Famous, and perhaps a bit infamous in some quarters, is the mobile extravaganza known as Thernoff's Traveling Show. The Show is a wagon train the size of a small village that roams the more populous areas of the North. It is part magical act, part carnival, part musical extravaganza, and part menagerie. It is a run by Thernoff, an ancient-looking stooped old man of modest height who claims to be half elf, half halfling and half gnome. Thernoff himself is a musician and storyteller the likes of which is rarely seen; one of the greatest of the bards.
The performers in the Show consist of dozens of families and individuals, each with their own specialty to contribute to the show. There are magicians and conjurers, bards, musicians, storytellers, rogues performing sleight of hand tricks, and animal trainers performing acts with all manner of exotic and monstrous beasts. The performers run the gamut of racial types in the world, and include men, elves, halflings, gnomes, dwarves and even goblins.
The Show travels from city to city from Spring through Fall, setting up shop outside of a city or town, staying for no longer than a week and then moving on. Few know exactly where the Show winters, but one thing that is known for sure is that they end each season somewhere outside the boundaries of the organized realms.
Some believe that there is a darker side to the Show, and tales are told of robberies in towns that they visit, mysterious deaths, and all manner of other veiled accusations, painting them as thieves, assassins and spies.
Rumors say that the Show was turned away at the borders of the City-State of Tiencin in the summer of NR706 on suspicion of...nobody quite knows what.
Whatever the truth may be, Thernoff and his associates put on quite a show, and their arrival is a cause for celebration among the common folk of the land.
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