Physically, Sartar has a fairly high elevation, and is quite mountainous. It's not alpine, but it doesn't have to be to have significantly worse weather than that of Esrolia, 100 KM away. Mountainous areas usually have snow or freezing rain when the lowlands have just rain. Mountainous areas often have wind and rain when the lowland areas are sunny. We see this daily in Western Washington. The weather in the foolhills of the Cascades is drastically different even 15 KM away. Mountains trap all kinds of wet weather and bring it down on their slopes and valleys. Additionally, sandwiched between two mountain ranges, our green little valley becomes a bowling alley for Pacific weather systems that careen around the Olympics. Thus, we can have a hailstorm and snow in one town, and sun in the next. Not surprisingly, this is how we view the weather in Sartar.
Mythically, Dragon Pass is sacred to Orlanth - Kero Fin is there. Orlanth and his kin (Valind, Gagarth, etc), send all kinds of interesting weather there.
>Mainly it's the snow covering the ground which is the real killer of cattle
and other large stock as they don't have hands to shovel the snow away
from the grass. Hence the importance of Winter Feed rather than
stables.
This makes a lot of sense. We play that the bulk of the snow and cold
is during Dark Season, while Storm Season has a lot of freezing rain.
It is necessary to shelter livestock during darkseason. The cows and
sheep are put in carner of the stead or in an attached lean-to.
Wealthier steads have a small barn for them. Pigs are often brought in
to the stead with the people. They are warm and can even be
housetrained to an extent. (No doubt due to their association with
Ernalda;-))
One of hte limiting factors of wealth in our gane is how many cattle ine
can feed and house over the winter. For most carls it is ten, for
wealthy carls it is twenty. (For game mechanic convenience, this number
excludes horses, bulls, and oxen.)
Also, one of the winter tasks of carls is to ride out and clear snow for the cattle. Or fell trees to that the animals can nibble the slightly more tender tips of the branches.
Unfortunately, you will not be able to experience our fabulous fall/winter/spring weather this summer, when you come to GLORANTHA CON V in Victoria, BC. Our summers tend to be mild (75F/22C) and very sunny. You'll just have to suffer.
Pam
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