The Night Skies of Elanthia
As documented by Brakian Warbringer

A shroud of dimly illuminated darkness hangs over our heads each night. Bright Phoen hides below the horizon, and Zelia and her consorts are bright, shining jewels in the sky.

Constellations, configurations of stars given names from the myths of the Lands, hang in the sky. Their tales are chronicled and told here.

The Tail of Andelas

Appearance:

The Tail of Andelas is a string of stars with a sharp V at one end and an inverted c-shaped crescent at the other end.

Location:

In summer the V is in the northwest sky and the crescent more northerly and slightly higher in the sky. In the winter the constellation is nearly vertical in the sky, with the V close to the horizon and the crescent high in the sky.

Lore:

In the ages before the societal dominance of the human race, the Arkati walked the Lands even more freely than they do in the present age. They consorted with the dwarves and the elves and some of them even deigned to develop conventional mortal relationships with the mortals they met.

The war between the Arkati is not always a fierce struggle. Occasional lulls in their battles occur and sometimes the Arkati are even civil toward one another. It is from one such lull that this Legend is taken.

During the Second Age, the time of the Great Elven Empires, Kai and Andelas both became enamoured of a beautiful elven princess. Her name has been lost to the annals of time, but the fierceness of the two deities' feelings has not. Their efforts to woo the princess can only be characterized as divine; moonlight visitations by ivory swans or dark hunting cats with amber eyes were not beyond the means of either god. Their struggle was titanic and open war was nigh between their followers.

The armies were arrayed on the field.  The paladins and mercenaries of Kai and the dark hunters of Andelas were ready to wage a jihad upon one another. With a mighty crack of lightning and a clap of thunder, Koar appeared upon the field. He spoke, his voice like the crashing of a thousand blades on shields, and his words were filled with an aura of command even the other Arkati they could not disobey.

His command was this: Kai and Andelas would settle their differences, but not with the strength of their armies. Only by the strength of their own sword arms would their differences be solved.

Kai was resplendant in his golden armor, the blade on his hip a masterwork of Eonak's forge. Andelas was feline and sinister, arrayed in his black leather hunts, with a long, curved blade given as tribute by members of the Dhe'nar warrior caste who admired him.

The battle was joined. Blades came together with claps of thunder and flashes of lightning. In the end, Kai's blade was superior. Andelas's Dhe'nar scimitar shattered like glass.

In a rage, Andelas leapt upon Kai, knocking the well-forged blade Kai wielded to the ground. With a flash of fur and claws like razors, Andelas became his namesake, a massive black hunting cat. His claws bit into Kai's bare skin over and over, but the war god managed to hurl the panther off of him.

With his godly might, he lifted the cat above his head, then slammed the beast to the ground repeatedly. Finally, his arms crushed the cat like a vise. With snaps like the breaking of thousand year-old tree trunks in a storm, the cat's bones broke.

Andelas was defeated. As a final insult, Kai reached down with a grip of iron and clenched the still swishing tail of the Cat God. A yowl erupted from the prone cat and with a snap of bones and the rending of flesh, the Night Cat's tail was torn from its moorings at the base of the cat's spine.

Kai howled his war cry to the sky and Koar responded, recognizing Kai's victory.  The princess was to be Kai's, and to forever remind Andelas of his defeat, his tail was transformed into the constellation we now see in our night skies.

A Bard Who's Been Barred
by Gnitt Gnatticken

A bard who's been barred is a curious sort,
Sobered and silenced, and tickled for sport.
A drip from a flask is all he would ask,
To soften and mellow, to help him relax.
A bard who's been barred is a curious sort.

A bard who's been barred is a sodden sort,
Indecent exposure, remanded by court.
Sentenced to stay a fortnight away,
From liquor and ale and other such sway.
A bard who's been barred is a sodden sort.

A bard who's been barred is a desperate sort,
Winking, cajoling, he sneaks to the port.
Asylum he seeks from these sobering freaks,
The next boat leaves in a couple of weeks.
A bard who's been barred is a desperate sort.

A bard who's been barred is a despondent sort,
Broken and sullen, one final resort.
Akin to the knife for taking one's life,
He asks a young dwarf to become his wife.
A bard who's been barred is a despondent sort.

A bard who's been barred is a curious sort,
So newly betrothed, yet seeking support.
He asks for a sip to moisten his lip,
But it seems he'd been better off taking the ship.
For despite all appearance, she kept full adherence,
To that most solemn of codes, temperence.
Unable to win, he managed a grin,
And said, "Oh, rolton dung! I give in!"
A bard who's been barred is a curious sort.