Summer – days when the sun shines bright and strong, yet this season’s Summer is lasting a bit too long and hotter than usual. Ponds and wells have dried, and rivers flow more subdued than before. Yet while for other part of the realm it is getting cooler, it is not so in a particular region. The heat is intolerable and a drought seems to be coming. Is this really a natural occurrence, or there is something more to this?
- The region used to home a famous site – a temple dedicated to sun worship. Recently strange visitors have been spotted about the supposed location of the ruins, which is located upon a desolate plateau. Adventurers who seek out the ruins would find themselves confronting priests of an ancient order which worships the sun. “A long and dark winter is coming,” they say, “and if we do not call up the Sun Lord all will be lost.” They deem the lost of a few towns and villages justifiable to fight off the coming unnatural winter. Are they lying? If they do tell the truth, is there any other way round?
- Long ago, to ensure good harvest, the villages in the region entreat a fie elementalist to set up an enchantment that will stretch the summer longer, so that the crops would have more time to grow. That was back a few hundred years ago when the climate was different. The elementalist agreed, and set up five of those stones in a circular formation which stretch for up to a hundred miles. Imprisoned within each of the stone was a fire elemental. A wizard has discerned the nature of those stone and has used it to summon a drought. He is using this to blackmail the nobles in the region, wanting riches and status in exchange for calling it off. To learn the secrets of the elemental stones would require the adventurers to gain the trust of the wizard or find some ways to destroy the enchantment. Perhaps the faerie realms within the region, which are too suffering from the magical drought, would offer to lend a hand. Only if the adventurers are polite though…
- This is just a freak of nature. Once in a few decades, winds that blow from the south where great deserts lie sweep across the land. The region is higher in elevation and the hot wind absorbs all moisture from the air and land, causing what seems to be an insufferable heat. Learning the nature behind the heat, the adventurers may devise ways to remedy the situation. An ancient drudic order has a ritual that could still wind, while the faerie-folk may agree to talk with the wind spirits to change the nature of the southern breezes. Or the adventurers could find way to help the folks to endure the drought.
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