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You recognise the new arrival as, Fenwick, the younger brother of Keswick Bonicot, the ‘retriever of rare manuscripts and small objects’ whom six months ago you had arranged to rendezous with here in Deadsnows, ‘at the end of the year’. The last you heard of Fenwick (a decade younger than Keswick), he was living comfortably in the family burrows just north of Waterdeep.

The town of Deadsnows (population approx. 1400, Authority figure Lady Mayor Arletha Icespear) is located at the upper end of a broad, straight, ‘U’ shaped valley at the northern feet of the Nether Mountains. Evergreen trees flank the valley sides, and activity by hunters and adventuring parties ‘resting up’ in Deadsnows have driven the area’s once numerous dire bears back up into the upper reaches of the forests, towards the ridge lines. The Company of the Sable Bow- a group of human mercenaries retained by Deadsnow’s elven mine owners- have dispatched or chased off to other pastures the bandits that once also lurked in the woods.
Ten years ago, gold was discovered in the area. Three years later, at the height of the rush of prospectors that followed, the population had swollen tenfold, to somewhere over five thousand.
Gradually, the areas where the gold was being found were identified, and a group of moon-elves moved in- by a mixture of intimidation, bribery, and other forms of ‘persuasion’ these elves ‘consolidated’ control of all the claims where the veins were known to reach the surface under their ownership. The elves employed gnomes, halflings, and dwarves to work their mines. Disappointed, and with most of the gold that had been weathered from veins now panned from the local streams, the prospectors began to drift away, seeking other parts of the mountains where gold was rumoured to be found. The elves (under the leadership of Nymath Nimesin) have stayed, and arguably have as much influence in the town as the Lady Mayor given that their gold-mines have become the dominant force in the local economy.

Burrowed into the roots on the southern side of the Ice Mountains, Citadel Adbar is the oldest continually occupied dwarven stronghold to still stand in northern Faerûn. Currently home to more than twenty thousand dwarves and their allies, and governed by a dwarven ruler, King Harbromm, Citadel Adbar has stood for thousands of years, resisting orc hordes, earthquakes, dragon attacks and other catastrophes, whilst empires across the north (including dwarven ones) have risen and fallen. Whilst traditionally the rulers of Citadel Adbar have been conservative and isolationist in their dealings with non-dwarven races (it took considerable persuasion from his fellow dwarven monarchs to Persuade King Harbromm to sign up to the formation of the alliance that is at the core of The Silver Marches) suddenly, a little over three years ago, King Harbromm announced that Adbar would be holding a ‘Midwinter Fair.’ The first such event was not attended by many, but those who did spent much of the next twelve months spreading little but good reports, so that when it came to be repeated the following Midwinter more came, seeking high-quality dwarven goods at discounted prices. Last year, having established a reputation for itself, bands of adventurers began to also attend in numbers, and it was by all accounts of bards a massive success. This year, there is no known reason why it will not build still further upon the achievements of previous years.
Although the dwarves do not generally admit non-dwarves into Adbar for the Fair, the valley below the gates of their citadel is said to be packed with tents, stalls, open-air kitchens, and dining areas, alongside countless magical cottages or other shelters to provide for visitors who do not have their own means of accommodation.

The Silver Marches is a realm formed 14 years ago, from a confederation of city states, mostly due to the diplomatic efforts and vision of the unageing wizardess and archmage Alustriel Silverhand. Over the intervening decade or so and a half, the confederation has formed a military force (the Argent Legion), consolidated its control and the rule of law over much of the settled land lying between the original signatory cities, and pushed the boundaries of controlled territory out to form a realm now several hundred miles long, bordered by arcs of mountains to the north, an area of high, boggy, moorland (until recently inhabited by giants and trolls) to the west, forests to the south, and the desert of Anauroch to the east. Whilst river valleys do drive corridors through or between some of these zones, broadly speaking these geographical features are sufficient to define the boundaries of the region.
Rulers of the Silver Marches sit upon the Argent Throne in the capital city, Silverymoon, for seven year periods. Alustriel governed for the first seven years, and was followed by another wizard, Taern Hornblade (whom some say was one of Alustriel’s lovers). Taern’s period of rule came to an end at midsummer in this year now almost passed, and Sindyl Omoghael, a half-elven bard from the town of Everlund, assumed the Argent throne for the next seven year period. Rulers are elected by the decision of the leaders of the signatory cities; so far Alustriel’s mastery of the fine arts of politics has been sufficient to ensure that those who have sat upon the Argent Throne as successors in her wake have espoused broadly similar political goals and preferred means of getting things done as her own.

