers.

The human inhabitants live in savage tribal conditions, with fortresslike strongholds from which they raid their neighbors. Their chiefs rule by the sword and perish with distressing regularity by the sword.

Centaurs live in nomadic bands. They keep on the move, trading in livestock and spices. Sullen and selfish, they are less violent than their human counterparts, if only because they have an easier living. Chiefs of their bands come to power by overthrowing their predecessors and stay chief only so long as they can hold down their many rivals.

The most settled folk in Estwilde are, oddly enough, goblins and giants. Both are despised by their more numerous human, centaur, and dwarf countrymen, the goblins for their supposed dirtiness and treacherous natures and the giants for their reputed cannibalism. In fact, the goblins work very hard to survive in a land that yields them no quarter. Young goblin males hire themselves out as mercenaries, but the only employers they can find are the dragonarmies. This makes them even more despised.

Goblins have an aristocratic system that transcends national borders. The highest of goblins is the kinghead, who has no court or crown but moves about the country looking like any common wight. There are dukes and lords and counts among the goblins too, who also live indifferently among the lower born. One theory about this odd system is that goblins copied it from legendary empires of the past—Ergoth's, for example—as a means of becoming "civilized." Over the centuries goblins have become very class conscious and among themselves behave with strict decorum, according to their rank. This natural subservience makes them useful servants and slaves, but does not earn them any respect.

Giants fear no creatures smaller than themselves. They live in rough stone houses in steep mountain valleys. Size confers rank among the giants. The tallest giant, male or female, is obeyed anytime a group of giants gets together. The tallest of all giants is designated as the khan, or king. Since giants do little but farm and hunt, they have little need for government. The task of the khan is to settle disputes between giants, [Usually by thrashing both parties with a tree trunk until they agree to behave.] negotiate trade or tribute from other peoples, and conducted magical ceremonies intended to promote the welfare of the giant race.

For such a patchwork country, Estwilde has resisted some very powerful foes, both dragon and non-dragon alike. Lacking real cities or a real government to capture, Estwilde is curiously difficult to conquer. [Not that a conqueror would get much. Estwilde is populated by an unpleasant combination of mountain barbarians, centaurs, and dwarves, as well as the odd goblin and giant. Furthermore, its boundaries have been reduced by the depredations of the dragons Fenalysten and Lorrinar.] The only way to control the country would he to occupy every square mile, putting down the resistance of half a hundred tribes and clans belonging to four different races. No army has the time or manpower for that, and the country isn't rich enough to justify such a monumental effort.

Hylo was born by happenstance. About 3,000 years ago, a band of kender washed ashore in a bay north of Ergoth. They prospered in typically haphazard kender fashion, penetrating the dense forest as far as the Sentinel Mountains, west of the bay. Since the conquest and destruction of the kender nations of Balifor and Kendermore, Hylo has become the kender homeland, and thousands of exiled folk have crossed land and sea at great peril to rest in the last haven of their race. [Though many, to the horror of the rest of Ansalon's population, wander freely through all the lands.]

For many centuries, the throne of Hylo belonged to the Windseed family, who reigned in an easy, openhanded way. Kender don't like rules, and the Windseed dynasty survived a long time by not making any. It's tempting to say the dynasts were merely ceremonial rulers, but along the way traditions were established—not by law but simply by familiar usage. Thus Hyloans pay taxes—when it suits them. The tax money goes to support minor government efforts such as an ancestors' shrine in Hylo City, an archive of scrolls with tales of Uncle Trapspringer and other kender heroes, and so on.

Every kender in Hylo is subject to call-up for the national militia in times of war, but there is no standing army. The Windseed family home (one cannot call it a palace!) was traditionally guarded by a squad of Solamnic Knights, but during the crises in the east following the Chaos War, even this small guard was withdrawn for duties in more crucial areas. As a result, when refugees from Balifor and Kendermore flooded into Hylo, there was no guard to resist the coup d'etat staged by the ambitious Belladonna of Kendermore. When confronted with the usurper and her minions, the reigning dynast, Fallana Windseed, reportedly remarked, "How rude!" She was kicked out of her house, and spends her days now complaining to anyone who'll listen about the bad manners of the eastern kender.

One curious side effect of kender lifestyle is that the population of Hylo is primarily children and the elderly. Adult kender of both sexes wander the world for many years, leaving their homes in the care of the too-young or too-old. This may help explain why kender government is so lackadaisical.

The history of the dwarf realms of Thoradin and Thorbardin are too lengthy to summarize here, but it is important to recognize the clans that dominate dwarf society.

Thoradin is home to members of the Daergar, Daewar, Hylar, Theiwar, and Zakhar clans. Politics in dwarven nations is about the struggle for supremacy between the clans. Thoradin was long under the rule of the despised Zakhar dwarves, dark and reclusive folk even by dwarven standards. Under threat of dragon attack, the xenophobic Zakhar tried to seal their mountain caverns against invasion, but reform forces under the visionary Severus Stonehand overthrew the last Zakhar king and his cronies, the Council of Prelates. Severus installed a Thorbardin-style monarchy in Thoradin, consisting of himself as high thane and supported by a council of thanes drawn from all the other clans, including the defeated Zakhar. In theory, the high thane can be overruled in decisions by the unanimous vote of his council, but a powerful personality like Severus Stonehand is not easily thwarted.

Dwarves take their politics very seriously. They seldom break clan lines, supporting the elders of their clan in bids to become thanes to the king. Occasionally a heroic figure like Severus (who is a Daewar dwarf) will win support from dwarves of all clans.

Thorbardin, greatest of all dwarf nations, is a wealthy, stable land of laws and justice. The high thane rules with due consideration of his council, and though the law of succession is by family and clan, the council of thanes retains the power to remove the high thane should he transgress against Thorbardin law.

In matters of national policy and trade, all adult Thorbardin dwarves vote their preference. Each clan represents a point of view as well as a family alliance, but clan lines tend to blur in Thorbardin. The stable, educated population tends to see issues facing their nation more broadly than as mere clan problems, and act accordingly. This is not to imply the Thorbardin dwarves have outgrown clan rivalries; they have not. Years of interaction with outsiders, especially the elves of Qualinesti, have given the Thorbardin dwarves a more worldly outlook than their Thoradin cousins.

Law and government do not exist in Throt. It is a true no-man's land, more so because no men call it home. The province is occupied by hobgoblins, goblins, ogres, and trolls. Most of these are runaway mercenaries once hired as sword fodder by the minions of Takhisis. During a lull in the wars, hobgoblins evicted the human settlers of Throt and quickly established themselves in a warren to tunnels and barrows. Displacing them was an ugly problem even the Knights of Solamnia were unwilling to undertake.

The wide-open state of Throt attracted other brutes in similar disarray, and waves of ogres, goblins, and trolls have swept into Throt, but they have not succeeded in overcoming the tenacious hobgoblins.

Like their kindred the goblins, hobgoblins have adopted the forms of monarchy and aristocracy. Unlike the goblins, they have attempted to created a true upper class for themselves. Throt has a self-proclaimed king, Uhkrin the Vile (called Uhkrin the Terrible to his face). With his ramshackle "capital" at Throtl, Uhkrin has made extortion and graft an official function of the state. In the kingdom of thieves, he's the biggest thief of all. All Throtians pay a percentage to the king in return for his "protection." Uhkrin in turn pays out coin and favors to maintain his large army of thugs and criminals, grandly labeled the Royal Army of Throt.

Sited as it is between Solamnia and Neraka, Throt does a brisk trade in espionage. For obvious ideological reasons, Throt tends to favor the Dark Knights over Solamnia, but the hobgoblins are well aware of the dangers of dancing too intimately with the ruthless masters of Neraka.

Getting by in daily life in Throt consists of paying off those more powerful, either in cash or in kind. The poor have no help, and theft is endemic. How long Throt can endure in such a state is a guess only the former gods could make.

Of other lands, now occupied or controlled by the great dragons, there is little to say. The dragons draw off the strength of the country for their own use, as a leech draws off the blood of its victim. Using intermediaries such as the Dark Knights, or hired mercenaries, the dragons reign supreme in their territories. They are likely to remain so until a greater power appears that can meet them on equal terms.

Trade and Commerce

Bertrem's Note

I have always considered it to be my good fortune that since I was committed to the care of the Aesthetic Order at an early age I have never lacked those basic goods without which life is impossible: food and shelter. I have thus been able to devote my life to learning and contemplation without immersing myself in the mere vulgar struggle for existence that preoccupies a large proportion of the population.

Such, at least, was my opinion until recently. In the wake of my masters disappearance and my meditations that led to the commissioning of this book, I have begun to wonder if perhaps we in the Order are too insulated from such things. In an effort to correct this, I have several times in the past months left the library and wandered through the marketplace of Palanthas, examining goods, listening to the sellers chant their offers, and watching buyers make counteroffers.

I have found the entire experience enchanting. The world of commerce has been largely unknown to me, and I have had to approach it as if I were learning some strange, mystical tongue. Thus the survey of my researcher was particularly useful and enlightening, offering as it does a picture of the lifeblood of trade flowing through the veins of Ansalon despite the world-shaking events of the past half-century.

On the streets of Tarsis, in the avenues of Palanthas or Gunthar or Haven, even in steamy lanes of Nordmaar's capital, the journeyman bard goes out to busk, that is to say, he sells his song for his supper. A wise man at trade, he finds a good place near a tavern or inn, perhaps in parks where the wealthy are likely to promenade. He sparks his crowd with amusing tales, but his lute or his rebec plays most sweetly when he sees a lady walking by. Reels and jigs and ditties learned from kender are fine for earning a capful of coppers, but for the lady the bard has songs to tell of love, tragic or felicitous. His journeys have taught him that if a lady's heart is touched, she will reach into her purse and bestow a handful of gold pieces, perhaps even a silver coin or two. If he has a good day selling his songs, the bard will have earned himself an amount of coins, copper, gold, silver and bronze to get himself a tankard or two of ale with his meal and a room for the night at an inn that is not the most verminous in town. In the halls of knights and lords, if his song is pleasing—that is, if it speaks high praise for the bard's host, if it glorifies his deeds and his family's history, if it sings of his lovely wife, his wise sisters, and his white-armed daughters—the bard can fare even better. In lofty precincts, the bard's song has a good chance of earning him more than his supper and his bed. He might well go forth from the hall with rings gleaming on his fingers, perhaps with a new sword belted on, or at the very least with a fine suit of clothing or a pair of sturdy boots to take him down the road to a more generous patron. As do we all, the journeyman bard knows that, in all lands and among all peoples, there exists little that is not for sale in Krynn besides the honor of a virtuous lady or that of a true-hearted knight.

The bard, like the chandler, the potter, the butcher, is a trader. He sells his songs, he gathers news and rich gossip along the way, and these, too, he barters for his bed and his bread. [And occasionally advertises. I have known bards who have enjoyed a particularly good stay in an inn to place favorable references to that establishment in their songs. The innkeeper makes a point of inviting such singers to return, for he knows word of his house will spread far and wide, and he owes the bard much of his business. Thus is commercial news often spread throughout Krynn.] The byways of Krynn are as well known to him as the hallways of a lady's castle to her. If he is bold, he takes to the sea, for he knows that his news of other lands and his songs, perhaps too long familiar in his homeland, carry greater value in foreign ports. In his native land or on alien soil, the competent bard is welcome at inn and tavern and alehouse, in high hall and humble hut. If there were days—a long time ago!—when he could count upon a patron to house him and feed him and clothe him as part of a royal or lordly households, bards are in these times no more or less traders than any man or woman devoted to commerce. [Enough word is had out of Qualinesti to inform us that it is still the case that an elf bard can hope to attract a lordly patron—even a royal one—who will reward him as well today as he might have been in older times. One can only guess about the bards in Silvanesti; however it is difficult to imagine that those tradition-bound folk have evolved a change in their attitudes toward, or expectations of, bards.]

ON THE STATE OF SOME FAR LANDS AND NEAR

I have learned some things, gathering my news, about the unfortunate lands. These places are closed to the word, either by the hand of the natives, or by the cruelty of a dragon. The lives of the people are secret to us now, or if not secret, the subject of dark wondering.

There are Closed Lands, and there are Ruined Lands. Thorbardin of the dwarves is among the Closed. The great gates are tightly shut against the world outside the mountain, and so the dwarves of that fabled mountain city have little to say about themselves. Who can know, then, what changes have come upon the folk of the mountain clans? We can only guess how they fare now, imagining that they conduct their society much as they had done. No trader comes out of there offering jewelry, tools, or the weapons for which the mountain dwarves have long been justly famed. Neither do we imagine that they starve, or go in rags. The folk of the mountain have ever been able to feed and clothe themselves, their farms being set in the wide warrens beneath the earth, lighted by shafts of crystal so that crops can grow, sheep can feed, and cattle can graze.

How do they fare in Silvanesti? The words we've had have been ill indeed. Scarred by the terrible Nightmare Years after the War of the Lance, longing only for the resumption of peaceful days, doubtless they thought it was a wise move to shield themselves against the outer world. However that was, a wise move or a foolish one, we know only that the fair Silvanesti have dropped a magical veil between themselves and the world, a veil that perversely is working harm to the people and lands it was meant to protect. We cannot go in, they will not come out, and so the world goes without the fine wines and bows and medicinal herbs we have in the past enjoyed from our trade with the elves of Silvanesti.

It has ever been that the folk of the Dragon Isles shunned contact with the rest of Krynn. Metallic dragons, mysterious huldrefolk, shadowpeople, and kyrie, the inhabitants of these northernmost parts of the world live in lands well able to sustain them, feeding and clothing themselves with little difficulty. Almost from the dawn of days, nothing has convinced them that we of the lands south have much that is worth the risk of contact.

