If you have ever wondered what a city does when it tries to revive a tradition that has been dormant for a century, Skelderheim has an answer.

For the High Moon Festival, the Orra-kai walks the wards. That is the job. It is also, apparently, an event.

This February we are putting up a free downloadable package on the Charles Mandrake site, available through February 28, 2026.

It is set in Skelderheim on the night the High Moon Festival returns to full form, with an Orra-kai walking again after more than a hundred Winters. The city participates in the ways it knows how: rope lines, runners, carts, food offered and taken and returned, and a crowd that watches closely without needing to be told why.

If that sounds calm, it is. Until it is not.

What’s in the download

1) Novella: The Lunar High Moon Festival
Anna walks the wards as Orra-kai. The city watches. The work continues anyway. You get the procession in full, with the runner network behind it doing what it does best: preventing small problems from turning into large ones.

2) Solo game: “Festival Runner”
You play as Kiun, twelve Winters old, bracelet glowing on your wrist, moving messages fast enough to keep the festival coordinated across wards. You will need 1d6 (or a dice app) and something to write with. It plays in 20–30 minutes, which is long enough to get yourself into trouble and short enough that you can pretend it was always under control.

There are choices. None of them are “good,” exactly. They are just the choices you make when rope lines fail and timing slips and someone gets hurt and the next ward still expects the cart on schedule.