Northcliff Pass

Spring has arrived, at long last--at least, that’s what the calendar says. The temperatures are still prone to dipping below freezing at night, however, and so it isn’t yet safe for farmers to begin planting for the growing season. Still, the days are visibly longer and brighter now, the sunlight warm when it hits your skin. Winter has been shown the door, thank the gods.


1. 𝕾𝖕𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖋𝖊𝖘𝖙, 1312

ɪ. ꜱᴜɴʀɪꜱᴇ

Springfest begins in the hours before dawn on the day of the vernal equinox. Though the festival grounds aren’t bustling with activity yet, the village itself is drowsily awake to watch the sunrise as it crests from the east beyond Gods’ Reach. It is a village tradition for everyone to come outside, no matter the weather, to watch the sunrise on Springfest. Whether done with friends, family, sweethearts, or that creepy neighbour who always happens to be outside at the same time you are, you’re bound to have company while partaking in this village tradition.


ɪɪ. ʟᴀᴜᴅꜱ

While ordinarily held just after dawn in the church chapel, today the lauds are held on the festival grounds. Brilliantly embroidered banners depicting religious iconography--of the Earth’s bounty, of nature, and of the Earth’s blessed saints--hang from trees and posts, billowing in the gentle spring breeze; a southern wind that lacks the frigid bite from the north. From a raised wooden dais at one end of the festival grounds stands a modest pulpit, and it is from there that the village vicar delivers the service, and rests the ritual sacrifice upon a central pyre.

The service concludes with several torch bearers coming forth to light the pyre--and as soon as the flames take and roar to life, the celebrations begin in earnest.


ɪɪɪ. ᴩᴀʀᴛy ʟɪᴋᴇ ɪᴛ’ꜱ 1299

Do you like arts and crafts? Games? Dancing? Drinking? Eating good food and playing footsie with your crush underneath a makeshift banquet table? This is definitely the event for you. While it’s a little early in the season to be making flower crowns, an enterprising enough individual can still make it work with a few seasonal crocuses, bits of ribbon, and twigs. Couple that with temporary ink-stained face and body tattoos of scriptural scenes or the saints’ symbols, and you’re ready to dance like a boss around the bonfire.

For party-goers with two left feet but who still want to partake in some physical activity, there’s a ball-game of a sort taking place further down the festival grounds, where the rules seem dubious at best but it’s a guaranteed fact that to score a goal, you’ve got to slip past two defenders wielding actual swords beforehand. (The swords are blunted. Don’t worry, this isn’t 1002, no one is actually going to take one for the team anymore.)

Later into the afternoon and the evening the feasting and drinking begins in earnest, and will continue late into the evening. In fact, partying continues more or less uninterrupted for the entire first week of the month, with people pausing only to eat, and sleep, and (hopefully) freshen up a bit.

(OOC: Springfest takes place between April 1st and April 7th. Forward or backdate your top-levels and logs as needed.)


ɪᴠ. ᴛʜᴇ ꜰᴀꜱᴛɪɴɢ

All good things must come to an end, and eventually you’ve got to stop that hedonistic partying binge you’ve been on for the past week and accept the hangover that the gods have prepared for you. Decorations must be taken down, ramshackle and hastily assembled vendor stalls must be removed or replaced back to their original locations, the festival grounds must be cleaned up, and ritually cleansed yet again--and once this process has at last concluded, the fasting begins.

The gods will have their due, after all. As they deliver great abundance, so too can they take it away. The week following Springfest is known as the Fasting, and during that time the faithful drink only water from dawn until dusk, and then eat only what they must to maintain their strength. There are additional services at the chapel during this time, where the homilies are devoted to the capriciousness of the gods, and reverence for their wrath.

At the conclusion of the Fasting, doubtless everyone is ready for life to get back to normal.

(OOC: The Fasting takes place between April 8th and 14th. Forward or backdate your top-levels and logs as needed.)


2. 𝕸𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆𝖐𝖊𝖓 𝕴𝖉𝖊𝖓𝖙𝖎𝖙𝖞

News from Northcliff reaches the village that some of the families of the Profane executed there arrived during the Fasting to collect their remains. With patience strained and bellies aching from hunger, it was inevitable that something would go wrong, given the circumstances. Evidently a fight broke out between some of the family members of the executed and the city guard; one of the executed could not possibly have been Profane, they assert, and the demand for justice heightens tempers and tension.

It is the business of the city guard and judiciary to settle matters with the family, but it is the responsibility of the Shepherds to ensure that there are no more rogue Profane prowling the area seeking refuge.

And on a cold, miserably rainy night the week after the Fasting concludes, two Shepherds arrive in Northcliff Pass.

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(OOC note: the Shepherds--a man and a woman wearing the utilitarian cassocks of their rank and the church--aren’t available for threading, but they can be seen throughout the village together, quietly observing and yet never interacting with the villagers. In the evenings they return to the Hammer and Spoke for a quiet meal before retiring to their separate rooms each night.

They hold themselves intentionally apart from the rest of the village--and more unsettlingly, it does not appear as though they have imminent plans to depart.)