There are Ruined Lands, and these are the New Swamp, the Desolation, and the Northern Wastes. Few can live in these unsustainable places, and those who do care little for commerce, for they have little to trade and must keep all of the food or the materials of clothing and craftware to sustain their meager existence. In the central parts of the Plains of Dust, in Thunder's realm, the folk used to trade in furs and horses, and they would send their wagons to Thorbardin for steel, tools, and weapons. No one trades with the ancient home of the mountain dwarves now, and the people of the plains have learned to look north in order to engage in commerce, and east toward Tarsis. Still, this isn't easy, for they are not used to their newly frozen lands, and comings and goings are chancy things.

In sparsely populated Nordmaar, they no longer trade with Solamnia, for the paths through Estwilde lead through dragon realms, and the river that once took their ships to the interior of Ansalon must face river pirates. Roads for the suicidal, that's what the Nordmaar folk call the old paths. The best they can do is a careful trade with Palanthas in spices and exotic animals, and that is nothing to count on.

These folk in the Closed Lands and the Ruined Lands manage as they must. We outside can only gain news of them in snatches, and we miss their goods and marketplaces.

TO SPEAK OF THE SPEECH OF TRADE

To discuss, as we intend here to do, the state of trade and commerce in these years after the dread Dragon Purge, we must do what the wise man does when he ventures into a new land: We must become familiar with the language. Indeed, trade has its own tongue, commerce its own speech, and we must understand, first and always, that the root of the language of trade is money.

We mint our coins in our various realms. Even in the dragon lands this is so. Upon one side we stamp some thing having to do with the nation that issued the money, perhaps the forges of Thorbardin, the fine and proud horses of Solamnia. Upon the obverse we stamp the image of a ruler, a lord in Solamnia, a dwarven thane, an elven Speaker of Sun or Stars. This we did in the past, but more and more out of Qualinesti we are seeing not the images of their kings and speakers but that of the green dragon Beryl. The same is true in other dragon realms. Skie glorifies himself on coinage, as does Malys. Even Iyesta, who likes to mimic the grander wyrms, gives a fanged grin on the few coins minted in her realm. So great is the pride of the dragons, even the least, that their horned heads, their vast winged forms, adorn not only one side of a coin, but the other. [It should be noted that the coins one can purchase in the open-water markets of Dimernost, those antiquities and curiosities dredged up from fallen Istar, have as money no more value than the worth assigned to their metal, as the coin of any realm. They do, however, have some value among the wealthy, who like to collect such things. In barter a man may get more from a thousand-year-old gold coin with the face of some forgotten king or princeling stamped upon it than he would if it were a steel coin of modem minting.]

The steel coin was not always the basic monetary unit in Ansalon. In the time before the First Cataclysm, as now after the Second, folk prized platinum above all else. There ends the similarity between how our ancestors regarded things monetary and how we do. In those long ago days, they valued gold after platinum, then silver, and after that bronze, copper, and then iron. How hard it is to credit that steel and the precious iron ore from which it is made was but the gross metal from which weapons and ploughshares, hayforks, and harnesses were made!

Ah, but see the changes want and war make upon societies. The people look around and say to themselves, "What worth is gold if it is too soft to make into a sword's blade? What good is silver if I can't use it to craft stern armor to turn back the weapons of my enemies? What good, indeed, is copper if I can't make a plough from it?"

Of course we answer today as they did in the aftermath of that first disaster: "What good? None!" So, through custom and two rages of the gods, we of Krynn have devised a scale of monetary value that, while it might differ slightly from nation to nation, even city to city, looks roughly like this:

The Value of One Steel Coin, Rightly
Minted of Pure Iron Ore Honestly
Smelted, in Whatsoever Land
Not Dragonheld, is Equal to:

Two iron or bronze pieces
Twenty silver pieces
Forty gold pieces
One hundred copper pieces

It is generally known that in most places in the Free Realms, though not all, a man may buy himself a tankard of ale with three coppers and can find himself a fair room for the night by handing his landlord the equivalent of ten silver pieces. While these rates hold true, or reasonably so, in the Free Realms, the same cannot be said of the Dragon Realms. In those benighted lands, where commerce is tightly controlled by the dragons and their minions, folk have regressed to a primitive barter system for doing business. It is ever the case that dragons are less interested in the welfare of their subjects than the state of their hoards, and so the fewer the coins in circulation among the various population, the more for a dragon's glittering pile.

Steel before iron and bronze, before silver, before gold, before copper—now you are becoming adept in the language of commerce. With this knowledge, venture along with me and learn some more. But not of language! Not yet.

UPON THE EARTH, THE RUNES OF TRADE ARE WRITTEN IN THE PATHS OF TRAVEL

Whether you are an elf trader in Beryl's realm or one of the free Abanasinian Plainsfolk, if you are a seaman from the Blood Sea Isles or even an ogre in Blöde bent on plundering one of the caravans whose scouts are luckless or reckless enough to find themselves in the stony lands surrounding Thoradin, you must know how to read the runes of the road. You must know how to travel, and how to fare safely. Go into the cities and buy a song from a busking bard to tell you all about the exploits of heroes, men and women who name their swords and venture forth to do the daring deeds of which legend is woven. As we've said, you can buy those cheap. If, however, you'd like to know what a life of true danger and toil is, consider the birth of the clothes you are wearing.

Out of Qualinesti came the leather for your shoes. The fur adorning the trim of your cloak came from there, too. Elves tanned the leather, and they caught the rabbits, the martens, the foxes and turned the beasts' fair coats into pelts for your adornment. These things they took to the borders of Beryl's realm, and because they are forbidden passage out of there, they turned them over to traders from one of the Free Realms who then carried them on to a town or city or village where the cobbler and leatherman began to change the leather into boots for your feet and that broad belt to hold up your trews.

In the northern part of Solamnia they make fine textiles, and Skie is not so jealous of his borders that he won't let traders go and come. They bring their yarn and yard goods to market where seamstresses make hose and shirts and leggings and blouses, the clothing to keep customers warm and festive. Between the hand of the hunter and the grower and that of the craftsman who makes clothing lies a long way, indeed.

Whether he is an elf whose travel is restricted to Beryl's borders or a free-roaming trader, the peddler of such goods as these, or of pottery, wine and fruit, of books out of Solamnia, of horses out of Khur, gold and silver and gems from Mt. Nevermind, feathers and quills from Abanasinia… no matter what his wares, the trader faces a dangerous and uncertain road. If he is fortunate, he travels in lands where the high roads are still kept up, where it is in the interest of the dragon overlord to see to it that trade flows smoothly or where, in Free Realms, the people have the wisdom to maintain these arteries of travel. Such roads as these, however, paved with good stone or, at least, cobbled, are rare upon the face of Krynn. They are found now only in Saifum and in the dragon Teyr's realm and on the Plains of Dust running out from Tarsis, east toward Silvanesti and south to Zeriak and from Zeriak east.

Both the Tarsian roads vanish before they come near to the sylvan land, disappearing into the wilderness between the Plains of Dust and shielded Silvanesti. Out from Silvanesti runs the old King's Road, another excellent high road, but it lies north of the roads running out from Tarsis. One imagines these fine roads all met in intersection, once a long time ago, before the First Cataclysm left the face of Krynn changed. Built so that the traveler, be he king or yeoman, could go safely, these roads still bear the weight of carriages, a troop of horsemen or an army marching. Even today, they are reasonably well maintained, and if the mile-posts are fallen to rubble, no markers of distance in these later days, if the little ghosts of long-ago inns are seen in the sketches of their fallen foundations beside the road, still we know these as the finest of the roads of Krynn, the ways traders like to take. You will note that the most of them run through the realm of one fierce dragon or another. Only upon the high road in Saifum can one expect not to meet a dragon's minions, people who will demand toll in the dragon's name, a fee paid in money and goods or ultimately in one's life. Be that as it may, these are the roads a trader counts himself lucky to be on, for as roads go, things do not get better when one leaves the high road.

In all lands outside the mountain kingdoms of the dwarves, the lesser roads are not made for trade, they are made by trade. Oxcarts grind out the shape of them, horses, footfare, carts that trundle the tracks between farm and market fair, between the little village and the larger town. The best of them will pass near water, following a stream or river, for oxen and horses and travelers all must have access to water on the journey, as well as to the rabbits, deer, and fish that go to drink and that will make a traveler a good suppers. These, too, are clean roads; that is, they are free of brush and don't wind through woodlands where bandits and looters can hide in ambush. It has always been in the interest of farmers going to market or villages whose seasonal market fairs wish to be profitable to keep these byways clear and safe. The hard work of clearing brush and trees is borne, if not happily, at least in the understanding that very often a village's welfare depends upon safe ways to and from it. That hard work being tended to by the landowners, they can count on travelers to maintain the ways and they clear the brush for cooking fires. Thereby, each group passing, keeps the road in good form.

This custom of clean roads holds in all the Free Realms, and it holds in the Dragon Realms other than those that are frozen of old or newly frozen by a dragon's breath. There the trader does not venture far from his home. He counts on his bold sled dogs to get him from one place to another and on his wits to let him know how far he may go before he must turn again and come back. To the folk of Icewall, this has always been the way. In the newly frozen lands of Northern and Southern Ergoth or the regions of the southernmost part of the Plains of Dust, people are still learning what every ice barbarian child knows from the cradle: Go with the sun, return before the moon, and your best trading partners are those who live but a noon's distance from you.

Neither does the custom of maintaining roadways hold in that part of Malys's country known as the Desolation, in most of Onysablet's New Swamp, and in the northern part of Skie's country. In the first, the Desolation is but a trackless waste where outlaws encounter bandits, but never upon any road, for none exists. The New Swamp is the home of the undead and the half-mad who care little about direction or how fine the road. That Footprint of Chaos at the top of Skie's realm is home to no one, not even the memories of those who died there when the shadow-wights overran it during the Chaos War. Of these places, these empty wastes, we will not speak much more.

In Free Realms or lands dragon-held (and we speak now of lands not those sea haunts of the Dimernesti or the mountain realms of dwarves,) the footpath found in seaside cities is held in high esteem. The finest examples will be found in Haven and in any of the port cities of Saifum. It leads, inevitably, from the dockside to the nearest taverns and alehouses, from there into the heart of the city until it intersects cobbling or paving. The footpath is made by accretion, a creation of sailors and shipbuilders who lay out sawdust and ash, then a layer of tar, more cinders, more ash, more sawdust, and then tar again. Well traveled, these footpaths are hard surfaces that drain well and are gratefully used by chandler, smith, shipwright, captain, and ship's passenger alike.

THE PATHS OF THE SEA

Nothing like the runes writ upon the earth are the paths of the sea. These ways are more dangerous than the shifting sands of Kalaman, sliding and slipping. Those traders who ply the seas best know the changeable runes writ on the sky, on the water, and on the wind. Trust your cargo to the minotaurs of the Blood Sea Isles, or the seamen of the Solamnic coast; pay them what they ask to take you or your wares to far ports of trade. [But do not expect a high profit after paying transportation costs. The minotaurs take their toll in either steel or in a share of the goods carried.] In the slapping of his sails, the captain hears the way of the wind, with a lodestone he reads his way, and upon the face of the night he charts his course. No paved road for him, and islands are his way-markers, the course of the lone white moon, the path of the sun his footpaths. These folk, seamen in good days and ill, have learned to read a sky bereft of one moon, have learned to find their way across the oceans of the world even though the patterns of the stars have changed. No kender could better map the sea than a minotaur, though no kender would gladly admit that. [The library possessed in the past a large collection of kender maps, including at least one of the Blood Sea. Fortunately I do not believe any traveler actually attepted to cross that tumultuous body of water using this map.]

INN FROM THE COLD!

The wise trader who ventures the roads of Krynn knows the names of all the inns and alehouses and taverns along his way. He knows where his oxen or horses will be best quartered, who has the finest food and drink for him and his companions, who has beds that are—if not utterly free of vermin—at least warm. He knows what alehouse has a good reputation, what inn is run by those who can offer him the promise that if his goods are kept under their roof they will not be stolen or tampered with.

If he trades within his own country, he is certain of the customs of the towns, sure how to treat those he meets with respect, and knows how to observe all courtesies. However, the venturesome trader who intends to cross into lands unknown to him, his wagons packed, his horses loaded, must go more carefully, being sure to keep his wits about him. Who, in any inn on Krynn, has not heard the story of the man who, going into Thorbardin in the days before the Dragon Purge when trading still took place between the folk of the mountain kingdom and the outside world, did not come out again for lack of courtesy? There he sat, well fed at the table of his dwarven host, lifting tankards of ale to the health of the householder and the wealth of the city and, in a quiet moment taken to consider how he would begin to open negotiations with his host for the Nordmaar wine he wished to sell, sat stroking his beard and smiling, well content with himself. Out came the knives! Off from the wall the swords! The men of his host's house leapt cursing to their feet, fiery eyed and ready to avenge that most mortal of insults.

What insult? you ask. So stammered the Nordmaar trader with a dagger tip under his chin, a sword tickling his ribs. "What have I done? I've said nothing!" Indeed, he had said nothing in words. In gesture the insult he gave to the dwarf who was his host was the unforgivable one of belittling his manhood, perhaps even wondering, though ever so subtly, whether those laughing children playing at his wife's knee were, after all, truly the fruit of his pitiful loins (and so, defaming the virtue of his innocent hostess, into the bargain).

Sadly, the Nordmaar trader did not come alive out of Thorbardin. He'd not explained himself quickly enough to his hot-tempered host, who only heard his gurgled explanation as the last of the blood leaked from him. The wine was kept, some drunk in the name of the poor fool who'd brought it, and the story of him wandered out of the mountain fastness, first told as a good joke about the utter ignorance of the outlander races, later noised about as a cautionary tale to all who might follow, the message of which is clear: Learn well the custom of the land in which you travel!

