#shortcloak

[serpentface]

mmmnnnnbbb winter clothes

Lowlands (Ephennos, Ephenni):

-short sleeved linen tunic, silk waimengari shortcloak (decorative), wool trousers, knit wool hat, and a thick wool cape. Widespread adoption of trousers outside of the context of riding is most characteristic of the western provinces and is central in men's winter wear there.

-three capes combined- thick wool sheet as underclothes, thinner linen sheet as outerwear, and a thin linen veil functioning as a hat, scarf, and a sleeve for the exposed dominant hand.

Highlands (West Rivers, Silde-Urbinnas)

-wool tunic, wool trousers, very nice woolen jacket, wool and deer fur hat. Mittens and a cape might be added as outerwear for very cold days or outdoor labor.

---

At the low elevations, winters are rainy and very mild and rarely dip below freezing. Exact temperature ranges vary by region, but the average winter minimum is 40 F and maximum is around 60 F. You have a decent chance of seeing some snowfall at least once a year on very cold days, but actual snow accumulation is rare and memorable, and seeing standing bodies of water freeze is often a once in a lifetime event.

In highland conditions, winters can get significantly colder, though exactly how harsh this is varies tremendously by elevation. Most year-round inhabited highland areas have temperature ranges of ~20-40F (give or take). Precipitation will mostly come as snowfall in this context. In most years you can count on snow accumulation during most of the winter, though it only tends to last without some in-between melting at the more sparsely/impermanently inhabited higher slopes. Most mountaintops will retain snow cover throughout the winter, and the two highest peaks are VERY occasionally known to receive rare summer rains as snowfall.

Most of the Wardi population is spread at low elevations, though the majority of the province Erub and parts of Ephennos are geographically located in elevated highland foothills and may experience slightly colder winters than adjacent low plains. The north of the province Wardin has its own (less dramatic) uplands, the tallest hills of which (~3000 ft) are known to get a crest of snow during particularly cold, wet winters. Inversely, the Yellowtail valley is culturally considered part of the Highlands but is a low plain with very mild winters. It hosts the largest lake in this region and it only freezes over in its entirety approximately once a century.

[sparkmender]

“Yes. I will trade it to you,” the old faery promises, running a servo over the finely crafted shortcloak to smooth out the hood, “For one large ripened pomegranate and a fantasy novel of your choosing. That would be a fair exchange, I think.”

[artsklein]

historical cloak/cape resources

howdy!

these are some links/resources I used to get some inspiration & information for making a historical-inspired cape/cloak/capelet/mantle. i’m working on 2 right now, more posts to come :)

Historical cloak resources & some notes:

 Brunley & Trowbridge - 18th century short cloak tutorial (they sell the pattern for it) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czsqRnN1ENQ&t=0s

>very few wool shortcloaks are fully lined, sometimes the hood is lined in silk but not always

>2 part video (1st linked)

Bernadette Banner - Reconstructing an Edwardian Mantle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUYLt3QxlDo 

>made from silk & more complicated in patterning than the apparently common half-circle short cloak

V. Birchwood - “I Hand Sewed a Majestic Winter Cloak...” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4lD9NOqSHU 

Costume & Conservation - “The Iconic Red Cloak...” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XBPPvOqCRQ 

A point about cloaks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yN8cYd3poIk 

>a very entertaining spiel of a guy explaining a lot of benefits of wool cloaks

“Bocksten Man” Style Cloak and Pattern https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrPbq0-laFM 

>explains the cloak of the Bocksten Man, a preserved Scandinavian bog body found with hair & clothes intact, from around 14th century

LarpWright - “How to Make a Ruana Cloak” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JND09HvdHTA 

>the Ruana is a Celtic-style cloak, relatively simple in construction, usually rectangular

Living Anachronism - “My Ruana Cloak Dimensions” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb9PeqHfbS0 

[handmadebynadya]

Women's Cashmere&Wool Camel Cape in faux leopard fur trim %30 Cashmere %70wool *Neck loop for hangin *Single hook and eye closure *Hidden underarm snap closure optimal The fur trim is hand stitched all around #cashmerjacket #furtrimcape #capejacket #shortcloak Warmwrap #handmadefashion #womenofstyle #etsyfinds #etsyhandmade #etsyshops #etsyseller https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp3IhjzL_FR/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[enbys-art-blog]

Posted in our dnd chat for expressions from this snipperclips meme (X) and these were the results!

Xannan the half-elf is mine.

