Aquitaine Great Fair

As spring shades into summer on even-numbered years, Aquitaine hosts a three-week Great Fair. People spend the summer months recovering. They spend the next six seasons preparing their crafts or their produce, their wardrobes, and their savings. Many spend the spring leading up to the Great Fair working as fast as they can to get ahead of normal duties, to give themselves plenty of free time.

Visitors travel from as far away as Thysbee or Lakefell. Some are part of a regular merchant caravan, accustomed to travel on the Warden Road. Others, in the rest of their time, travel only for emergencies or to compete and sell and shop at a Fair such as this.

The most spectacular fair goods and booths usually appear on the first weekend of the Fair, when the crowds will have the most money to spend and the least consideration for future expenses. Anyone who can only afford to be away from home for a short time probably attends the Great Fair during that first weekend; anyone who is planning their future contracts based on their business at the Great Fair will form their strongest impressions of options before the second weekend.

The second weekend in particular is considered either the best time to make deals with merchant followers of Nethys ... or, possibly, the most dangerous time to get in the way of a Copan Shire contract negotiation!

And then, there are the orc bands of the Longgrass Plains.

Sometimes no orc presence appears at all.

Sometimes a hunting party or three will camp out in the wild grassland outside the western border of the city; they might stay a few days, or ten. Their visits might overlap, one hunting party leaving the morning after another one arrived.

Rarely, an entire tribe shows up one morning while the Fairgrounds are still under final construction north of Aquitaine's walls. In such a highly-attended case, some sort of political negotiation will be happening between the leaders of that tribe and the heads of supposedly more "civilized" nations. Treaties will cover undisturbed travel rights across the nearby areas of the Warden Road, trade relations among smaller bands and the closest Freecities League town associated with Aquitaine, established caravans to be recognized as friendly parties, and systems for settling local disputes.

This sort of political negotiation has happened every seven to ten Great Fairs since long before the Iron Throne was vacated. "International Politics" is all very important, yes of course, but the Great Fair negotiations are about practical matters.

By the time the Great Fair closes out, the summer rains are usually getting underway. A "last day of Fair" closing ceremony that lacks at least one medium downpour is considered an omen of drought in the future.

Traditional dates:

Starts Xerad 1st
Ends on the Summer Solstice, also known as Stormcall, which falls Xerod 20th through 22nd

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Primary Related Location

Aquitaine