The place to learn these things, or at least enough to get you in and out of a nation with your skin still covering your bones, is at an inn where, if you are quicker to listen and observe than to talk, you will discover many good and valuable things. In near lands or far, the finest hostelry is an inn where the host is proud of his fare and the hostess of her house. The best inns and taverns are found in Abanasinia and Schallsea, for the folk there trade in hospitality as keenly as the elves of Dimernost's open-water market trade their exotic seafood and marine plants. The one trades for coin, the other for meat and fruit from the human merchants, but each knows he is in business.

In story and song we have heard of the famous Inn of the Last Home at Solace, that hostelry that is still in the hands of the Majere family and whose reputation is burnished by each passing year. Adventures have been launched from its leafy quarters, stories of heroism and tragedy begun and finished and begun again. Yet the most of the people who stop there to drink or dine or rest from the road are not clanking heroes in armor with swords girded on. They are traders on the road with goods handed over to them at the Qualinesti border, leather and wine and the famed elven liquors, bows and arrows and pottery packed well in straw and carried as tenderly as though it were, each piece, a live and fragile being.

Some of these trade goods are bound for Haven and then on to the New Sea where they may see land again in Solamnia or in southern cities such as Duntol or even Tarsis. Other goods will head west for Zaradene where they will be shipped across the Straights of Algoini to shivering Qualimori and freezing Silvamori and across the Last Gaard Mountains to Daltigoth. This land, once filled with fruit-bearing trees and carpeted with herbs, both culinary and medicinal, once stood proudly self-sufficient. However, the white dragon Gellidus changed the countryside into wintry wastes, and the elves and ogres are now eager to trade with whomever puts into their chilly ports. The elves welcome the craft-ware, the fruit of kiln and pottery shed, while the ogres of Daltigoth are content to trade fish and the brilliant white furs of the snow fox so prized by Qualinesti women. In these ports, as in so many others, the trader and his wares are greeted with the same delight as though they were heroes coming home. (Of course it is well known that the delight in ogre quarters is a grim glee that contemplates treachery and deceit while promising fair dealing. But even in those dark places, a profit can be had if the trader is lucky and skilled with his weapon.)

As at the Inn of the Last Home, any innkeeper worth his name will welcome a guest as he would his kin. He will find him a good room, a place for his beasts, and fill the manger in the stable as full as the trencher on the table. He will charge his guest fairly, he will provide good company if company is wanted, privacy if that is needed. He keeps his eyes and ears open and his wit sharp, for he trades not only in food and fare but in news as well. What is the state of the road ahead? What is heard about the doings in Tarsis? What do you know about the way down from Long Ridge to Haven? Have the ogre bandits become so bold as to surge out of Blöde this year? These things, the good innkeeper knows, and what he doesn't know, his wife and children do. Keeping in mind the touchiness of dwarves and elves and ogres and the prickly honor of the Knights of Solamnia, the taverner or innkeeper in such lands as Gunthar, Kayolin, or Palanthas, can be counted on to dispense information regarding local convention, this for the sake of assuring himself returning customers.

THE GLOVER, THE WAX CHANDLER, AND THE PARCHMENT MAKER

In some parts of Krynn, most notably those lands blasted by a dragon's cruel breath, icy or fiery, folk subsist on what they can grow or hunt or steal. They live pale lives of fear and hunger. Want sits at their tables; need watches beside their beds. Since the Dragon Purge, we of Krynn have watched sorrow and shadow touch many of our lands, we've heard sorry news brought out of the Dragon Realms by refugees and bards and traders, but all is not as grim as one might imagine. We are born, we die, and in between times, we trade. We make clothing and leather goods, we carve wood, we grow grain, we hunt, we fashion jewelry, we make candles, we tan hides, we fashion books from parchment made from those hides and from leather for the covers. We are happy to parade ourselves on festive occasions in silks and satins, glittering with jewels out of Kayolin or Mt. Nevermind, and we eat food never grown within our own borders.

We are fleshers and brewers, we are barrel makers and potters. Ribboners and scavengers—the latter being not the persons who actually clean the streets but the persons in charge of the rakers who do the cleaning—and we are glaziers, fullers and tile men. We fish, and we weave; we spin, and we build. We are bougemen—ah, that fine old term is still in use!—and that means we are the makers of leather water-bottles. In Thorbardin, she is a cappelnytter who makes caps and bonnets, though she is a milliner in Solace who does the same work. In most lands, a lodeman is one who makes compasses, but in Qualinesti he is known as a starman. For what reason? We are not certain. Perhaps it is that the ‘star’ in starman refers to the stars by which one steers?

From Qualinesti to Tarsis, to the Ergoths, to Gunthar go furs and fruit, leather and wine and the far-famed elven liquors. From Palanthas, books and beer and ale and textiles venture. Though the shipwrights of Kalaman no longer ply their trade for lack of the wood they used to import from the Blood Sea Isles, those of Palanthas have taken up the slack. The people of Khur trade horses and harnesses, they deal in diamonds and glass and spices, and they take weapons and armor in return. Tarsis, dressed in Qualinesti furs and leather, trades metalcraft, harpoon heads, fish hooks and sled runners with the Icewall barbarians, and in Nordmaar they still make those wonderful liqueurs a trader lost his life in Thorbardin trying to sell. Out of Mt. Nevermind come jewels and gold and silver, and the Plainsfolk of Abanasinia send out furs and grain and horses and feathers and woven blankets. The kender of Hylo provide the world with cunning woodcraft and such medicinal herbs as comfrey, chickweed, aloe, chamomile, raspberry leaves, oatstraw and cleavers. Kender are, even the Afflicted among them, still the finest mapmakers outside of legend. [Here, in my opinion, the researcher's enthusiasm outruns her pen as well as common sense. Kender maps, in my experience of them, are like kender themselves: disorganized, scatterbrained, and with only a limited correspondence to reality. They do, however, have one virtue. Because of the kender urge called wanderlust this curious and annoying race often wanders into areas previously undocumented by more reliable mapmakers. Their maps are thus occasionally useful as "rough drafts" of unexplored lands.] From these nations and lands goods flow, gladly out of Free Realms or grudgingly out of dragon lands, and for this the skilled craftsmen and shop owners at one end of the flow or the other are ever grateful.

In other times, calmer days, it was not unusual for an adventurous craftsman to take to the roads of Krynn, traveling near and far in autumn to garner orders for his work and wares. He had a regular route, customers who looked for him, those who knew him, those who had heard of him. Fed and housed among these folk, he enjoyed a comfortable season until he returned home to craft the goods ordered. Through winter, he would work, and come spring the byways of Krynn would feel his feet again, perhaps this time accompanied by an apprentice leading a laden packhorse or driving a wooden-wheeled wagon.

These days in which we now find ourselves, however, are not calm, and even in the Free Realms it is the bold man who ventures out to solicit orders. Most craftsmen leave the roads to traders, depending upon them to bring the raw goods and come again to buy the finished product.

In cities such as Palanthas, Portsmith, and right down to Caergoth, in Abanasinia's Zaradene, in Tarsis and Sea Reach, Pearl and Sea Breeze, in Elmwood, Thelgaard and Garnet, crafters follow the same custom. They set up shop in an open-air market or bazaar, or, in cooler climes, they have shops on the streets named for their trades—such addresses as Poulterer's Street, Fuller's Way, Gold Row, Milliner's Mile. From there they sell their wares and make their wares. In front, the wife or daughter or sister of the craftsman tends her patrons, taking orders, selling what wares stand on the shelves in display. Behind, in a separate building (not another booth or tent, if one is talking about the warm weather bazaars, but a more secure structure) the work is done by the master craftsman and his apprentices. Gowns are sewn, jewelry set, candles dipped, glassware blown, and the chickens throttled and plucked for hanging.

All round these places, in the open-air markets or in the tidy shops, the language of trade fills the air, that tongue whose roots go as deep as the roots of the world and whose words, while often sounding familiar, take on meanings they don't have outside the world of commerce.

Sometimes the difference between a word's meaning in trade and the same word casually used elsewhere is a subtle one. Says the lad to his father, "Da, here's your pack!" and the father, who had been searching low and high for something to carry his rope and sleeping roll, his spare socks, his clean shirt and other necessities of travel, smiles at his boy and thanks him. The woodcutter who takes his harvest to the marketplace of Long Ridge cries, "Two packs of wood for twenty gold! Twenty gold gets two packs!" is not suggesting that he will take your gold coins for so paltry an amount of wood as would fit in your pack. No, he's saying that two cords of wood—that is, two packs—can be had for twenty gold. If you are offered cloves at the spicer's shop, the pungent dark spice will be weighed out by the ounce, but if the wool merchant offers you a clove, he is offering you seven pounds of the fruit of his herd's back.

A barrel will hold butter, beer, herring, and tar. A cartload will carry hay, straw, and rushes. Ask for a chaldron of new coal, salt and quicklime, but when you want a cradle of glass, you will find no baby packed in with your wares."Please," say the housewives in Tarsis, "I'd like a frail of those lovely Qualinesti pears, and do dip a jar of honey from that bolle, but only if it's the apple blossom honey that comes right from Hylo. None of that clover honey from Abanasinia for me!" She will go then, to the fishmonger and request a stick of eel, specifying that she wants ten of the best and freshest, and she will watch as the fish are strung onto a stick by the gills.

A stick, you say, and who is to know how many eels will fit on any one stick? Ah, well, those who live in the town or the city know that the fishmonger in their market cuts his sticks to a certain length and so they can depend upon a fair and standard count. However, should they travel to another town, people are best advised to take the measure of the fishmonger's stick there before assuming that the ten eels that fit upon a Tarsian stick will be offered upon a Caergothian one.

They have, then, a rather sophisticated idea of measurement in the cities and towns, but in the rural areas of Krynn the trades that depend upon manual labor—quarrying, harvesting, such works as that—don't speak of sticks unless they are looking for something to use for a fence pole or kindling. There the folk are often unlettered, and so they count their harvests by using the old-fashioned method of tag tallies and rod tallies. Each woolsack has a tag attached to it which the bundler will hand to his master to be counted so his wage can be reckoned on a per-tag basis. The field laborer who harvests crops will have his tally scored upon a stick or rod. In this way, the worker who cannot read can still be assured of a fair accounting. The fruits of the rural worker's labor is drawn for him in scores or piled before him in tags.

They are not only the unlettered who depend upon symbols to communicate in trade. In the lands of Krynn one can hear many languages, among those languages, many dialects. From the days before the First Cataclysm, people of all races and nations have used a system of marking their goods and shipments so none can be confused about who is the maker, who is the shipper.

A chronicler has spoken of an object found in fair Qualinost, discovered after the elves evacuated their shining city during the War of the Lance. The account describes the object in this way:

A small wooden stag, frozen by the woodcarver's art into a graceful leap… . A child's toy… Carved in the belly of the stag with deft strokes that might have been only the careful feathering of the beast's fur, was a stylized anvil bisected by a dwarven F rune.

This mark of which the chronicler speaks is, of course, a trademark, the sigil with which a dwarf signed his work to say that here is the craft of one Flint Fireforge. As did the dwarf, so do all other crafters and makers, even growers. Apples from the orchards of Qualinesti are shipped in crates marked with the sign of the sun on either side of which stands a spreading tree. Their pears bear a simple brand, the sun-mark in triplicate, one following another. That sun-mark is the basis of all trademarks out of Qualinesti, standing alone or combined with runes or other markings. In older days, when the elves of Silvanesti traded with other races, their goods were marked, branded, painted, or etched with intricate designs within which could always be found stars. We know that the finest chandler in Caergoth bands the crates in which he ships his candles with a pillar of flame. In Tarsis every housewife knows that she will not come away disappointed if she buys yarn from the merchant whose trademark has ever been a fat skein with loops numbering only seven. This family has been providing yarns of excellent quality for generations, come war, come cataclysm, come peace itself, for they know who makes the best dyes, who grows the finest wool, which spinner does the best work. [There are, indeed, laws in all lands to prohibit the theft of a trademark. The identifying mark is considered as much the property of the craftsman as are his tools or his stock. Woe to the thief of a maker's mark! Once fined by the local authority, he will find himself prohibited from trade in the town or village or city, his wares refused by shippers.]

Marked with the maker's sign, goods sent out to other lands are further branded with the shipper's sign. Overland or oversea, the shipper knows to put his mark beneath that of the maker so that when the goods arrive in port and are off-loaded to crowded docks it is easy for him to reckon his accounts, and easy for those who receive his shipments to know what is in the bundle or crate he is hauling away.

THE GOODS WE CANNOT TOUCH

We have spoken of pots and glass, of food and clothing and wine to drink. We know from whence come our plates and knives, our weapons, our armor, our horses and hose. There is, then one more kind of ware of which we must speak, the goods we cannot touch.

At the start of our discourse, we met the busking bard, the minstrel with tales to tell, selling his song for his supper. We have alluded to another of his functions, that of carrying and fetching news and gossip. Such things as these are not always the pastimes of the idle; often they are of great import. The bards of Krynn aren't the only folk to trade in news and information. The goblins of Throt, spies upon the borders of Solamnia, do a brisk business in secrets and information, selling their wares to the Knights of Neraka when they can, in other markets when they must. The most enterprising of their kind will make himself two coats to wear, one when he is selling his goods to the Knights of Neraka, another when he is peddling his wares to those who stand against the Dark Knights, members of the Legion of Steel, the Knights of Solamnia who are, sadly, reduced in numbers but not in faith, or even, it is said, the master of sorcery, Palin Majere himself.

What will a man pay for a spy's news? Those rates are not established. What is a life worth? What value to place upon an enterprise that might end by seeing elves freed from Beryl's cruel reign or humans from the terrors of Skie's rule? How well will a dragon's minions pay a spy to go into enemy lands and come back with reliable news about the secret machinations of mages or the shrewd maneuver of the legionnaires as they delicately pull political strings? Those rates of pay are struck on the moment, lives weighed in the balance against measures of steel and a whisper slipped across borders.

