Is This Anything?

A D&D One-Shot that plays out like a Hallmark Christmas Movie.

In the town of Wickhollow, the wreaths go up a week before Solstice. The winter baking competition has been running since before anyone can remember. The mayor wears a sash. The candle in the window of the oldest house on the main road has been lit every Longest Night for several generations.

Someone in your party has been here before. They lived here, they loved here, they lost here. They left. They swore they'd never come back. But the town has welcomed them back with open arms.

Something is wrong this year. It's not a problem that can be solved by hitting it, but it is certainly the type of problem that will absolutely ruin the Longest Night celebrations if nobody does anything.

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This is the idea of a one-shot that needs player and DM input to fully flesh it out.

What's wrong could be a family feud nobody will say aloud. It could be a recent loss that the town hasn't fully grieved yet. It could be a ritual nobody remembers how to perform. It could be the reason the hometown hero left in the first place, a wrong done to them that still sits unaddressed in the room.

One in the party is the "hometown hero" of sorts. They've returned to the town for the first time in years. Why they've returned could be a recent death in the family. It could be an old love to rekindle. It could be a letter with no return address that somehow found them anyway. It could just be that they were passing through; they swear they were only passing through.

The rest of the party are the quirky and lovable townsfolk. A chimneysweep, always covered in soot. A stablehand who can't escape the smell. An innkeeper who reserved the last room just for the "hero". The child who still believes all of it, completely, without irony.

The climax of the story is not driven by combat, but by a speech, a performance, a small act of community that the "hometown hero" could not have managed at session zero.

And it must start snowing right at the end. That is not a suggestion. The DM does not get a vote on this. It must start snowing.

#iTA #isThisAnything #DnD #OneShot #LongestNight #WinterSolstice #Hallmark

Beaivi is a deity in the folklore of the Sami people of northern Europe. She is the goddess of the sun, spring, and sanity, associated with the fertility of plants and animals, particularly reindeer. On the winter solstice, a white female reindeer would be sacrificed to Beaivi so that she would end the winter. The sacrificed animals' meat was threaded onto sticks, which were then bent into rings and tied with bright ribbons. This was called the Festival of Beaivi.

#FolkloreSunday #GothicSpring #Mythology #Folklore #Sami #Finland #Spring #Winter #WinterSolstice #Holiday

Dear Lovely Peeps,

Not what I usually post, but I am thinking of a few of you right now.

For anyone who may need this, know I am wishing you a better morning and more light. 🕯️

The Longest Night

by Rabbi Rachel Barenblat
(aka The Velveteen Rabbi)

We all tell ourselves stories
about grief to come.
Anticipating the dark
we think, how can I live
without the sun I turn toward?

We wrest what gifts we can
from the dying days.

One morning we wake
and the doorway we most dreaded
is behind us.

The ice may not recede
for months to come
but day by day
may there be more light.

#Light #Poetry #Hope #Solstice #Grief #Grieving #WinterSolstice #RabbiRachelBarenblat

One of the oldest known “windows”

Light opening (center of image) above the entrance to the passage at Newgrange.
For a few days around the winter solstice, a ray of light shines through this opening into the chamber at the end of the passage at sunrise.

May 2014

#Newgrange #PassageTomb #Boyne #SiAnBhru #CountyMeath #Ireland #Neolithic #Neolithicperiod #wintersolstice #sunrise #solstice #Irland #Neolithikum #Jungsteinzeit #passage #Wintersonnenwende #Sonnenaufgang #FensterFreitag