DESCRIPTION:
Here is the market, which most lethyans visit a few times every orhan. Every third day in week the market is open and people are fighting to find the low prices here. Normally around fifty traders and selling their products here the marketdays and often to a lower price than in the stores. Special food and candies can be bought here. In the spring and in the autumn the marketsquare is more or less transformed into a mudhole and both customers and sellers are fewer than in the summer or winter. Sometimes in the offdays people are holding speeches and auctions in the marketsquare. Once every orhan the square is transformed into an arena when the city is having its festivals. There can be a few different entertainment's in the arena. For example: a circus, musical concerts, but most of the time there are different types of sports or games and the lethyans love these festivals and they love the games. When they hold those games it can hold on from early in the morning until the late night and all the people are partying. As you already know there are at least five festivals each year, one for each orhan (there can be more festivals, but these five are held every year). In the first festival, the winterfestival, they use to play a game called Scolo. It is similar to our handball but the ball is heavier and there are no goalkeepers. And of course, it is to be played in the snow. The goal is 4 times 4 feet and a score is three points. If someone is making a "foul" the other team gets one point and there are a lot of fouls in this game. They play three sets to nine and normally one game is one hour long. There are about 20 scoloteams in Lethys and 16 of them are allowed to join the winterfestivalgame. The winning team gets a prize, but it is more for the honour. In the spring there is athletics. They have a type of duathlon: a race that starts in the arena and ends in the same place. The competitors shall run around the bay (they have to swim between the Cape west and Semcap) and back to the market. They shall make five of these laps and they can choose which way they want and even if they run the same way they can choose different streets. There is no possibility to cheat, because there are many festivalguards in the street and they count the men swimming between the capes. The winner gets a prize, but it is more for honour like the rest of the games. After the duathlon, or the Lethyslap, as it is called, they (not the same athletes) are competing in the arena. The different events is one arena (one lap around the it), longjumping, highjumping, shotputting, polevaulting, stiltrunning, ropeclimbing, rapierfencing, weightlifting, reversed highjumping, rowing, mudwrestling and the last the Medulan. The Medulan is the real competition in the spring. The athletes in this competition compete in all the other events (like decathlon) and in each event they get a number (the winner gets 1 the second man 2 etc.). These numbers are summed and there is a winner. The winner gets the real prize, called 'the X', a golden sculpture of an athlete, that is worth, for a lethyan, over 100 gold. The winners in each event gets a small X-sculpture of an athlete practising their event. It is possible for the Medulan athletes to win the events too, as the competition follows the Medulan athletes. Since some years there is also tradition for the Medulanwinner to choose a princess of the day and the tradition also says that she is for him the rest of the day. Even if it is no law the women that have been chosen never have said no to this and there has been a few stories about the princesses and their winner. It is very strange, but not very many men have won two times and at this very moment no woman have won (they are allowed, but...). In the summer they hold the real festival and the whole city is partying. The special game in the summer is called 'the nude-rude game'. Around the marketsquare they have built a high fence that will last until the game is over and inside they have built two temporary hills, one for the men and one for the women. Two weeks before the game, which is held the last week of the summerorhan, they start to sell the tickets to this game. The lethyans love this game and they pay the incredibly high (1 gold) entrance with a smile on their lips. The tickets are sold in one single day, there is place for exactly 1000 men and equal sum women. Those, who don't get a ticket will go anyway, but have to stay outside the marketsquare, waiting for the losers (you will soon understand why). There is no possibility to watch the game over the fence and the trees around the marketsquare are inside the fence, which is heavy guarded by the guard. Well, inside every man and woman get an individual number between one and 1000. They get a seat with their number on their hill and the game can start. First they wait for the last year losers, who will lead the game and serve as referees. When they enter from a small temporary building in one end, the audience starts to scream and sing 'the nude's song' and in the whole city you can hear the song, because everybody outside the market square sing along with them inside. It goes like this:
Are you gonna stay the hill?