There you have it: the tale of trade, of the blood of commerce flowing through our various civilizations, nourishing us with food, clothing us, housing us. In these hard times, perhaps the flow is not so easy as it has been in some places, perhaps easier in others, but this thing the wise know: In good time or hard, whether by barter or in currency, all folk who live will find a way to trade.

Celebrations and Festivals

Bertrem's Note

The seasons come and go, and the moon and sun travel across the sky in their never-ending cycle. With each passing year the world grows older. Such is the rhythm of Krynn.

The common folk mark this passage of time with festivals and holidays. I take no position in the debate that opens the following essay. I will merely observe that in my experience people find holidays most useful for relieving the burden of their labors and forgetting, even for a short time, the stress and strain of everyday life.

To those who study the history of our land, these festivals are also of great interest, since they often mark some significant event—be it a birth, a death, a war, a cataclysm. For my readers, I can only say that perhaps this section of my book will convince you of the diversity and richness of this world we inhabit and of the varied and fascinating customs of its people.

Recently, a fascinating debate has raged within the halls of the Great Library of the Ages. It began, as near as I can tell, when two of my brother Aesthetics were embroiled in a discussion of the various methods historians use to mark the passage of time. Calendar dates are, of course, the most dispassionate measures existent, but many scholars eschew their use within individual works in favor of measuring time around a central event (for example, a particular treatise on the revival of the Solamnic Knighthood goes to great lengths to pinpoint events by their proximity to the death of Sturm Brightblade—the event the author equates with the Order's redemption in the public eye). This drives home the author's thesis and, at the same time, forces upon it more credence than it might hold on its own merits—in order to finish the work, the reader must participate in the thought process that the author espouses, thus hopefully making it more palatable by the paper's end. (For the record, I suggest this practice be discouraged among the Aesthetic Order. Our papers and essays ought to be beyond such pettiness as maneuvering for acceptability. We dispassionately report on events and, most importantly, have no vested interest in the reader's conclusions, whatever they may be.) [True. The researcher's suggestion has been taken under advisement by the leaders of the Order.]

The topic transformed slightly at some juncture, and became a debate about how the common folk measure time. After all, most people on Ansalon do not have access to calendars, sun dials, or other accurate time-measuring devices—they simply give their best guess at a correct date and go on with their lives. In truth, to the farmer, shepherd, or blacksmith, it makes precious little difference whether it is the final day of Deepkolt or the first day of Brookgreen. Furthermore, even the days of the week have little real significance to most folk unless they follow particular religious observances.

So how do commoners measure time?

One fellow argued quite vociferously that the seasons formed the posts by which time is measured in homespun societies. "There is nothing," he pointed out, "more regular, reliable, or impactful on the community as a whole than the seasons. Ask them when they plant their seeds, and they'll answer, ‘In the spring.’ Ask them when an important historical event occurred—like the death of Sturm Brightblade—and they'll answer, ‘In the winter.’ Their days, years, and entire lives proceed according to a schedule defined by the passing of spring to summer to autumn to winter and back to spring. Nothing else could possibly have so strong a hold on such folk!"

He made a very convincing case. Still, his opponent remained unmoved.

"The seasons may dictate the people's actions," he began, "but they are not the measuring stick of the year. You see, seasons are fickle. The coming of the spring thaw can happen anywhere within a span of three months, and the heat of summer can last for months or only a fortnight. Farmers do not plan their lives around the seasons—they can't. How could anyone plan around so inconstant a standard? No, the marks by which the common folk mark the passage of time are holidays and festivals."

This brought a chuckle from those gathered to watch the debate, a not-insubstantial crowd by my recollection. In a chorus of rowdy cries—or as rowdy as we Aesthetics are allowed to get—they pointed out the error in the man's logic. "Holidays happen on specific days," they said. "Your position was defenseless the minute you agreed that simple folk have no accurate calendars!" They laughed the way an older child laughs at siblings who still believe that babies come from heads of cabbage. The author of the theory, though, stood with a look of triumph in his eye and patiently waited for the crowd to calm.

"When is Spring Dawning?" he asked.

"The twenty-first day of Deepkolt!" someone shouted back.

"Wrong!" the brave orator replied, though in fact the date was accurate. "For the Qué-Shu, Spring Dawning occurs on the day when the sun rises over Thorbardin and sets directly atop a specific bend in the River Toranth. For the wild elves of Southern Ergoth it is the day when the sun and moon each rule the sky for exactly the same length. And for goblins in the service of the Knights of Neraka it is exactly three days before Mirielle Abrena's birthday. [In light of Abrena's assassination, it will be interesting to see if the Knights continue to mark this date.] The ‘simple folk,’ as you call them, were observing the same celebrations on the same days for years before we ‘smart folk’ decided to set them down on the calendars.

"Farmers, peasants, and barbarians may not have calendars, but they do watch the stars and track the phases of the moon to keep an amazingly accurate record of the days of the year. (This was even more accurately done when they had the advantage of three lunar bodies.) They cannot accurately predict when the first frost will come, but as sure as Astinus's writings, they know which day will be the shortest of the year. Seasons are what folks use to pattern their work, but holidays are the way they measure their lives, no matter what inclement weather or act of the gods hamper their progress. It is holidays that these people anxiously await, not the change in season, because they can be sure of the holidays—they are something that the people created and control, and they are what tell the people if the summer heat is running particularly long or winter snows are long past due."

A most impressive proposition—indeed one that brought the assembled throng to its feet, and the opposing debater to his knees. In a long, roundabout way for which I'm told I have a penchant, [He does. I have had to speak to him about it.] it brings me to the subject of this report.

The racks of the library are replete with discourses on the various holidays of Ansalon. However, to a one they deal with ancient traditions—in other words, ones whose genesis can be found in one of Krynn's earlier ages. They may still sit neatly on our calendars, but they no longer fit as neatly into the annual marker posts described by the eloquent Aesthetic in my tale. In nearly every case this is because of the world's current unilunar state. The old holidays were created to occur in tandem with the waxing and waning of three moons. With only one moon remaining, observances for many of the old holidays had to be modified both in timing and substance for them to remain pertinent in the current age. At the same time they created new holidays whose celebrations lay in perfect synchronization with the new celestial progression.

This report, as requested by my superior, examines holidays and festivals as they are currently enjoyed by the common folk of Ansalon, paying particular attention to the newly created celebrations that have thus far come to my attention. Some of these are observed by only a few isolated cultures, others have become popular among most (perhaps all) cultures on the continent, but all of them are clearly creations of the Age of Mortals.

Spring holidays

My first inclination when beginning this document was to list the various holidays beginning with Year Day and continuing in the order they appear on the calendar. However, I soon realized the amazing incongruence this created. After all, how can one hope to put forth a credible argument when one's own format works counter to that point of view? No, if my thesis remains that holidays and seasons are the peoples' measuring sticks, then that is how this treatise needs to be arranged.

So let us start with spring, the time of year when all life begins anew. As a rule, spring holidays revolve around one of two things: production or reproduction. Holidays of production—chiefly "Harrowing"—celebrate the season's devotion to growth. Farmers plant seeds, craftsmen repair damages suffered during the winter months, and merchants plan the routes for their caravans. Business and nature both enter their annual period of expansion. Meanwhile, holidays of reproduction—as exemplified by "Children's Day"—honor the cycle of life. They encourage people to plan not just for this year but for all the years to come. It is when people or creatures are at the height of power that they must plan for their decline—beavers build winter dams when the spring saplings are most robust, squirrels fill their hollows with seeds and nuts when there is food to spare, and people have children when they are young and strong so that they will be grown and can aid them in their old age.

These are the themes of spring, and clearly reflected in all of her holidays.

SPRING DAWNING
(THIRDMONTH TWENTY-FIRST DAY)

Spring Dawning is generally accepted as the first day of spring. Of course, as any farmer might tell you, "spring starts when the snows melt, but it's no fun until Spring Dawning." In other words, for those who live in practical rather than academic circles, the season's start is tied to physical reality rather than arbitrary dating but, no matter what the weather, on this day we celebrate spring's arrival. It is the day of the vernal equinox—when day and night are in perfect balance.

Spring Dawning celebrations vary widely from community to community, but most include some sort of public festival and feast. On Palanthas's Central Plaza two knights (one dressed in snow white, the other clad in the green of spring leaves) perform a mock battle to symbolize the change of weather. The origins of this tradition lie in an annual tournament held by the Knights of Solamnia (the city's former—and many still say rightful—rulers) wherein the Knights split into two camps (the white and the green). Legend said that if a Knight of the Green won the tourney, summer would be quick in coming, but if a White Knight was champion, it would be a long and chilly spring. In the wake of the Knights of Neraka's annexation of the city, though, the event became much more ritualized and steeped in political dogma. The Spring Knight is always a representative of the Nerakan regime, while the Winter Knight bears a none-too-subtle resemblance to a Solamnic Knight.

Abanasinian towns, such a Solace, host large festivals featuring stalls selling crafts and wares of all description. Some scholars theorize that this tradition has its origins in a form of community assistance to craftsfolk who spent the winter stockpiling wares and find themselves strapped for coin by the time good weather arrives. The Qualinesti call this holiday Fontanalia, and consider it a day to honor the spirits that dwell in flora and fauna. Young elf girls often wear garlands of newly picked flowers, and bards compose and perform odes to nature's perfection. [Among the elves several important celebrations occur about this same time (or shortly after) such as Kith-Kanandras (see below). We must assume that despite the shield these holidays are still celebrated by the Silvanesti as they are by the Qualinesti.]

CHILDREN'S DAY
(FOURTHMONTH FIRST DAY)

If Spring Dawning celebrates the change in weather, then Children's Day is simply a celebration of the miracle of life. On most other holidays children find themselves saddled with extra chores, tasked with being on their best behavior, and forced to wear their best—which to their minds means most uncomfortable—clothing. (According to my research, many adults in the rustic communities feel the same way about formal wear, but the pull of tradition keeps them donning overly starched material holiday after holiday.) Children's Day, though, is a time for wild abandon and reckless joy. No one dresses in fine clothing unless he or she desperately wants it to be ruined in all the rough-housing the day brings.

Both children and adults set aside normal chores this day and engage themselves with whatever activities they find most enjoyable. Organized games run the gamut from sporting contests (such as wrestling matches, archery tournaments, or overland races) to "treasure hunts" (where the adults hide sweets, toys, and other prizes around the town, and the children spend the day trying to find them all).

In farming communities, where it is more difficult to find the time to take an entire day off, regular chores are set aside in favor of more pleasant (though still essential) endeavors that are in tune with the day's theme of celebrating life. Farmers will typically spend the day planting trees, or building and repairing items that belong to their offspring. As the children grow, this is the day on which they are allowed to choose an animal to care for as their own—a tremendous responsibility but one that is seen more as a prize than a chore by most young farmers.

Children's Day is also considered a fortuitous day to breed livestock. Any calf, foal, or lamb born on this day is considered an omen of good luck. Such animals generally get better treatment than the rest of the herd, and a disproportionate number of them go on to be blue ribbon winners at fall fairs and tournaments.

HARROWING
(FOURTHMONTH FOURTH DAY)

According to most scholarly sources, Harrowing is the oldest holiday on the Ansalonian calendar. Fewer and fewer people actually celebrate this day to mark the start of planting season, but most folk are aware of it, and the day still holds some real significance within farming communities. In ancient times, the date of Harrowing would change from year to year based on the particulars of that season's weather. What's more, the day would be celebrated on different days in different regions of the continent, each region having its own proper time to begin planting due to its respective latitude. However, the Kingpriest of Istar standardized the date (as he did for so many holidays) in the years just prior to the First Cataclysm.

There exist no single accepted mode of celebrating Harrowing. Each area has its own unique traditions. For example, Solamnian farmers set aside a small patch of their fields to devote to a simple and somber ritual centering around the planting of the "first seeds"—the truth is that in some years, the rest of the fields are fully sown weeks before this patch, while in others these first seeds are doomed never to sprout due to inclemently frosty weather. If the seeds do grow to be harvested, the crop is also set aside and used only for ceremonial foods. All this was originally intended to honor Paladine and the gods of good. Even now it is celebrated to signify the return of the land to life.

Other regional celebrations include a series of fertility rites observed by the Plainsmen of Abanasinia and Duntollik, which include dancing around a pole decorated with colorful vines. Most communities of dwarves see Harrowing as a time to clean out their larders of last winter's stores. They feast until all the remain supplies have been consumed, freeing the storage space in anticipation of fresh bounty to come.

The oddest traditions belong to the Khurrish humans and the kender. In Khur they believe that this is the day that wrongly imprisoned spirits return from the Abyss in the form of spring rain and windstorms. In years when the weather is fine on this day, the Khur celebrate. If clouds loom on the horizon, though, they fast and pray until the skies clear again. Kender, on the other hand, consider Harrowing a day for practical jokes. Thankfully, they generally keep the chicanery within their own ranks, but those of other races who take kender into their homes and treat them like family should beware—they may not find out that they are considered "honorary kender" until they take a mouthful of intentionally over-spiced stew. [Any human who takes in kender as house guests should be used to this sort of thing. ]

VISITING DAY
(FIFTHMONTH ELEVENTH DAY)

Unlike most other holidays, research does not reveal any occurrence or historical event to explain the origin of this holiday. In fact, the closest scholarly papers come to pinpointing an origin to Visiting Day is a kender tradition of "Hi, How Are You?" (a localized version of Wanderlust). Most folk are loath to admit that they learned anything from kender, so the true history of this holiday may never be known.

Whatever its beginnings, Visiting Day is celebrated in most parts of Ansalon. Traditionally, the morning is devoted to cleaning one's home thoroughly—there is likely no tidier day in a given year than Visiting Day. When the work is done, the rest of the day is spent either visiting neighbors and relations or entertaining those who have come visiting you. It is traditional for the visitors to bring gifts (usually of food and drink) to those they visit so as not to overburden the poor hosts. A common problem of Visiting Day, though, is that everyone is out visiting somebody else, and the only people one sees at all are those one passes on the road. The people of Kalaman have formed a tradition around this fact, and celebrate the holiday by having a miles-long picnic along the city streets.

