Inspiration: Snow

Tonight's scene, art provided by: Mad Map March 15 - Snow, inspired by "The Little Ice Age"

There has been another hard freeze, with the river gone solid. The residents look at the ice and quietly discuss the likelihood of having to replace one or both of the town's bridges after the spring thaw. Again.

It is far into the winter, the third rough winter in four years. It is to the point in the season where concerned eyes look at the near-empty larders, and the wives are counting out the remaining potatoes and roots.

There is nothing to spare for rough adventurers traveling through. They had better have their own meager rations, as few will take up an offer to share their stores. After all, one can not eat gold.  Unless they can perhaps take care of some nuisance or raider: the frozen walking dead, a werewolf stalking the woods, or equally desperate bandits raiding the stores.

People stay in but for necessary forage for thin livestock, breaking the ice for the well, occasionally carrying out an individual not hearty enough to last the winter...

The snow hasn't fallen for weeks, it is too cold, with a bone-breaking ache.

"Are you going somewhere warmer, guv'ner?" As the party leaves from their hard lodgings, they find themselves tailed by a sallow youth, with rag-wrapped feet, and a few precious potatoes and crusts of acorn-flour bread in a sack.