If you're not, just wait until
Either muddied or just be nude
Please, don't let ME be the dude
The losers of the last year tell the audience the rules in the game, but they all know them. The game starts when the man loser of the last year starts rolling three big wheels. They are numbered from one to ten and soon he will get a number between one and 1000 (you know how that works : D1000). He shout out the number and then the man and the woman with these numbers step down to "the dude" and the last year woman loser starts rolling the three wheels again and two other have to come down from the hills. If a number that already been used occur the man and woman with these numbers have to undress (yes, you heard...undress). They leave their clothes to a dwarf that keep all clothes in a big box. If a number occurs for a third time the man and woman are "muddied", they jump into a pool of mud, which is located in the centre of the arena. In the muddy pool they are saved and they cant be the losers of this year, but they have to stay in the bath until the game is over. If a number scores again, fourth time, the "dude" have to roll again. Every time one pair has to undress or go to the muddy pool, the audience still on the hills sing 'the nude's song' . The "dudes" have to roll the three wheels 1000 times and it will take them at least four hours. The audience is now rather drunk, they got a bottle of wine free in the entrance. After the long introduction there are from 350 to 400 people still left on the hills on each side, 150 to 200 are "muddied" and the other 450 to 500 are nude. Now the nude women are building a ring faced in and the men a ring faced out so that they have their backs in contact. They start walking around in a circle and again the audience is singing, but now another song: Feel the back of the woman, feel the back of the man
Laugh and feel happy, while you still can
You are nude
But who will be the dude?
After they have sung this song for the third time the men and the women turn their faces and now they shall find the man or woman of the opposite sex with the same number. When they have found him or her they run and jump into the pool of mud which now is emptied. The people in the pool before are standing close to it screaming and singing like them still on the hills. The last couple into the mud are the losers. Now the audience is screaming again, now screaming for the couple to run the arena ten times. This is what the people outside have been waiting for. The woman only have to run nine laps and if she make it before him he is the real "dude". Now the game is over and the nights party can start. If the PC:s want to join the game here is an easy rule:
Roll a D100 and read this table:
1-37 Stay the hill all the time
38-84 Nude
85-100 Muddied
The average numbers: 466 nude men (and of course 466 women)
370 on the hill
164 muddied
After this festival the arena holds two more. They are equal and again it is a game for the people, but this time they don't have to be ashamed, nude, in front of others. The hills from the summer festival are still there and they build up a new fence. In the entrance the audience gets two balls, which I will describe later. The guards in the entrance also says to the audience that they have to listen to the red man, when he command the people to move, they have to follow his orders, because there will be very many men inside. The entrance is one silverpiece and the audience normally is about five thousand people (10% of the inhabitants of Lethys and there are more people outside wanting to get in!). A man dressed in a strange red robe and an ugly red hat is screaming to the audience to move so that they can get more people inside. Suddenly he looks down on his left ankle and says: - Now, we start!
and the people start clapping their hands and the people outside "uuhhh", because they cant get in.
-As every year we start with the yellow ball, but first I want to introduce my band for you...THE RED TRIO!, says the red man and points at two men, dressed like the him, running to the centre of the arena. The women in the audience scream, even if the red men are not the most handsome men in Lethys. The two guys whisper something to the red man and they start to play and sing, with soft perfect voices. They a long song, which the lethyans know and they sing along with the red trio.
After the first song, the three guys take off their hats and they put them on the ground upside down. The red man raises his hand and says:
- When I say NOW you will throw the yellow ball, OK? The audience is quiet as they wait for the big moment.
Suddenly he scream 'NOW' and thousands of balls are making the air yellow. After a minute he says:
-Enough, those having yellow balls still in their hands throw them now or...
A few balls fly through the air and the three men step forward to the hats. Sometimes they find red balls and then they will call for the guards: - Guard take care of number 3491.
The guards on the hills then try to find the man or woman with that number, not a very easy task. Then they check the hats, which is still standing upside down, helped by a big ironweight they put inside them just before the throw. Normally there are about ten balls in each hat. The first red man gets a ball randomly from his hat and says:
- Number 4981, step down, you have won new locks for every door in your house, made by Kennir´s locks in Khuuport (see 42).
(This is an example of a prize, it is up to the GM what is to be given away, there are a lot of different things you, as GM, can choose between) The second guy does the same and the third too, but the prizes come from another store in Lethys. Then they start playing again, before they open the red balls. The red men command the audience to open their red balls, which they will do, with a crack. You can hear a lot of noise from the hills when they are opening their balls. In one of them there a green ball (new colour from year to year) and the one with the green ball have won something like the yellow ball winners. After that the red trio starts to play again and the big dancing party starts. Not very few times (every other year or so) they arrange other festivals in Lethys. There has been many different types and they usually hold on for a week and like all entertainment these festivals are loved by the lethyans. Examples are : musical festival, sea festival, sports festival and Rhakhaan festival.