This is also the designated day to return items one may have borrowed from neighbors during the past year. "If your neighbor still has your tools after Visiting Day," a Nordmaarian proverb goes, "it's time to buy a new set." Donations to charity, particularly of food and housewares, are also traditional on this holiday. Among the more affluent, Visiting Day often marks the date of a young debutante's coming-out ball.

Other Spring holidays

Regional holidays that happen every spring include:

FORGEDAY
(FOURTHMONTH NINETEENTH DAY)

Forgeday, a dwarf holiday, is sacred to blacksmiths, who are treated like thanes on this day. It is considered to be Reorx's holy day. Each dwarf smith must forge a particularly exquisite item in honor of the day and present it at a community feast. The fare is typically heavy (dark bread, mutton, and thick, black beer) but just as typically delicious. Few folks take their merriment as seriously as do the dwarves, so visitors to a Forgeday celebration ought to be prepared to revel mightily or they had best stay home.

According to some sources, this holiday is also observed on Mt. Nevermind, but to date no scholar has been brave enough to verify this report.

BOOKCLOSING
(FIFTHMONTH FOURTH DAY)

This, admittedly, is a holiday celebrated only by the Order of Aesthetics. Since this is an Aesthetic's account of Ansalonian celebrations, though, there seems no reason to leave it out.

When Astinus still lived in the Great Library, this was the only day of the year that he would lay aside his pen and close his tome. I was always afraid to ask why he chose this date, though I know the tradition began the year after the Blue Lady's assault on Palanthas. Oddly enough, to this day very little of historic significance ever seems to happen on this date.

In remembrance of my master, this day is now a holiday for all Aesthetics. We cease our studies and transcription, close the library to the public, and spend the entire day rereading one of our favorite books or historical records. I know that Astinus always read a particular book brought to him by Caramon Majere following the Battle of Palanthas. I, however, prefer a collection of Ergothian poetry given to me by my mother the day I entered into the Order of Aesthetics. [Unfortunate at best! Imagine spending one's time mooning over Eigothian poetry (the Ergothians have a positive genius for turning out bad verse) when he could be reading one of the magnificent chronicles or historical works in which the library's collection abounds. Even though Astinus has departed, we still honor this day in his memory.]

FEAST OF THE SEA
(FIFTHMONTH THIRTEENTH DAY)

This holiday, originated by the ancient Empire of Ergoth, has become beloved by all sailors as well as those who make their living working with seamen. It is celebrated in every major port on the continent and on the islands of the Blood Sea, as well.

The feast is sacred to Habbakuk, and it is considered an auspicious day to begin building, launch, or christen a new vessel. Most sailors and fishermen toss small sacrifices to the waves this day, often of a very private nature—one captain of my acquaintance offers a lock of his, his wife's, and each of his children's hair.

The highlight of the day, undoubtedly, is the Great Regatta. Every ship in port, from the smallest dinghy to the greatest galleon, participates in a race (whose nature varies from port to port), and the winner is dubbed the Sea Lord for the Feast. The meal features fish of all description and other sea delicacies. Rum and other spirits are consumed in unhealthy quantities, and tall tales are shared, each more rowdy and bawdy than the last.

In most ports, the feast lasts for two days—the first for celebration, the second for recovery.

Summer holidays

If the spring holidays focus on life and revitalization, then surely the summer festivals are devoted to growth and abundance. All good things are plentiful in summer—the days are longer, everywhere stalks of grain stretch skyward, and folk travel the country visiting relatives or forging new business connections. This is the time of year when the common folk have the most of everything. In spring supplies were dwindling, once fall comes growth will end and stores must begin to be tapped—but in the summer there is more than enough of all things.

Holidays like Midyear's Day and the Family Feast revel in excess. They are symbols of all that is good in life. People indulge themselves during these summer festivals in ways they wouldn't dream of doing in the spring. The meals are grander, the wine flows more freely, and the parties last longer into the night. This is the time for overdoing things, like the sun seems to overindulge itself in the midst of a summer heat wave, or a river washes over its banks to flood the lowlands. What begins as an abundance of something good quickly turns into a seemingly never-ending series of extreme events. One only has to survive one summer drought forevermore to fear the heat as much as one revels in it.

Summer in the rural communities is also the middle season between bouts of backbreaking work. Certainly, there are still chores to be done on a daily basis, but they are not nearly as difficult (nor as labor intensive) as planting in the spring or harvesting in the fall. They are jobs that serve to maintain the status quo (a healthy, growing crop). There is time for personal reflection, and summer honors this time with holidays to help people make peace with the past. Most notable among these are the Day of Fire and the Festival of Bones, both holidays that focus on lives lost and friends remembered.

MIDYEAR'S DAY
(SIXTHMONTH TWENTY-FIRST DAY)

The summer solstice, the longest day of the year, is celebrated in every community in every corner of Ansalon. If there is one day in the year that symbolizes life and hope, the power of light over darkness, this is it. Ironically enough, this holiday is most commonly celebrated after the sun goes down—the daylight hours being devoted to the work of the season.

Some philosophers enjoy commenting on the ironic eloquence of celebrating life by engaging in it. They claim that though it seems as though folks work harder and longer than usual on Midyear's Day, they are actually participating in a ritual that lampoons the mundane nature of existence. Other scholars, myself included, believe that such nonsense could only be dreamed up by cloistered academicians who take no pleasure whatever in interacting with the real people of Ansalon.

Say what you will about the detached nature of the Order of Aesthetics, but we do live in the real world, and most of our members spend years walking the land and living and working with the people about whom they eventually write. We understand that the reason farmers and other commoners work hard on Midyear's Day is that it is the only day in the year when they can get this much accomplished. To squander it in idle revelry would dishonor the very spirit of this longest day.

Midyear's Eve, though, is a time for celebrating with wild abandon. Villages everywhere are hung with lanterns, torches, and decorative ribbons. Popular foods include pickled eggs and fresh bread dipped in sweet wine. Dwarves traditionally untap the first of kegs of their spring ale and beat on ceremonial drums to call all within earshot to their drunken festival. Even the normally sedate elves give their passions free rein tonight, and this is reportedly the most common night for elven young—particularly a family's firstborn—to be conceived. Kender spend the week previous to Midyear's Day collecting and caring for lightning bugs, which they release this night to create an amazing spectacle of dancing lights.

In every community the people celebrate the fact that they have fought and lived through the hardest part of the year. What remains is to stay the course and see their efforts through to completion.

THE DAY OF FIRE
(SIXTHMONTH TWENTY-THIRD DAY)

One of the two most somber days of the year, the Day of Fire honors the anniversary of the defeat of the Chaos god and the instigation of the Second Cataclysm. Unlike its sister holiday (Dark Day, observed in Firstmonth, commemorating the First Cataclysm), the events of the Day of Fire are still very much within living memory. This is somewhat of an overstatement. After all, there certainly are some within the elf and dwarf communities who lived through both the fall of the Kingpriest and the defeat of Chaos. However, for most citizens of Ansalon—and in particular, those in the common communities upon which this essay focuses—the First Cataclysm is considered ancient history.

Interestingly enough, this day marking the day upon which the gods withdrew from our world is most commonly observed by activities steeped in religious significance. In their daily lives, people may invoke the gods, exalt their names, blame them for minor annoyances, or even curse them for abandoning the faithful after only reappearing for less than fifty years. On this day, however, people thank the gods for having the mercy to give up contact with their world and their creations. Priests often tell parables in which parents must make personally devastating decisions in order to insure their child's safety. This, they tell their followers, is what the gods did for the people of Krynn. "In order to save us, they had to leave us," the sermons often say. "The gods taught us all they could. They prepared us for life on our own. And on that fateful day came the moment when they had to leave us to stand on our own two feet. Let us prove worthy of the belief the gods showed in us. Let us keep our belief in them, and allow it to guide us on our difficult journey through life. May our spirits, forged in the Day of Fire, prove worthy of the legacy we inherit the world itself, and this Age of Mortals."

FAMILY FEAST
(SEVENTHMONTH TWENTY-THIRD DAY)

This holiday originated following the Summer of Chaos. The world had changed. Another great war had raged across the face of Ansalon. The primordial Chaos God itself walked the land. The gods themselves retired from the world, presumably forever. Thousands were dead—but many more survived. This day, exactly one month after the Second Cataclysm, was the day the survivors gave thanks not just for their own lives, but more importantly for the lives of those they loved.

At first this holiday may seem redundant, especially with the Day of Fire having been honored only a month earlier. However, the two days represent completely different emotions. The Day of Fire is about reverence and solemn reflection. The feast of the family is a testament to survival—it truly is a celebration.

Families travel for days to gather in one place for this festival. Even in human clans it is not uncommon to see four or five generations celebrating together. (Among the longer-lived races one might see as many as eight generations gathered.) It is a time of dancing, eating, and making merry together, a time when old grudges are forgiven and old loves rekindled. The centaurs of Duntollik gather in what amount to great herds and run across the desert plains under the pale moonlight, laughing and telling tales of great deeds they accomplished in the previous year. In Throt the goblin clans each hold tournaments to see who can bring in the largest game animal (a term used most loosely considering what meats goblins consider edible).

The Ergothian imperial family hosts a masquerade ball to which all persons of noble lineage are invited. Also invited are any commoners claiming unacknowledged relations to noble families. During the ball, anyone displaying crude, crass, or otherwise ignoble behavior is removed. Any commoner who remains at the ball at the midnight unmasking is awarded official recognition of his or her claim to nobility.

FESTIVAL OF BONES
(EIGHTHMONTH THIRTY-FIRST DAY)

Each race and religion (not to mention several regions) has its own particular observance for honoring the dead. The dwarves of Thorbardin have a Festival of Candles on Seventhmonth 15th Day, and the elves of Qualinesti keep Qualintsalaroth on every Ninthmonth 25th Day, but the Festival of Bones is the only celebration of this kind that is honored by all people across Ansalon. Rather than remembering all the departed loved ones, though, each year this day is used to celebrate one life in particular, and over the course of a lifetime, most folk are able to devote a single day to each important person in their past.

Rather than commemorating the departed with a religious service, on this day families and friends remember their loved ones by performing or reenacting some event associated with his or her life. If the person in question was famous for scaling a mountain, his honorers may climb the highest hill in the region. If the person was a devoted follower of a particular god, then they may go on a pilgrimage to a famous temple.

Whatever the act, the celebrants carry with them a shank bone to symbolize the person being remembered. When they complete the act of remembrance, they leave the bone at that site so that others may recall their friend as well.

Other Summer holidays

Smaller regional and cultural summer holidays include:

GRAYSTONE EVE
(SEVENTHMONTH EIGHTH DAY)

Purportedly the day the Graystone of Gargath was released upon the world, this day is treated with great dread by many dwarf clans. There are literally hundreds of local rituals and superstitions said to ward off the stone's magical effects (which are thought to still be present in the world even after its apparent destruction in the Battle of the Abyss).

Oddly enough, this holiday is also observed by many kender, though their traditions differ greatly from the dwarves. Kender consider the Graystone to be the most interesting of all things that could possibly exist. They celebrate this day by holding "stone hunts" wherein entire communities of kender wander around trying to find the missing stone. While this mission inevitably fails, at day's end invariably the kender bring back an impressive collection of other interesting items they picked up along the way. [Usually from each others' houses.]

DAY OF DRAGONS
(SEVENTHMONTH TWENTIETH DAY)

During the last days of the Fourth Age, this was the day that evil dragons celebrated their return from their "Age of Exile." They devoted this day to wanton destruction, attacking towns and villages for no reason other than to raze them for the sheer thrill of it. As it so happens, most of those particular dragons came out on the short end of the Dragon Purge. Those who remain find themselves in positions of subservience to the overlords from across the sea—all save Khellendros.

The Storm Over Krynn, as the Blue is often called, is the only remaining dragon who celebrates this holiday. However, given his position of power over most of northern Solamnia, his celebrations affect a significant number of mortals. Fortunately, Khellendros honors this day not by causing even more destruction than he already has, but rather by causing great, dark clouds to gather over all his territory, and filling the sky with tremendous bolts of Hghting. It would be a terrific display for folks to watch if not for the fact that the lightning does occasionally arc down to the ground, obliterating whatever is in its path.

HEROES MEET
(NINTHMONTH THIRTEENTH DAY)

This Abanasinian festival commemorates the day a group of friends who would eventually become known as the Heroes of the Lance gathered after a five year separation—the day they inadvertently began their resistance against the dragonarmies.

Originally, the holiday was observed only in Solace, more particularly at the Inn of the Last Home, where the friends met. As the years went on the celebration spread to surrounding towns, then as far as the city of Haven, until now it is a familiar event in many towns across the continent. However, for the most part revelries are confined to inns and taverns, where drinks and food are served at a substantial discount and bards sing tales of the Heroes' adventures.

Autumn holidays

Taking into consideration a broad cross-section of Ansalonian cultural traditions, there seem to be two prevalent ways to interpret the autumn season symbolically. Indeed, the way in which this particular season is perceived says a great deal about the way the group views the world as a whole. The two philosophical camps can best be described as "chaos" and "order."

For those from a "chaotic" tradition, autumn represents annual proof that anything good must eventually fall into disrepair and collapse altogether. The growth of the spring and summer, upon reaching fruition, turns into a season of shriveling death that leads unavoidably to a barren and lifeless end. Health and prosperity cannot be maintained, this school of thought teaches. They eventually will break down into illness and destitution.

The followers of "orderly" traditions, on the other hand, view the autumn as a culmination of the year's work. Harvest leads to plentiful storerooms and eventually allows one to rest when the winds of winter begin to blow—a well-earned recuperative period in which one prepares for the labors of the coming spring. All things happen in cycles, these philosophers say. Retraction and rest are as important as growth and exertion.

