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.

---

(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.)

I. Signs of Spring

Northcliff Pass has made a middling recovery from the effects of the avalanche some weeks prior; cottages and sheds and thatched roofs are in as good a repair as is to be expected this time of year, with fresh supplies so hard to come by until the pass down the mountain opens again. But the vernal equinox is on the horizon, and with the sun rising higher in the sky with each passing day, it’s hard not to feel as though the bitterest days of winter are in the past.

Springfest, the annual spring festival celebrating and venerating the Earth and all her many bounties, won’t begin until late March, but preparations for it begin now that the streets have been cleared of snow. Get ready to celebrate brighter, sunnier days, warmer (or less frigid) nights, and the long-anticipated arrival of what passes for a growing season this near far north.

II. She Turned Me Into A Newt

The village is too much of a hick backwater to have a real Profane kangaroo court session but, thanks to the enterprising efforts of one exceptionally devoted pilgrim intent on summiting Gods’ Reach before the vernal equinox, word has reached the village that there’s one happening just down the mountain in Northcliff Proper. Three (alleged) Profane have already been marched to the gallows since the trials began, and rumour has it there are at least five more awaiting sentencing by the city magistrate. Supposedly, even one of the Duke’s nephews has put in an appearance in the city to witness the executions.

The pilgrim spends three nights recovering his strength at the Hammer and Spoke, before continuing his journey up the mountain, and during that time he is only too eager to regail anyone within earshot of the story… as he heard it, anyway. “Some Shepherds brought them to heel before they could give the constables the slip,” the pilgrim says one night over a mug of ale. “Gathered them up like they were nothing more than stray lambs wandered a bit far from the flock. Might’ve been a mercy to let the wolves have these ones though. They’re like bloodhounds, those Shepherds. If you’ve the vice in your blood, gods help you, for they’ll track your scent from the Crags to Stonesedge.”

A Shepherd in town is bad news for anyone even rumoured to be Profane. While they are ordained and travel the countryside in much the same way that other priests of the Path do, at best a Shepherd’s visit result in little more than a murmuring disquietude until the reserved guest clad in a black cassock takes their leave and moves on. At worst, they people the gallows with bodies--or use their knives to spill the blood of the tainted in the streets.

One hasn’t come to call in Northcliff Pass--yet. But if one clumsy pilgrim can make this journey, in this weather, perhaps there will be other visitors soon.

III. A Murder Most Foul

Maybe it’s a change in the winds or an excess of carrion leftover from the avalanche, but the crows are back.

When the crows arrive there are never just a few of them. They blanket the rooftops, black out the sky when they take all take wing, and their collective cawing drowns out conversation. Their droppings are everywhere, including on anyone who ventures too near. They gang up on Deron’s falcons, and Deron when he’s holding a falcon. No one has been hurt by them, but everyone agrees that The Crows are The Worst.

Even Lord Sneak, the stable cat, won’t come out from under his favorite napping cart. For Sneak’s sake, do something.