Waylin the Gnome is @tozzie1‘s

Navi the Goliath is @jenneeehhh‘s

Joe belongs to Mollie

and of course our beloved dm (even if we were fighting moose and not elk) is @tipnex

[naimly]

Commission for the lovely @thetidebreaks of their halfling rogue, Varris Shortcloak and he lil’ mouse Boot ♥

[enby-scientist]

dnd squad asked to give full names:

Joe:  Joe [insert orcish name here]

Waylin:  Wailefosfouwdi'ielin Shortcloak

Xannan: Xannan Brian Eldar

Navi: Thunder..... Thighs

[edgemarquis]

Excerpt from Chapter Eight

     CITIZENS OF SHIELDWALL CITY, HEART OF THE EMPIRE, DUE TO CRIMINAL ACTIVITY IN CORDIS, MAIN STREET IS TEMPORARILY UNDER LOCKDOWN. SUSPICIOUS PERSONS WILL BE DETAINED. CITIZENS ARE URGED TO STAY INDOORS UNTIL INSTRUCTED BY AN OFFICER OF THE WATCH.

    The announcement certainly kept the people indoors; even the streets around Main were empty. Anberlin warily stepped from the alley and onto Potter Avenue, where the greater bulk of what was considered ‘Marchants’ Alley’ could be found. A café had closed and locked its shutters, and shop display windows were curtained.

    Anberlin had forgotten about the club still clutched in her fist until she dropped it. Was this the Masked Thief’s own personal weapon? The stains on the claw still glistened in spots, as if wet. Perhaps… Perhaps it was unrelated and maybe, just maybe, she was letting her imagination run rampant.

    Through the fog, she saw the shadow of a figure that she at first thought to only be a statue, so involved with her theorizing as she was, until it moved. Too narrow to be Silas and not boisterous enough to be any other Watchman, she called out to them in as authoritative a tone as she could muster: “If you are not an officer of the Watch or a guardsman, these streets are closed to you, and you might be detained!” Anberlin put her faith in the density of the fog and brandished the club in the same menacing fashion a guard would, and it seemed to work; the figure backed away after the threat registered, then vanished into what Anberlin assumed was an open doorway.

    Now, to find Silas. He was no longer on the roofs, that much was certain. He had likely lost the chase and resorted to a manhunt through the streets. Potter Avenue seemed far too peaceful, even with the shouting from the street behind her. He may have moved on to Charleston Avenue, or into the residential districts, but it was far too easy for one man to get himself lost, at least based on what Silas himself had told her. Anberlin tapped the club idly against the balusters as she walked. The club was pulled. Reflexively, Anberlin pulled forward, her thought that it had merely caught on a stone, until something tightened its hold on the club and yanked. Her pull then was violent. She wrestled the club up in front of her, and a person came with it.

    The fingers that gripped tight to the heavy clawed end of the club were in staunch contrast to Anberlin’s, pale as paper, with fingertips and nails that were either painted black or dirtied with oil or soot. The hand was wrapped in black, fraying cloth while the wrist was protected by some manner of stained leather brace. Their hold was strong, and all Anberlin could do was turn sharply to greet them. A hood drawn low and a red bandanna drawn up concealed their face entirely.

    “Let go,” she demanded.

    “Didn’t anybody teach you stealing’s wrong?” they asked, voice a gravelly snarl. A glint of something just beneath the hood, as if glass or metal reflected the dim glow of the nearby streetlamp, unsettled her.

    “This belongs to my friend,” Anberlin sternly lied, though her voice cracked.

    For a moment their hold on the club loosened, she felt it, as if her bluff had worked. Then they reeled her in close, so she could smell an alcoholic stink. “This’s my blackjack,” they said flatly. “I don’t know you.”

    Before she could yell for help, Anberlin found herself violently wrenched. Her head struck something solid, and she was flung right over the balustrade into the runoff below. How the raspy-voiced villain had moved so quickly she couldn’t fathom, but her concerns for the finer details were crushed beneath the weight of water and wavering consciousness. As Anberlin struck the surface, blood spread in a halo around her head.

-

    He leaned over the stone wall and watched as the current took her. “Rest in fucking peace, dumbass,” he croaked. When he heard a gagged cough from the gutter below, however, he placed both hands on the wall and leaned further. “Gotta be fucking kidding me,” he hissed.

-

    Though the rain had tapered off by morning, the gutters were full, and the current was quick and strong. The more she fought the easier it seemed to drag her underwater, and she feared she would drown before anyone caught sight of her struggling. Colors flashed by through breaks in the fog overhead, then were gone altogether; she was away from Cordis. When she opened her mouth to yell, she choked on water.