Each school of thought leads to a different interpretation of the autumnal holidays. For example, Harvest Come is seen as a joyous day of completion by the orderists, but as the beginning of the slow slide into death by the chaosists. Likewise, the chaosists consider Old Folks Day to be a last hurrah for the oldsters who will not survive the winter, while the orderists believe it is a day to honor those who have gained the most experience in this life.

In the end, neither group is right or wrong—but those who believe in an orderly world do tend to enjoy themselves more.

HARVEST COME
(NINTHMONTH TWENTY-SECOND DAY)

This day, also known as "Summer's End," is the counterpart to Spring Dawning. It marks the autumnal equinox, the date when day and night are again in perfect balance. However, this time it means that with each passing day the sun will shine a little less, and the night will last a little longer. Although the heat of summer may still linger in the air, the crops are in the process of being harvested and stored for winter (indeed, some harvests may even near completion as this day rolls around), and frost can occasionally be seen covering the morning grass.

The holiday itself is most often celebrated with a festival or feast praising the gods for the bounty of the land. Human communities often accompany this festival with some tradition of costumery, from a simple parade to a formal masquerade. Usually the theme of the costumes centers around the autumn foliage or food served during the season, such as gourds, roasted vegetables, and nuts. Some rural communities make work into a social event as they build a great communal smokehouse to salt and cure one another's beef and pork.

The Qualinesti treat the day with more pageantry and piety. Certainly they celebrate the coming of the most colorful season in their homeland, but this is also the traditional day for maidens to choose a potential husband. Many Qualinesti girls dream of becoming betrothed on Summer's End and wedding on Yule.

Dwarves consider this a more somber holiday—a time to work especially hard to prepare for the coming winter. [In point of fact, most dwarven holidays are somber. This race approaches celebrations with the same grim spirit of determination in which they do everything else. Even intoxication is undertaken with a kind of dour seriousness of purpose.] As they work they often sing the traditional parable of the ant and the grasshopper. In the most popular dwarvish version of the tale, the industrious ant not only survives the winter, but it also arises next spring to be king of all insects. (This version also features what many consider to be needlessly descriptive verses detailing the lazy grasshopper's fate.) Oddly enough, kender also like to tell this tale on Harvest Come. However, the moral they derive from the fable is somewhat different than what the dwarves intend: "Always make friends while you can, because you'll be needing people to visit and places to sleep during the long, dark winter."

FESTIVAL OF THE EYE
(TENTHMONTH FIFTEENTH DAY)

This is another example of a holiday carried over from earlier times that has completely lost its original significance. For the sake of continuity and familiarity people gave new significance to the date and now whole new generations celebrate the day with little or no real understanding of its true meaning.

In the days when three moons traversed the Krynnish night, this holiday marked the night when all three moons stood full, one outlining the other, to form the eerie image of a red eye floating in the heavens. These were nights when powerful magic filled the ether, and common folk viewed the moons with trepidation. However, sorcerers of all three robes considered a Night of the Eye to be an auspicious time to begin or conclude research. It was also a night when apprentice wizards would travel door to door offering to perform minor spells for gifts of food or money, and children everywhere would bake red, white, and black cookies (one for each moon) and dress up in faux mage robes. All in all, it was a night filled with imagination and portent.

Since the Second Cataclysm there is only one moon in the sky, and as near as anyone can tell it has no connection whatever to the new forms of magic practiced in the Age of Mortals. The Festival of the Eye is still celebrated, however. Children still make cookies of the same colors (though most do not know why), but now they share terrifying stories around an evening bonfire. Occasionally these stories have something to do with evil wizards, but that is hardly a requirement. The only remaining practical link between this holiday and magic is that this is the day on which Palin Majere's Academy of Sorcery accepts a new group of students into its ranks. [This was written before Beryl's attack on the academy earlier this year and its destruction. Now we await the rise of some new school of magic.]

OLD FOLKS DAY
(ELEVENTHMONTH TWENTY-SECOND DAY)

Living in Palanthas, it is easy to believe that the entire world treats the elderly with as little care or respect as people in large cities do. City dwellers have more neighbors, and they surround themselves with sufficient numbers of like-minded people that they often forget the unquestioning love that a tight family unit provides. In the country, however, the family is all. Even family members who are too old or frail to do any of the hard work are essential to surviving the long year.

It is likewise easy for the men and women who sow the field, keep the crops, and tend the herds to forget to offer thanks to their elders—the folks who churn the butter, gather the eggs, watch and raise the children, and keep the hearth and home warm and cozy. So, when all the crops have been gathered, they devote a day to give their thanks for all the work the parents and grandparents provide without a mumble of complaint.

On this day the younger members of the family perform chores and do deeds to make their elders' lives more comfortable. They make new chairs or stuff new pillows. They chop plenty of firewood and fix leaky roofs or drafty walls to keep aging bones warm in the coming months. They build new tools to make the old folks' daily chores easier to finish.

Cynical folk generally point out that all these "presents" to the elderly are really gifts to the rest of the family as well. After all, everyone needs firewood, and if the chores are easier for aging hands to perform, then they'll get done that much better and quicker. To these cynics I unashamedly say, "You're right"—but I also humbly suggest that they miss the point of the entire holiday.

Every member of the family is just as important as every other member. So by honoring the elderly, the family is really honoring itself.

THANKS A LOT DAY
(TWELFTHMOTH SIXTH DAY)

This holiday began as an annual kender festival where they all compared the most interesting things they'd found recently in their pockets and gave thanks for such a fascinating world to wander about in. Folks who tend to distrust or dislike kender usually say that the purpose of this holiday is for kender to exchange secrets of thievery and practice innovative ways to separate honest folk from their rightful possessions.

Having taken the time to get to know more than one member of the race, though, I can forthrightly say that such dastardly and dishonorable thoughts practically never enter the head of the common kender. They truly enjoy their lives one moment at a time. Sadly, that means that whatever grabs a kender's imagination becomes an inseparable part of his or her world (thus they wind up walking off with many things that do not strictly belong to them).

However, in an odd reversal of the usual trend, humans have taken something from the kender—they have adopted and laid claim to the Thanks A Lot Day celebration and transformed it into the last and greatest of their autumn feasts.

Thanks A Lot Day meals feature everything imaginable from the autumn harvest: fresh baked pies, roasted gourds, fowl and meat of all varieties, breads and biscuits hot out of the oven, and all manner of sauces and syrups. It is, one pragmatist told me, the last chance to clear the larder of foods that will not keep through the winter.

I prefer to think of it as the last chance to dine together with all one's friends and family before the snows make traveling too difficult—but then Astinus always told me that my heart had too much sway over my head. [A common criticism by Astinus of members of our Order. It is far too easy to be ruled by emotion than logic. Since Astinus voiced a similar criticism of me, I have endeavored to correct the fault, but I have made only limited progress.]

Other Autumn holidays

Less widely celebrated autumn holidays include:

GENEALOGY DAY
(ELEVENTHMONTH THIRTEENTH DAY)

The gnomes actually refer to this festival as Updateandverifythedetailsofyourname Day. It is the day on which all gnomes visit their local genealogy guild to file corrections, addenda, and clarifications to their names. Invariably, over the course of a year, something about a gnome's name or title changes (often based on the success or failure of a particular experiment), and it is considered of the utmost importance that these changes be officially recorded. Gnomes take their names very seriously, since they are supposed to reflect every noteworthy event of their lives, as well as those of their ancestors.

RIFARSDAG
(ELEVENTHMONTH SIXTEENTH DAY)

This holiday of the barbarians who dwell in the Icewall region literally translates to "Reaver's Day." It commemorates the people's liberation from servitude to the Highlord Feal-thas, and is celebrated with a great feast, featuring food and drink brought in from warmer climes and hours of storytelling. Each person in attendance is expected to spin one tale of how he or she personally fought against the forces of evil. Any story featuring the death of a thanoi is particularly well received. The evening culminates with the clan elder telling the tale of how the Golden General slew the evil Feal-thas. By that time, however, many of the revelers have already passed out due to overconsumption of imported mead.

KHARAS'S SHAME
(TWELFTHMONTH TENTH DAY)

Dwarves wear their beards as proudly as Solamnic Knights wear their armor. On this day, though, all dwarves tuck their beards into their belts and hide them from public view. In fact, at the end of the day, a dwarf champion performs a ritual in which his beard is shaved clean off.

All of this is to honor the ancient hero Kharas, who shaved off his own beard to protest the Dwarfgate War. The newly shaved dwarf is handed the fabled Hammer of Kharas and then sequesters himself in a holy place until such time as his beard regrows enough to touch his chest. At that time a great feast is held and the clerics of Reorx take the sacred hammer back into hiding until next year's ceremony.

This holiday is considered intensely private, and no outsider has ever witnessed it. One of my brother Aesthetics somehow managed to get a merchant from Thorbardin to tell him of it, I suspect through bullheaded pestering rather than any scholarly wiles.

Winter holidays

In many corners of the continent winter is a fierce season of bone-chilling cold when the land, and quite often towns and cities, lies buried under feet of snow. At its simplest level, all the work done in the previous seasons was for the sole purpose of surviving this bleak and lifeless time. Folk who had successful years can spend the winter safely ensconced in their homes, while those who failed to do sufficient work or had poor luck visited upon their efforts must face the elements in often futile efforts to find the necessities of life.

Winter celebrations, for the most part, help to alleviate the feelings of isolation and oppression aroused by being snowbound for extended lengths of time. Although often based on what can be considered flimsy excuses for celebration, they bring joy to people just when they need it the most. Some of these holidays, however, serve the purpose of allowing superstitious folk the opportunity to offer ritual tribute to a season that often seems to have a cruel and spiteful intelligence and a knack for taking common hardships and turning them into personal disasters.

Please note: I have purposely omitted one of the most popular holidays in Palanthas and other large cities: Year Day (or Mark Year, as it is also commonly known). While it certainly falls into the category of "winter holiday," and even serves to bolster the above-mentioned thesis regarding the theme of winter celebrations, Year Day is completely antithetical to the overall discussion of holidays celebrated by folk who do not use calendars; the only real event associated with the day is switching from one year's calendar to the next.

YULE
(TWELFTHMONTH TWENTY-FIRST DAY)

The winter solstice, the first day of winter, is traditionally considered to be the last auspicious day to visit family and friends. After that, tradition holds, heavy snows make it too likely that one will be trapped away from home or, worse, stranded in the wilderness with no protection from the elements. It is a popular day for weddings and coming-of-age celebrations, and many rural human communities honor the holiday with a feast. They decorate a common hall with wreaths, sprigs of holly, pine cones, and hundreds upon hundreds of candles. The meal most often consists of fowl or pork and culminates in a prodigious display of desserts. Traditionally the cakes and cookies take the form of dragons, particularly of those known to be active in the region (this can be explained as either honoring the great creatures or providing an opportunity to ritually devour them, depending on current draconic-human relations).

Other cultures observe different Yule celebrations. For example, the dwarves decorate small trees with precious metals formed into the shape of fruits and nuts. Elves, on the other hand, celebrate this holiday musically. Each family makes a special set of Yule chimes that sing out the joys of the season to all their friends and neighbors. The Solamnic Knights hold an elaborate boar hunt, the object of which becomes the main course at that evening's feast. Gnomes, at the stroke of midnight, turn on every machine and apparatus in their homes creating a sound that they consider quite thrilling, but that insures that very few representatives of other races ever come to visit on Yule. [It also ensures a large number of explosions and guarantees work to the numerous gnomish fire brigades, each of which spends a large part of the year in feverish preparation for this event.]

One tradition observed nearly universally is the lighting of a Yule log—a long-burning branch whose fire is meant to last the whole winter through. When the flames crackle their loudest, all those gathered raise their glasses in a toast to a safe winter season and peace and prosperity in the coming year.

DARK DAY
(FIRSTMONTH THIRD DAY)

The anniversary of the First Cataclysm has, in the wake of the Summer of Chaos, lost some of its impact on the minds of the Ansalonian peoples (notable exceptions are those elves and dwarves old enough to remember both Cataclysms). People still honor the day by retelling the tale of the final years of Istar and the unmitigated hubris of the Kingpriest, but it seems somehow more allegorical than in years past. Parents use the story to illustrate the moral, "Pride goeth before a fall." No matter how correct one believes oneself to be, one must always allow the possibility of error or misjudgment.

This lesson is especially important during this season where carelessness or unwarranted certainty can mean becoming lost in a blizzard, buried beneath a wall of snow, or plunged through a thin crust into an icy lake. One can never be too careful. "And if a man as great as the Kingpriest can be so wrong about something," mothers tell their children, "people like you and I must take special care really to know what's happening around us."

While most communities honor this day with somber, private reflection, the city of Tarsis hosts an event known as the Tarsian Regatta. This city, once a great seaport, was landlocked by the First Cataclysm. On this one day they forget the loss their ancestors endured and relive their city's glory by building boats on wheels and racing them around Tarsis' centuries-dry harbor.

SNOW FEAST
(SECONDMONTH FIFTH DAY)

Exactly five weeks into the year, and no more than a month away from the start of the spring thaw, folks begin to go a bit stir-crazy—being locked in a cabin (or even a grand home) for so long wears on their nerves. To alleviate the stress and draw attention to the fact that better weather is quickly approaching, most cultures observe the holiday of Snow Feast.

Unlike other feasts throughout the year, this day is not about consuming large quantities of delicious food. There yet exists the possibility of more snow, and it would be the height of foolishness to be caught without adequate supplies because of a feast celebrating the coming of spring. Rather, on this day the people take advantage of the fact that the snow will not be around for much longer. They carve sculptures and other decorations out of ice, eat plates of cold dishes, and pour syrups and sauces over snowballs to make chilly desserts. Communities in mountainous regions often hold sled races, and even those in the warmer northern climes have competitions to see who can make the most wondrous castle out of packed snow (in warmer years snow can be replaced by wet sand).

