The following are excerpts from Allen Caraton's Traveler's Guide to Feredas. The book is considered the most comprehensive guide to the Manastorms and copies are sold in every train station, gate waystation, and docking port across Feredas.
"Every citizen of Feredas knows the cycle. They feel the arrival of the 22nd day in their very bones. The drop in the air, the energy of an entire continent holding their collective breaths. The fear and anxiety at another impending visit of the Rider, the tension of expected violence threatening to snap the world in half; one can only hope their storm shutters hold against the tide."
"The Faceless... by the Emperor I don't know what we did to bring these monsters down on us but there they are, every single Manastorm. Mud brown hide, leathery wings, faces completely blank save for a mouth full of razor sharp teeth, long black talons on all four limbs... the sight alone of those monsters would give an apprentice adventurer cause to retreat. I've heard from Blended that they are not that strong individually, but they have no sense of self-preservation and are driven entirely by the need to end sentient lives. They ride ahead of the storm, swarming over everything, searching every inch of every home to find a way in. Their only desire is to rip apart anything intelligent; for some unknown reason they ignore animals entirely."
"The most interesting aspect of the storms, in this writers' humble opinion, is the way the 3 Realms blend together. The chaotic effects of the storms' magic cause the Cognitive, Material, and Spiritual to bleed together, leading to random magical effects, spirits entering the Material Realm, and even horrors from the Cognitive roaming around causing problems. This effect, chaotic and dangerous though it may be, is the entire reason we have been able to create mass amounts of Forged! I do not understand the entire process myself, but I do know that the wild, roaming spirits will inhabit the body of a Forged and give it life. For the rest of us fleshy types, the storm brings hurricane-level winds, rain, and hail, not to mention all the magic being flung about. It would almost be a sight worth watching if it wasn't for everything else that comes with the storm."
"So on top of the three realms bleeding together, the hurricane-level storm, the Faceless, the chaotic energies, and the terrifying regularity, the storms also bring the Striders! Three-legged monsters taller than the storms, somehow able to walk on top of anything without damaging it, we still know startingly little about them. What do they want? Where do they come from? Do they disappear with the storms? What do they eat, if anything? Why aren't they aggressive like everything else in the storm? It seems the only thing we can say with any confidence is that the Striders, or Walkers as some call them, amplify the effects of the storm's chaotic magic. Scholars who have set up scrying devices reported detecting restorative magic, transformative magic, and even conjuration magic flung randomly throughout the area surrounding each Walker."
"The silence of the storm's passing is a falsehood. The Faceless will often follow the storm, just as they lead it. Only the brave or foolhardy venture out before hearing the birds chirp; usually with the intent to plunder destroyed buildings or steal scattered valuables. Sometimes the chaos of the storm's magic will linger and those first few who leave their homes will be struck with lightning, changed into animals, or just put to sleep right there on the ground. Once, a cousin of mine stepped out as soon as the birds chirped. He went to repair a fence and wandered right into an unseen pocket of magic. To this day, he's still 6 inches shorter than he was that morning."
"If you hear heavy footsteps on your porch, a thudding knock on your door, or something trying to open your windows, pray to the Emperor for protection. The Rider decided to pay you a visit, and your only recourse is hope; hope that your shutters and doors stay in place, hope that it can't make eye contact, hope that the Emperor is watching over you, and hope that it gets bored and wanders off. I've seen what the Riders' gaze does to people who make eye contact with it... Please, if you decide everything else I have written is nonsense, hear me now. The Rider is death incarnate. It will carry you and all you hold dear off into the darkness if you let it into your home. Stories from the North filter down occasionally... kings have attacked it with legendary artifacts, nothing stops it. It will take an Archmage just as easily as it takes a child. Please, dear reader, do NOT take the Riders' presence lightly. If you hear someone fiddling with your windows or trying to open your door in a storm, close your eyes tight and pray to The Emperor for safety."
"The concept of a spiritual anchor, often called a spiritual home, was barely recognized, let alone understood, before the storms. The longer you've lived in your home and the more people have called it home, the stronger the spiritual strength and the more impenetrable it becomes to those from that realm. The homeless, transient, or otherwise unprotected will go to storm bunkers: large barracks-type structures that have been spiritually reinforced at great cost to the Imperial Coffers. The effect, as I understand it, is that the more solid the concept of 'Home' is in peoples' minds, the more 'real' the structure becomes in the Spiritual Realm and thus, harder for spirits to invade. Places like the Imperial City may be fixed in the minds of the collective, but few specific details beyond 'the city is in this place' mean that it has a shifting, semi-solid structure that blocks very little. Friends in the Guild have explained to me the difference between this and a Cognitive presence. I am no scholar, but I will try to explain. So normally, an objects presence in the Cognitive realm is set and defined by peoples' belief in that object, and their beliefs about its' power, appearance, size, and so on. This doesn't normally happen in the Spiritual Realm, but the concept of ones home has a lasting effect even on your spirit, causing ripple effects even in that barely-perceptible realm. This same effect is why so many lost, confused spirits return to their home from when they were alive, drawn there looking for answers or absolution."
"I will not go into all the ramifications in this guide, as all the effects would fill several volumes on their own, but the storm heralds a change in seasons. It seems entirely random, as if the gods roll the dice after each storm. Sometimes we'll get 3 Autumns in a row, sometimes we will go between Summer and Winter 4 times in a row. Arcanium infusion has kept our crops from dying with each season change, but there are those who claim the more 'normal' crops grown in Ragoth taste far better. Your experience may vary, as this humble writer can never tell the difference. That is, until I am served a potato that tastes like a favored childhood experience. Once, a vendor sold a pre-rolled smoke that caused me to taste sounds... that was an interesting day. Did you know that someone playing a string instrument tastes like a good steak?"
"The storms of Feredas hold one more horror for their victims: the Stormfury. At the end of the year, after 15 months, there is a 3 day period with random Manastorms. They pop up with little warning, sweep through quickly, and leave the Faceless behind to ensure we stay inside. Make sure you are stocked up on provisions during this time, as going outside can be a gamble. Sometimes you can spend an entire day outside without issue, sometimes the entire 3 day period is spent under storms. There is good news, however, as the week following the Stormfury is the Festival of Renewal! A wondrous festival, designed to celebrate the survival of Feredas and bring good fortune for the upcoming year, the Emperor is celebrated for his mercy and there's a feast on every corner! Games, bards, vendors of all kinds, even tourists fill the streets of every city! The entire Empire teems with life and hope, and the people are never as grateful for what they have as they are after the Stormfury. It is my opinion that the best food and novelties in the entire cosmos can be found in the streets of the Imperial City during the Festival! If you haven't experienced one, you should schedule a trip immediately!