    CITIZENS OF SHIELDWALL CITY, HEART OF THE EMPIRE, DUE TO CRIMINAL ACTIVITY IN CORDIS, MAIN STR

    She was pulled under and down into the tunnel beneath the joint of three streets with little time to take a deep breath. Something small and hairy bumped her cheek and was swirled away by her own spinning. The motions were dizzying enough even before she crashed against the sewer wall, forced to twist and turn and tumble. Her shortcloak tightened around her throat and flipped over her head, strangling her until she unbuttoned it to free herself.

    Briefly, her head popped above water, just long enough for Anberlin to sputter in a breath. It was too dark to see anything at all. The weight of her clothing only helped to wrench her back under, but kicking off her shoes proved impossible on its own. When her hands found something solid to grab hold of, it broke away with her after a moment’s strain, and she was then convinced that there in sewage was where she would die.

    The water pushed her up and she gasped for air, clawing desperately at the surface of the water.

    Where am I?

    For now, that she had survived was really all that mattered.

    Anberlin was still being pushed along, only this time the current was almost gentle. She was back outside, but there was no expertly-carved balustrade or arching stone footbridges above her. Instead, the handrailing was constructed of weather-beaten wood and the bridges were metal.

    “Help,” she gasped, finally able to find her voice. “Please, I need help!”

    The gutter trenches were much deeper wherever she was, and there was nowhere she could stand, but the overflowing water ran so lazily that she was able to paddle to a spot she could stand. Water had been left to flood the entire street, up to her waist when she stood. An enormous metal statue of Imperator Titus stood weathered and headless, its back pressed to an old brick building that bore Watch insignia on its rotting door. Some sort of cloth had been pinned across several buildings, but were so streaked and ruined from passing storms she couldn’t tell what they had once displayed. The entire atmosphere felt heavy, fog aside, and Anberlin had never felt so small or alone in her entire life.

    When she flexed her fingers, water oozed from her gloves. Her shirt sagged off one shoulder, and her hair hung loose down her back. She was smudged with grime from the sewers, and the water smelled rotten. All she wished in that moment was to return home for a thorough rinsing.

    Until she heard a soft, mournful wail.

    Other voices joined, and she realized it was an organized choir. The haunting song echoed from one of the tight footpaths that led into the web of residencies, and the word siren came to mind.

    It felt like a place beyond the Empire, somewhere alien. Not far down the road stood imposing, dark metal structures that she had only ever seen from a distance, and at the far end was the old clock tower mid-deconstruction, surrounded by scaffolding. Announcements were muffled.

    The Factory District had been blocked off to the public for years due to unsafe conditions. It sat in what had been a shallow lake, drained and molded to accommodate Shieldwall’s rampant expansion, and the entire district had suffered. Anberlin remembered when the fence had risen because of her father’s fiery and vocal opposition of it, that to secure the perimeter was a waste of Watch resources, that there weren’t enough watchmen to patrol the city streets as it was.

    The dreary day had chilled the rainwater. After her violent journey, her legs were beginning to go numb, and she decided she needed to get moving. In Bersia, a storm could blow from the sea at any given time, and the last place she wanted to be in heavy rain was the district whose gutters drained at a snail’s pace.

    Singing continued. It was almost a chant. Anberlin tasted blood between her teeth and reminded herself that she likely had numerous cuts and wounds that needed to be seen to.

    One glance was spared over her shoulder in the direction of the choir as she began to trudge through the water, then another glance, and another, until she stopped walking and turned around.

    If she remained hidden, perhaps she could chance a peek.

    Anberlin all but dragged herself as quietly as she could across the flooded street and toward the narrow pathway, pushing floating debris out of her path. She surveyed the alley as she went; the district had closed long before cantilever footbridges had seen widespread installation across the Empire, but it seemed someone had taken it upon themselves to arrange planks of wood in a similar fashion between balconies and broken windows. Beside those and the distant choir, there seemed to be no sign of life. There were certainly no people anywhere she looked.

    With both arms raised above the water, Anberlin carefully picked her way down the path. The flooding only worsened as she traveled deeper into the district, and soon she found herself chest-deep in water. Still, she pushed onward.

    “If you wanted to go for a swim,” a familiar voice called, “you should’a just gone to the beach. Or some fancy pool. You nobles all have those, yeah?”