KITE DAY
(THIRDMONTH SEVENTH DAY)

By the beginning of the year's third month the snows are at least receding—often they are gone entirely. Farmers and other people who work the land must begin the arduous task of preparing for the hard business of starting spring growth. Fields must be tilled, fences must be mended, and the ravages of winter need to be repaired as quickly as the still-short days will allow. This usually means putting every person in the household to work. Even the youngest children can paint barns, feed hens, or pass tools to older siblings. It is, as one might imagine, exhausting, backbreaking work and not something that children suffer quietly. However, their complaints grow softer and less frequent when the promise of Kite Day dangles at the end of the week.

This holiday is every bit what it sounds like—a time to take a break from hard labor and relax by sailing kites on the gusting winds. Many families make a full day of it, packing a picnic lunch and going to the nearest hillside to enjoy the company of their neighbors. Children build their kites from gathered sticks and a kerchief donated by a grandparent or other relative. They often dye them festive colors or paint designs using a mixture of winterberries. Younger children simply enjoy the thrill of making the kite fly, while older children (including many young-at-heart adults) make their kites dive at one another in thrilling sky battles.

When the day is done, everyone is much more relaxed and ready to redouble their efforts to get their home and business all set for the coming of spring, just two weeks hence.

Other Winter holidays

Regional winter festivals include:

HARNKEGGERFEST
(SECONDMONTH NINTH-THIRTEENTH DAYS)

This apparently self-contradictory dwarf holiday celebrates both hard work and unbridled recreation. It takes its name from the ceremonial head of the festivities, the harnkegger, who must wear an outlandish outfit and to whom is given the honor of tapping and tasting the first barrel of late summer ale. (Dwarven spirits being what they are, it takes quite a while for this concoction to ferment.) Once the harnkegger is satisfied that the brew is ready to be drunk, a five-day festival of ale drinking, sausage roasting, and hard bread munching commences. At the festival's conclusion, representatives of each clan vote on the best ale of the batch. Any remaining barrels of that ale are set aside for use in official proceedings during the rest of the year.

While this is clearly a dwarf holiday, many other cultures choose to honor Harnkeggerfest with at least a rowdy day or two of celebration. [Many inns throughout Ansalon mark this holiday by tapping their first kegs of fall ale.]

THE OATHBREAING
(SECONDMONTH TWENTY-SECOND DAY)

During the Time of Darkness, the good metallic dragons found themselves held in check by the forces of Takhisis who held great clutches of their eggs as hostages. So it was that these noble beasts remained uninvolved as the forces of evil came within a hairsbreadth of conquering all of Ansalon.

On this day, toward the end of the War of the Lance, the Qualinesti prince Gilthanas and his true love Silvara the silver dragon discovered that the leaders of the dragonarmies were despoiling the eggs and transforming them into draconians to fill the ranks of their troops. This revelation freed the good dragons from their promise of neutrality and shifted the momentum of the war.

Metallic dragons honor the day by mourning their lost children and hunting down the draconians who stole their lives. In recent years fewer and fewer dragons can be seen on this day (since the Dragon Purge they have become afraid to fly about boldly), but those who live in areas near dragon nests say they can still hear the great beasts crying loudly at the memory of their lost children.

Oddly enough, no one is certain whether this holiday is named after the dragons' own action of breaking their promise of noninterference, or the Takhisan act of betrayal that allowed them such freedom.

KITH-KANANDRAS
(THIRDMONTH FOURTEENTH DAY)

For the elves of Qualinesti no day is more sacred than the one to honor the life and accomplishments of Kith-Kanan—the elf who led his people out of Silvanesti to form their own nation. The celebration is fairly reserved by human standards (and positively dour according to the dwarf tastes), but the elves consider it to be the most festive day of the year. They invite all friends of all races to dine and rejoice with them, and present tables filled with more food than could be consumed in three such celebrations. However, the festivities end precisely at midnight, when all nonelves must leave.

As it turns out (and many scholars consider this to be no accident), Kith-Kanandras falls just one day prior to the Silvanesti holiday of Silvanosdras—the birth date of Silvanos, the founder of the first elven nation. This day is treated much more solemnly and, though no outsider has ever witnessed it, the festival is said to be honored with ritual bathing, gala decorations, and a ceremonial retelling of the day Silvanos brought all the elves together on Sol-Fallon to swear oaths of dedication to the principles of democracy.

Popular Games of the Fifth Age

Bertrem's Note

Though some in my Order might deem the subject of games frivolous, I do not agree. In fact the games people play, the ways in which they entertain themselves, seems to me to embody the spirit of this work.

Though Krynn has passed through fire and ice, its people survive. Not only do they survive, but despite the apocalyptic events of past decades, they flourish. That they do so is testimony to their optimism and good natures and to the eventual triumph of good over adversity.

Surely it is not an overstatement to say that it is in their games that this spirit of Krynn's people finds one of its most profound expressions. Games are their folk memory, their way of not only entertaining but of passing on traditions, of teaching new skills to the young, and of remembering all-but-forgotten events. I myself am hardly averse to a good game of Khas on a winter's evening before a warm fire. At such moments, when the body is relaxed and the spirit is exercised, I am truly content.

It is quite easy, in this time when the tremendous dragon overlords control huge swaths of the continental map and important factions of both the dwarf and elf communities have chosen to isolate themselves completely from the world at large, to forget that there are many positive emotions, behaviors, and pastimes shared by all the mortal races. War seems to loom on the horizon of lands that have known too little peace in the past century, yet in the cities and on the farms, in the sylvan forests and throughout the caverns carved into the living rock, life, love, and happiness keep the people's spirits high. It is instructive, from a scholarly point of view, to examine what distractions the people of Ansalon use to maintain their sense of hope and joy. Some insight may be gleaned by the nature of the games and pastimes with which we choose to brighten the sometimes oppressively bleak panorama of our lives.

Perhaps I am becoming a touch cantankerous as I grow older—it happens even to the most detached and rational of men—but more and more I find myself romanticizing the past and longing for the way things used to be. [A common—and quite mistaken—feeling. Personally I have never found any nostalgia for the past, save for a longing that my master, Astinus, might once more be seated in his study as I remember him.] One can imagine how disturbing the member of an Order devoted to scrupulously recording the present finds it when reliving thoughts of his past becomes easier and more enjoyable than delving into the problems of today. A day is surely coming when I shall retire from the Aesthetics, and the Great Library of the Ages will be a gentle memory. Perhaps that is what happened to Astinus, and someday he will return to us from his sabbatical, but that seems less and less likely with each passing day.

But what will I do if I leave the Order? I will surely need some distraction or pastime to occupy my days. Best, then, to do a bit of research in preparation for that day. I would hate to have to waste my golden years pursuing the wrong form of entertainment.

CHILDREN'S GAMES

The image one most readily associates with the word game is one of children frolicking through fields of tall grass and flowers, laughing and singing on a summer's afternoon. In truth, this is probably the purest definition of "game"—a wholly circumstantial and impromptu pursuit utterly lacking in practical or otherwise useful benefits. It is fun. What's more, it is universal. Children of every race on Krynn all play roughly the same games until such time as their culture deems it appropriate for them to begin training for their future positions within society.

FUN GAMES

These games, played for sheer exhilaration's sake, often consist of a great deal of running about with none of the participants actually knowing (or caring) what the "rules" are. Children dash about until one bumps into another, and then both squeal with delight and go tearing off in the direction from which they came. As the children get older, though, identifiable rules develop, and the game becomes universally recognizable as Tag. One child is "it" and tries to pass the mantle on to another child by touching or grabbing one of his or her playmates in a prescribed manner. This can be as simple as a tap on the shoulder (as is the case in Abanasinia and Solamnia) or as complicated as having to simultaneously touch the target's head and knee (a bizarre kender variation); as gentle as a Qualinesti child brushing against his or her friend's tunic (direct skin to skin contact is frowned upon) or as rough as a minotaur calf wrestling a playmate to the ground and pinning him or her there for no fewer than twenty seconds.

As Tag loses its interest—generally because some members of the group develop faster than others, giving them an unfair advantage over the others—more team-oriented games come into vogue. These too are usually physical in nature, but they allow the superiority of one child to be balanced by teaming him or her with a less able partner, thus allowing for competitions that are fair and fun for all involved.

Merchants and Bandits remains a popular game of this type. In it, the children split into teams. One team links arms around waists in a long chain ending in a single child holding onto the trunk of a large tree or rock (depending on the terrain in which the children reside). This is the Merchant team, and each of their members represents a shipful of goods. The Bandit team lines up and one at a time run at and leap onto the backs of the first team. If, by their weight alone, they can cause one of the Merchant players to fall to the ground he or she and all the Merchants behind him or her have been stolen from the trade caravan. After all of the Bandits have leaped, the Merchants get one point for each player remaining in their chain (who are said to have "reached Palanthas"). Now the roles are reversed, and the game played again. Whichever team has the most members reach Palanthas is the winner.

Another popular game, particularly during the spring rainy season, is Goblin Stones. In order to play this game, the children need a patch of mud that is dry enough that a stone will remain relatively dry when stepped upon, yet sufficiently wet to make a complete mess. The game is played by setting up a path of stones from one end of the patch to the other and taking turns trying to leap from stone to stone without falling in the mud. Despite the fact that the rules state that staying dry is the only real winning condition, the actual purpose of Goblin Stones is to provide the children with an excuse to roll about in mud, which, I have it on good authority (the daughter of one of my brother Aesthetics), is a great deal of fun and considerably more comfortable than one might guess. [Gully dwarves have been seen trying to play this game, but given their general lack of cleanliness, it is usually impossible to distinguish the winners from the losers.]

TRAINING GAMES

As children grow older, adults begrudge them their carefree play time. We see hours spent playing games as wasted time, effort devoted to fruitless endeavors and therefore a waste of resources and potential. However, children still being too delicate and undeveloped, not to mention too mentally undisciplined, to engage in full-time work, we instead teach them games that serve to train them for their future roles in the workplace. At first the children, who often crave more responsibility and respect, take to these games with the same abandon they devoted to their purely fun games. Playing training games makes them feel "grown-up" and like an important contributor to the family's well-being.

Eventually, however, most children realize that these "games" aren't nearly as much fun as their old games, and come to resent this play that is really work in disguise. They rail against the fact that their efforts aren't nearly as appreciated as those of their parents and older siblings. Often they either insist on receiving "real work" to do or refuse to work entirely and go back to the simpler games (or invent new ones in a similar vein). It is curious that training games have a very limited appeal, which fits only in the narrow window of preadolescence. "Fun games" appeal throughout a person's entire life.

Frequently training games take the form of isolated parts of the real work a family does. A child may be tasked with raising one farm animal (a single goat or pig) so that he or she can learn all the various skills required of a farmer or shepherd while still having the fun of raising a pet without risking a large proportion of the family's potential income. In families with strong ties to the Solamnic Knights, children are taught the more easily grasped concepts of the Measure each night before bedtime and then are quizzed on their lessons at dinner. Often the size and quality of the next evening's pudding or dessert will be based on how well the children internalize these core ethos.

Of course, the most popular kind of training game is a tournament. This concept is most commonly associated with duels, jousts, and other knightly activities, but it is just as frequently used to give children an incentive to practice skills that otherwise would be nothing more than repetitive drudgery. Country fairs invariably have competitions among local youngsters to see who is the best at tasks as tedious and far ranging as mending fences, feeding chickens, tending herd animals, and various styles of cooking.

ADULT TRAINING GAMES

By no means are children the only ones who play games. Sadly, though, while adults will often play games in order to perfect necessary skills or learn new ones, they spare very little time for playing games that have no practical application. In most cultures—kender being the most outstanding exception—adults seem to go out of their way to avoid pure fun for fun's sake. I know that in my life I have always felt that time spent playing games was nothing less than wasted hours that could have been put to some more productive use.

Some training games that adults play are nearly identical to those for children. Tournaments and other contests of physical skill are far and away the most common games played by mature members of most societies. The knightly orders make more frequent use of training games than any other segment of Ansalonian society. Occasionally these contests happen to determine promotion within ranks, but more often than not they are simply exercises to keep the soldiers ready for war. The knights of both Solamnia and Neraka engage in duels and tournaments all year round. Some are contests within a single military unit, while others have contestants drawn from the entire Order, but it is fair to say that not a week goes by when a tournament of one sort or another does not take place.

Many holidays center around a competition of one sort or another, with the prizes often being at least as practical as the game itself. Records tell of several small logging communities in Nordmaar that choose their village headmen by holding a series of tree-felling and log-chopping competitions. The final and most amusing of these contests consists of a strange variation of the traditional log-rolling match. Instead of two or more contestants standing on the same long log, each one has his or her own log cut to be as tall as the contestant. The competitors must each try to stay on his or her log the longest, but the rules encourage attempts to knock other contestants off their logs. The only parameters are that the log rollers may not physically grab one another, and no magic may be used. It is perfectly legal to throw things at opponents, bump one log into another, or create any other physical or psychological distraction.

Of course, not all training games are physical in nature. Many vocations require their practitioners to hone one facet or another of their mental faculties. Their versions of duels and tournaments much more closely resemble what the common folk would call a "game," but they are no less serious. For example, spellcasters of all description still practice a tradition that began hundreds of years ago with the founding of the Orders of High Sorcery—the Spell Off. The simplest comparison is that the Spell Off is like a magical riddle contest. One contestant presents the other with a situation and a collection of magical accouterments. The opponent must come up with an appropriate magical solution to the problem, the more creative the better. Since the Second Cataclysm, the old riddles involving spells and practices of High Sorcery have become even more difficult. Now that new forms of spellcasting have been discovered, new questions centered around sorcery and mysticism have become common in these contests. Still, since both Palin Majere (former head of the Academy of Sorcery) and Goldmoon (First Master of the Citadel of Light) both believe that wisdom lies in remembering the past, the antiquated questions still find their way into institutionally sponsored Spell Offs.

