Hill-Giants, Enterprising Mountebanks, and the Four-moon Eclipse: News from the Inner Sea

Some pre-session news for the free-booters and vagrants fresh off the streets of the Merchant-Princedoms.

The Grand Voivodeship of Czerogrod continues to wage war on the cities of the northern Inner Sea Coast, Knyaztarg and Rovelka. Despite the Voivodeship's casus belli (shattering blockades between them and their allies on the Southern Coast) trade has stagnated, resulting in a loss of foreign imports and hardy Knyaztargi horses in the South. Despite pinning the Northern Coast between themselves and the south, Voivodeship sieges and armies have slowed in movement. Coffee-houses are rife with discussion as to whether this implies fatigue or is the calm before a renewed offensive.
(Please note the above illustration was an idealised image used in a city-state broadsheet, and fails to depict the Voivodeship arquebus-wagons, draconian slave-warriors, or psionic zakonniks).

Reknown duellist and member of the Banners of the Bloody Needle, Rytsar Androj the Bellicose was seen drunk on persimmon wine through the public houses and taverns of Sturkhmar. Between singing pagan epics and recounting tales of personal valour, he wailed drunkenly of towering hill-giants wandering through the forests west of the city. As hill-giants were hunted and driven back to the Summer-Country long ago, Androj was ignored or ridiculed by the populace. He has received little succour from his now-former hero-cult, who– as per usual with unchivalric displays– have issued a warrant for his head, offering his armour and sovyna as bounty.

Enterprising mountebank-apparently-turned-entrepeneur, self-titled Duke, and decided rake Dražan the Twice Dead has turned from a life of quackery and charlatanism at the at the palace of Prince Torrimmur XXIV of Sturkhmar to one of avoiding the sluggish doldrums of middle-aged rakehellery. Dražan is offering sums of gold, said to be taken from his ducal demesne, for exploration and discovery beyond the mountains– specifically, that of the Wyrd. Various sums for varying tasks are on offer, and benefits– according to the "Duke" himself– are bountiful and indispensable. To inquire, Dražan can be found in the galleries and porticos of Prince Torrimmur's Palace. 

The movements of the sky-orbs has aligned in such a way that all four are visible in the sky for the next season, roughly until midsummer. Intermittent eclipses and umbras are expected to provide for strange effects throughout the Hinterlands. The pagan hill worshippers have descended into various bacchanalia, and Andrulian Sun-Worshippers have declared the ritual period of allegiance to Andruli. All the faithful must wear weapons at all times, in honour of the sun's battle with his four enemies, the sky-orbs.