    Relieved to see a friendly face as she was, her answer was prompt and cross. “I haven’t the time for you, Reed,” she huffed.

    “Yeah, I see you’s real busy drowning.”

    He was precariously balanced on the edge of a roof overhead, backlit by a break in the fog. Sloshing through the water drowned out any other sound, and Anberlin had to pause to hear the singing choir; she peered up at him as she did.

    “I am going to find the source of that song,” she informed Reed, and stumbled into a hole in the ground that left her suddenly neck-deep in icy water.

    “Well, you’s doin’ great.”

    The fog rolled in thick, and Reed disappeared from view. Had he been the one who set up the makeshift footbridges, Anberlin wondered. She couldn’t imagine a trade-thief willingly compromising their gear by wading through sewer runoff. As if he read her mind, he called; “You got something against convenience, or you really like the water?” Reed’s voice came down through the mist, smarmy. “Dunno what’s worse.”

    “When I said I haven’t the time for you, I was serious,” Anberlin returned.

    He dropped down to one of the footbridges, and the wood softly creaked under his weight. He said nothing else, and at first she considered her snap had hurt his feelings, but dismissed it as irritation with her instead. Or, she thought, he might enjoy watching a noblewoman drag herself through a flood. I’m sure many people would.

    They continued in silence, Reed above, Anberlin below. Occasionally the water dipped back down to her ribs when she stepped up onto what might have been a step into someone’s home, but the water was murky and she couldn’t see to the ground. When the water sat at her collar, she paused to reconsider the path she followed.

    “Y’know you’s bleeding, right?”

    Anberlin wiped blood with her sleeve and continued walking.

    He scowled. Blood, but no wounds. “Just...here, you fuckin’ weirdo,” Reed grunted, suddenly taking hold of her raised hand by the wrist, “climb the rope.”

    “Do you honestly believe I can scale a thin rope like thieves do?” she asked, and indignantly shook him off. “I’m fine.”

    “You know how to swim?”

    “It’s shallow enough to walk.”

    “Yeah, right here. Deep enough to drown if you keep goin’.” For a brief moment, there was silence from above as she continued. “On second thought, g’head.”

    He stared down at her and she stared up at him. The numbness in her legs had radiated through her as she walked, and exhaustion now snuck into her joints. The footbridges would be better, but she couldn’t imagine attempting the climb, and she had seen no ladders along her way.

    The choir voices rose in strength.

    Anberlin wiped water off her forehead and waded to a shattered shop window. “Reed,” she called, “help me get the doors open.”

[verinne-mattwin]

The Werewolf vanished in a blur, shadows enveloping her instantly as she separated from the other two.

"Strike now or wait for her to show up." Said Halfrag.

Minath pulled out a knitted yarn ring, with fifteen knots around the rim. She threw it into the air, snapped out three words, and it vanished in a flash of light. In unison with her, an almost identical ring formed around the scene, small glowing stops around the battle.

"What's that?" Asked Halfrag curiously.

"It's a tracking zone. If they leave it they will leave us a glowing trail."

"Thanks. I'll handle Fortune then."

Halfrag pulled another small stone from his pocket, and palmed it into his other hand. A soft and subtle golden glow surrounded the guards and the two.

"I can't cast it on her since I can't see her."

"Can you add her to the targets when she reappears?"

"I could but that would mean I had to concentrate until she appears, which I didn't."

"How long should we wait?"

"There she is." Halfrag said, as a dark shape blocked their view of the tall cloaked figure for a split second. Minath blinked, and both had vanished into the undergrowth in a cacophony of growling and shouting. The sword flickered out of existence as it's master lost concentration.

The battle paused for an instant, as both sides tried to figure out exactly what had just happened. Halfrag took the opportunity to launch a pair of air lances at the still targets, which nailed some of the smallcloaks, blasting them to the side.

Both Minath and Halfrag stepped out of the brush, revealing themselves. The guards relaxed, and the moment was over. The battle resumed. Swords clanged and clunged against each other. The deadly whistle of the archer's arrows stood out against the background of shrieking shortcloaks and shouting guards, loud metal armor, and the dull thud of a shield hitting something soft.

The guards, Halfrag, and Minath had almost finished off the shortcloaks when a wet howl sounded from the brush that the large cloak had vanished into. The bestial sound paused the battle once again. The guards quickly recovered, rebracing themselves. The shortcloaks, on the other hand, decided that the howl was their key to leave. The remaining four scattered, and the tracking zone Minath had cast left glittering white trails of light behind them.