Start off as a pre-existing band of adventurers, in medias res. Pick 2 each of 8:

Bitty Bee - Pegasus, rogue, mare

• Inventory: Lockpicks, sap, rope.

Big Tuck - Earth pony, fighter, stallion

• Inventory: Spear, armor.

Pepper Papers - Unicorn, scholar, mare

• Inventory: Books - Seven Years in Yakyakistan (a travelogue); Material Planes Beyond Our Own (a fantasy travelogue in which the writer claims to have visited a land of gloom and shadows he calls the "Dread Dimensions") ; Reindeer as She is Spoke (phrasebook); Jack Muleton's Paradise Estate Lost, first edition, an epic tale of sin and redemption; Writing materials; a particularly warm winter overcoat.

Green Bud - Earth pony zony, herbalist, mare

• Inventory: First aid kit; incendiary potions (4); Snowserpent venom antidote (1); Accelerated Healing potions (3)

Soaring Stratus - Pegasus, weatherpony, stallion

• Inventory: Bronze wingblades, a purportedly lucky parasprite wing, one bottled thunderhead.

Moon Magic - Unicorn, mage, mare

• Inventory: A book: The New Mage's Hornbook (a compendium of magic); a magic wand of invisibility (2/5 charges); a silver necklace (decorative)

Arrow Weed - Earth pony, ranger, stallion

• Inventory: A crossbow and 20 arrows; a vial of poison with only a little arrow poison remaining (suitable for 5 arrows); a utility knife.

Brass Bobbins - Unicorn, tinkerer, mare

• Inventory: An enchanted shield that can deflect most energy and material attacks coming toward it; a kit of mechanical components and tools.

Party items: (Carried by Big Tuck, unless you decide otherwise.) A tent. A lantern and oil. A small cookstove. <$1500> in Equestrian money. <$200> in precious metal coin, mostly Yakyakistani. Slow-Magic Lantern in which to put the Embers (quest item; carried by Green Bud)

Everyone additionally has uninteresting supplies (food, sleeping bag, water) although consumables are running low at this stage in your long journey. You have consumables for 3 days remaining.

29 CRAFTING 634 AE

Your band of adventurers were caught by the ELDER DRAGON Nares of Corundum trying to rectify a situation of profound economic inefficiency, to wit, the existence of the same dragon's vast unused hoard of precious metals, and were thus rather unfairly presented with a choice of either being burned alive or accepting a MAGICAL GEAS to perform a quest for him. You can still hear the words of the greedy old lizard ringing in your ears - literally, in fact, as that's part of the geas and seems to happen randomly at the most inconvenient times:

• YOU MUST GO TO THE LANDS OF THE REINDEER PRINCESS LULESAMI, AND BRING BACK TO ME EMBERS FROM THE GREAT BOREAL HEARTHFIRE BY ANY MEANS YOU FIND NECESSARY.

This quest has taken you into the farthest reaches of the FROZEN NORTH, through perilous Yakyakistan and the hostile wilderness beyond. Finally, you have arrived in the outskirts of the REINDEER KINGDOMS. It has been a long and been a long and difficult journey, and your supplies are running low.

Trudging through the arctic darkness in newfallen snow on your way to a settlement in the distance, you are suddenly ambushed by great hairy white yetis!

(They should be pretty tough. EL may bail them out, but will want payment.) "Lore, of Equestria. I am a journeymare of the Arcane Helix."

EL is going to try to filch the Tome of Ursami when it is used in the Winter Solstice ceremony on 30 Crafting.

Ceremony - the high priest of the Reindeer, Sajiyule, will open the wards of the Great Boreal hearthfire to make an offering to it, consisting of everwood (preserved by freezing). He will read from the Tome of Ursami, casting the spell to renew the hearthfire, burning up his own antlers and losing his magic until they regrow. (This is obviously when EL will try to steal the book.)

The wards are closed at this time (by underpriests) until the next year.