The continent of Faerûn has been dominated by an uneasy peace for the past three years. The late 1370s Dale Reckoning saw a series of strange events and brief wars hit the western end of the continent, with several evil deities perishing and being replaced, the elven reoccupation of the forest of Cormanthor, a rage of dragons lasting longer than usual for such events, and finally ‘The Army of Winter’ descending upon the desert lands of Anauroch ‘to punish the lords of the Shades for the disrespect that was paid to the goddess of winter during the opening years of the decade’. Several well known mortal champions of the goddess of magic Mystra also disappeared during this period and the deities Oghma (knowledge) and Savras (divination) apparently expired or vanished in some catastrophe; whilst the clergy of Oghma simply ceased to be granted their spells, the clergy of Savras across the realms either went mad or disappeared from sight. The signing of the peace treaty between The Silver Marches and the orc Kingdom of Many Arrows at the end of the 1370s allowed clerics of a previously virtually unknown orc deity, Juurmsh the Wise, to begin to circulate in the Silver Marches. The apparent similarities in many aspects of outlook between Juurmsh and Oghma (surprised though many non-orcs were to discover an orcish deity of knowledge and learning) has resulted in a number of conversions of Oghma’s former clergy and congregations to the faith of Juurmsh.
On the very night that Oghma ceased to heed his clergies’ prayers, the Great Library of Candlekeep, one of the largest collections of written knowledge on the continent, was gutted, along with the practically entire destruction of its contents; one of the senior monks who had had charge of the library a the time was believed to have started the fire.
Some of the ‘new’ evil deities that arose during the 1370s had very different agendas to those of their predecessors. The complete disinterest of the new deity of night and loss, Midnight, for the fate of the Shades of Anauroch made it possible for The Army of Winter to wreak so thorough a revenge upon their enemies that the Lords of Shade were left fighting for survival, hunted fugitives across half a continent. The bloody swathe that the new goddess of murder, ‘Narsanda half-elven’, felt it necessary for her church to carry out to make sure that she was taken seriously left several rival evil organisations reeling, whilst from the other side, formerly ‘good’ organisations such as The Harpers who had lost influential leaders adopted a far more pragmatic approach to dealing with their enemies. By 1380, the most serious problems facing the rulers of most of the nations on the western part of the continent had been reduced to ‘normal’ bandit and criminal activity; evil organisations which still had nominal continent spanning resources had been reduced to fighting one another for survival, or (in the case of a couple of examples such as The Church of Bane) had retreated into a paranoid state of a ‘siege mentality’ not looking to do any more than defend what interests they already possessed.
However the relative era of peace and prosperity that this might have hailed in has as of yet failed to materialise. Nobody knows what the agenda of the much diminished former Church of Shar (now the Church of Midnight) might be, and with the sudden disappearance of former common threats, nations are now starting to eye one another with distrust, and to seek new alliances as they build their border defences or armed forces. Divinations or auguries about anything but the most immediate of futures are failing, or providing only dark prognoses of treacherous betrayals by former friends.

No goblins have been seen in the Rauvin Mountains recently. They have all starved to death after the fungus farms upon which they depended for their chief source of food were practically wiped out by a strange blight.

A group of masked ‘short folk’ vigilantes who call themselves ‘the sons and daughters of Elminster’ are patrolling the course of the Icespear River, dispensing summary justice upon anyone whom they think may be ‘guilty’ of the crime of being a worshipper of an evil deity.

Desert nomads are gathering for some reason in the ruins of the old dwarven city of Ascore, where old Delzoun runs into Anauroch. The heightened number of Silver Marches patrols along the Fork Road this winter is not just to deal with potential threats to travellers heading for the Midwinter Fair, but to keep an eye on the nomads and make sure that they mean no mischief.

A ‘heretical’ breakaway cult of the Church of Auril, goddess of winter, has formed, which espouses good beliefs. Some of their members are on the run, in the Old Delzoun area.

Come spring, a huge team of engineers and builders will move out to the former Zhentarim controlled settlement of Newfort, to construct a fortress to guard the eastern approaches to Sundabar. Maybe the authorities are worried about an attack by blue dragons from the eastern border of the Silver Marches.