A more amusing form of these mental training is a gnomish game known as "BoomShabamandBigkabang." What exactly this trains the gnomes for, I am unsure, but one suspects that it teaches them how to react when certain warning noises escape from soon-to-malfunction experiments. A scholar who spent time studying the recent unexplainable efficacy of machines produced in Mt. Nevermind also returned with a detailed analysis of the game and its place in the gnome society.

"The game consists," he writes, "of a series of words—all sounding very much like the results of past experiments gone wrong—which the gnomes repeat to one another; each word causes the players to focus on a particular other player. For example, it is clear from only a casual glance that a gnome who says "boom" is passing attention to the gnome he or she is gazing at directly. Very much like an audio game of tag, words are passed back and forth among the players. When one gnome becomes the focus of a word, he or she must quickly pass the attention on to another nearby gnome."

The report goes on to delineate no fewer than eighty-five distinct words that are universally accepted in the game, with new ones being added as it continues. The most unusual thing discovered is that this game apparently began more than seven years ago in the upper laboratories of the mountain. Some time is spent in this report speculating that the game itself was an experiment gone horribly awry that the gnomes had no will to stop. In the intervening years the game passed into every nook and cranny of the main complex and then into the catacombs below. Some thought that it died there, the repetitive noise rousing Pyrothraxis to such anger that he swallowed the players whole. Others believed that two players became separated from their group and were trapped in one of the forgotten laboratories in the bowels of the earth, where they continued to play until someone came along to free them. Just when it seemed as if the Game (as the gnomes have come to call "BoomShabamandBigkabang") was gone forever, a team of gnomes working on unstopping a clogged air duct heard a faint echo from far below.

Kacrunch! it said—the word that passes attention to the first person who hears it. Each of the four gnomes felt that he was the first to hear the word, and each walked away to pass their attention to friend or coworker. The Game was not only back; it had quadrupled in size!

"Now," the report concludes, "anyone who spends any considerable time in Mt. Nevermind will encounter the Game. It begins as a gnome walks into the room, says a nonsense word to her colleague, and the entire room devolves into a maelstrom of quickly hurled inanity. Amazingly enough, the gnomes have become so proficient at playing the Game that it does not interfere with whatever other activities they are engaged in. Sooner or later, one of the players leaves the room and takes the Game with him or her. It seems highly probable, given the fact that the Game has subdivided on at least three other occasions, that this activity will be with the gnomes for as long as the race walks Krynn."

Boom Shabam and Biskabans-A Gnomish Game of Concentration, Observation, and Deception

This verbal game of tag uses onomatopoetic words as directional markers for the tag. The simplest version of the game uses only three words:

Boom: Tags the person being directly looked at You cannot Boom someone who just tagged you.

Shabam: Looking directly at the person who tagged you, Shabam tags the person back.

Bigkabang: This allows a player to look at any other player and still make a tag-back on whomever just tagged him.

The game starts with one player yelling, "The name of the game is ‘Boom, Shabam, Bigkabang’." This player is "it" He or she looks directly at another player and says Boom, which gets the game moving by passing "it" The person receiving the tag can look at another player and say Boom, passing "it" on, or say Bigkabang, volleying "it" back to the originator. Or the player can say Shabam, looking directly back at the tagger and return "it" Play continues with "it" being passed around from player to player until one of the following conditions occurs:

A player fails to respond immediately (within 3-5 seconds) upon being tagged.

The player who is "it" uses one of the tag words incorrectly.

A player who is not "it" mistakenly calls out a tag word.

Every infraction earns a player one point That player becomes "it" and restarts the game with, "The name of the game is ‘Boom, Shabam, Bigkabang’." The game continues until one player earns ten points (or until the players get too annoyed to continue).

If the three-word passing seems too easy, players can add new commands, changing the introduction to reflect the new names. For instance, if the Crank command is added, the person starting the game would now yell, "The name of the game is ‘Boom, Shabam, Bigkabang, Crank.’ " New commands should be added in the following order:

Crank: Passes "if to the person on the caller's immediate right, regardless of what direction he or she is looking.

Ratchet: Passes "if to the person on the caller's immediate left, regardless of what direction he or she is looking.

Lube: "If remains with the speaker. Lube is used as a stalling method or to bait another player with eye contact/head movement.

Players may add their own sounds and rules if they wish to complicate matters even further. For instance, "Screech" might be used to send "if back to the person who had "if before the player who tagged you.

PARLOR GAMES

If there is a pastime that adults engage in for sheer fun, it is the various etiquette, word, and card distractions that I refer to as "parlor games." At first glance these would seem to be games in the most classic sense. While they are much more complicated than children's games, most do not have any easily identifiable application to one's daily endeavors. However, I believe that even the most innocuous parlor game can be identified as some form of training or experimentation for real-life activities.

Let us begin with games of etiquette. Masquerades, feasts, and other affairs are occasionally celebrated using a theme of social reversal—that is, the lowest-ranked nobles are treated as kings for the evening, while the most powerful aristocrats are treated like barely recognized landowners. This tradition is found in some form among every high society, and it can universally be traced directly back to childhood fantasies wherein one child pretends to be a lord or governor and the others take the roles of courtiers, suitors, and other nobles in the retinue. It allows the children to imagine a better life, as well as practice courtly behavior and fine manners, and it does much the same for the adults. One never knows when the winds of politics (or the whim of a dragon overlord) might topple the social order. It is through diversions like this that every family of noble lineage remains prepared to step into any role left vacant. It also reminds the ruling family of how it feels to be an outcast. Hopefully this also encourages them to be more forgiving and inclusive of these minor nobles lest they find themselves in a similar situation in the coming years.

Word games are more evenly appreciated by the different social classes. Among the noble families of Solamnia, Ergoth, Qualinesti, and even Kern, many a dinner party or family gathering centers around contests and games based on spelling, rhyming, word association, oratory, and even extemporaneous poetry composition. All of these activities can, in some regard, also be considered games of etiquette. They allow the nobles to rehearse speeches they expect to give in comings days—or failed to satisfactorily deliver in the recent past—and to exercise their vocabulary and elocution skills, the meat of any political establishment. At court, success lies in being able to express oneself with style and aplomb, throwing witty offhand comments off like a peacock shedding feathers and always saying exactly what you mean. These are not skills that many people—even those with the bluest blood—come by naturally. They must be honed. Innocent-looking word games are often the difference between ending up a treasured advisor and a disreputable chamberlain.

For folks from the lower rungs of the social ladder, word games can be equally important. In a community where maps are scarce (and often of dubious accuracy), [Hardly surprising, since a large proportion of maps are kender-produced.] and few folk are able to write down directions or instructions, being able to remember vital facts and repeat back long lists of information is a lifesaving skill. Many farmers and menial laborers spend long hours making their children memorize regional geography and the names of the local lords. In the event that they get into trouble away from home, these are the only indicators they can use to inform someone from where they come. Even more critical, simply learning to read can be enough to lift peasants out of poverty and provide them opportunities to improve their lots in life. Every parent recognizes this and does whatever possible to encourage their children to learn their letters and develop a love for reading.

One might imagine there to be no place for military matters in parlor games, but this is not so. There are several games of strategy and tactics, which at their root serve no greater purpose than giving experience to generals and kings without costing the lives of any real soldiers. The most notable of these games is, of course, Khas. [The rules for Khas are given in detail in the Majeres' More Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home.] While some superstitious folk still believe that every game of Khas represents an actual battle taking place elsewhere on Krynn, most nobles realize that it is nothing more than a game of military strategy. The sixteen pieces represent different types of units, and their interaction on the black and white squares of the hexagonal board does bears an uncanny resemblance to a battle viewed from afar. The Great Library has several dozen volumes devoted solely to the exploration of the play of and philosophy behind Khas. The most famous of these is a replica of the diary of Yarns, the Solamnic lord high cleric at the time of the First Cataclysm. His love of the game is legendary, and even four hundred years later his insights into the strategy and philosophy of Khas have never been matched.

Card games have been popular among rich and poor folks for centuries. Hundreds of games with thousands of variations have been catalogued throughout the years. Some can be played with any number; others require specifically four or six players in order to run successfully. Some games are even designed to be played by oneself, but according to my research, all of them serve as some form of historical record or political commentary.

Take, for instance, the game of Istar Falling. In this game players blindly pull cards from one another's hands in an attempt to find matches for the cards they already have. One card, though, has no match—the Kingpriest—and the player left holding that card at the end loses the game. Clearly this is commentary on the final days of Istar's reign, when the forward-thinking nobles distanced themselves from the Kingpriest lest they be drowned in his ocean of corruption.

Since the Second Cataclysm two new games have taken the fancy of card players across the continent. The first is called Dragon Wars, and although its name harkens back to an ancient period of Krynnish history, it is a simulation (actually an effort to diminish the terror) of the Dragon Purge waged in the early years of the Age of Mortals—a battle that neither humans nor any other mortal race could hope to affect. Grotesquely huge dragons fought one another for supremacy and control over the lands of Ansalon. The winners killed their victims and drained away their life essences. In the card game, players control these dragons and try to kill their opponent's dragons. From an intellectual vantage it becomes clear that this entire game, as entertaining as it is, remains nothing more than a way to allow mortals to assume some manner of control—if only symbolically—over the beasts that threatened to crush everything in their paths. Although the Dragon Purge has been over for nearly a decade, the Dragon Wars game remains popular across the continent. It probably will remain so until mortals find a way to drive the overlords from Ansalon.

The other card game developed since the start of the Fifth Age is known as Knights' Quest. Unlike Dragon Wars it does not mimic a real historical event. Rather it was designed during the months following the Second Cataclysm to provide comfort and hope to the people. In those early years, many refused to believe that the gods had actually withdrawn from Krynn. After all, following the First Cataclysm they hid themselves away from mortal eyes, but they never abandoned their world. Surely this situation was exactly the same, and if those with pure beliefs looked long and hard enough they would find the gods again and return the world to its rightful order. As we have learned, this is not the case. The gods do appear to have left the world behind, and no sign of them can be found anywhere. But people can dream of a better reality as they play Knights' Quest.

In this game two teams of two players each take the parts of the Knightly Orders. Since the Solamnics were the chosen representatives of Paladine, and the Dark Knights (who have recently renamed their order the Knights of Neraka) devoutly followed the tenets of Takhisis, they became representative of either team. In the symbolism of the game, each team wanders the world looking for articles of faith and evidence of the gods' continued existence. Articles of faith are represented by a particular suit of the deck (hearts for the Solamnics, and diamonds for the Nerakans), and the teams score points for collecting their proper suit, theoretically bringing more followers into their faith. When the hand is played out, the team that has gathered the most evidence of the gods receives divine blessings. Of course all of this is measured in points, and the team to reach a specific number of points is said to have proven their faith so steadfastly that the gods agree to show themselves once more.

Knights' Quest-A Polite Distraction for 4 Players

Knights' Quest is played by two teams with two partners sitting across from each other. One team represents the Knights of Solamnia; the other represents the Knights of Neraka. Decide which team is which.

Remove the ace of spades and replace it in the deck with one joker. Shuffle the deck and deal out all fifty-two cards, giving each player thirteen cards. Cards are ranked from ace (the highest) to 2 (the lowest), with clubs ranked higher than all other suits.

Pass Cards

After examining their cards, each player chooses three cards from his or her hand to pass to another player. After all players have removed these cards and placed them facedown on the table, they may pick up and add to their hands the cards passed to them. In the first hand the cards are passed to the player on one's left In the second hand they are passed to the player on one's right In the third hand they are passed to the player across the table (second from the left). In the fourth hand no cards are passed. This cycle then repeats until the game ends.

Playing the Game

The player with the joker leads it into the first trick, then chooses and announces what suit the joker represents for this hand-this may be any suit except clubs. Going clockwise around the table, each player must play a card from whatever suit was led, the highest card of the suit wins that trick. If a player does not have the suit led, he or she may play any card-including a club. If anyone plays a club, then the highest club played wins that trick. After the first club has been played in this matter, all players have the option of leading dubs in future tricks.

The winner collects the cards from that trick and sets them aside. He or she has the lead for the following trick.

Play continues in this fashion until all cards have been played. The hand is now over; both teams should look through the cards from the tricks they won to calculate their scores. The game is over when one team scores fifty points or more. (Adjust this point total for longer or shorter games.)

Scoring

Requirements for scoring points are slightly different for each team.

Knights of Solamnia: Score one point for each heart your team collected in winning tricks.

Knights of Neraka: Score one point for each diamond your team collected in winning tricks.

Both Teams: Count the total number of spades your team collected in winning tricks. If the total is seven or higher, score five points. Remember that the ace of spades has been removed from the deck, so it is possible that neither team has seven spades at the end of the hand. In this case, no points are scored for collecting spades.

Afterword by Bertrem

I trust the reader has found this little book helpful in offering a flavor of everyday life in Krynn of the Fifth Age. In fact, I have sought through my researchers' reports to offer not one but many flavors. Our land, wracked though it still may be by strife, is a place of great wonder and terrible beauty. Through reading these reports I have come to love it more and to wish for a day when the folk of Ansalon can put aside their swords and spears in favor of ploughs and harps.

There is still much to be told about this land, and I have not attempted to be systematic in this book. Rather, in organizing and annotating the reports of the researchers, I have, I hope, deliberately encouraged the reader to skip back and forth, to browse rather than to study, to pick the book up, put it down, and pick it up again. Such, I feel, is the best way to experience its pleasures.

Indeed, I hope very soon, when the press of my duties permits, to return to this subject and to offer yet another guide. Until then, kind reader, I ask your indulgence for an old man who occasionally allows his pen to run away with him. Bear me in your thoughts as I do you in mine.

Greetings from Krynn in the Age of Mortals, known also to her people as the Fifth Age.

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Bertrem of the Order of Aesthetics, keeper (since the disappearance of Astinus) of the Great Library of Palanthas, gathers fact and rumor, tales and gossip from across Krynn to answer your questions.

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