Gnormajean was exhausted as she stumbled down the icy paths of New Halas in the bitterly cold dawn. She had been up late decorating her bakery and sweet shop with Scarletwing (sometimes having a tall aerakyn as a friend was very handy for a shop-owning gnome!), and then she'd had the oddest dreams disturbing her sleep as well.

*Too many Frostfell stresses on my mind, I guess* she mused to herself. *They were a bit vivid to be called dreams, but I can't rightly call them nightmares, either, as the little guys were so cute.* Whatever you wanted to call them, animated gingerbread men had play-stalked her through an empty town, including one little ninja-like one dual-wielding sharpened bits of hard candy. In another, that little ninjabread had chased her around the shop, squeaking "Stabby! Stabby!" ... and so on. All ... night ... long. It was a good thing she wasn't given to fits of the vapors, since one of the things Scarlet said she was going to work on overnight was gingerbread men!

With that thought, she let herself into Gnorma's Sweet Shoppe, relocked the door behind her, and started to make her way through the dimly-lit shop. She was just as glad that Scarlet and the rest of the "night shift" (another baker and a candy maker) were not out in the front part of the shop to hear her undignified squeak as one set of shadows resolved into a small army of gingerbread men in a variety of poses arranged in and around a square wicker basket. But there seemed to be something ... odd ... about them.

She moved slowly towards them, wishing she'd lit a gnomish lamp before shuffling through the darkened shop to the kitchen, and tried to tell herself she was moving slowly due to the dim dawn lighting and her own tiredness, not due to her dreams.

As she drew closer, she realized that they were too stiff and rigid to be traditional gingerbre-

"I thought those up in the wee hours, so I whipped up a test batch while some other stuff was baking." Scarletwing's voice came suddenly from the kitchen doorway, along with the bright light spilling in from the busy kitchen.

Gnorma did not shriek ... much. After all, she'd known the kitchen was staffed. It was just a reaction to the bright light when her eyes were almost adjusted to the dimness. Really.

Scarlet stifled a chuckle as she handed Gnormajean a cup of freshly-brewed coffee. "Morning Gnorma. Meet the Frostfell pet chews! If they're not a hit, they're at least useful for some festive decoration that won't break into immediate crumbs when someone knocks them over. If they turn out to be a success, there will be some happy warders and familiars around. They're pretty easy to whip up in the infrequent lulls in the kitchen schedule and they should stay edible for a month or so."

She wasn't surprised when the only response she got was an incoherent mumble. Even though she only helped out with overnight baking during busy holiday events, Scarletwing had quickly learned Gnorma wasn't really the chatty type until she'd had her first caffeine of the morning. The sidelong glances that she was giving both the pet treats and the true gingerbread men in a display case at the far end of the front counter were a bit odd, but Gnorma was a gnome, after all, and their minds worked in odd ways.

"Anyway, I'm off to get some sleep. Fizzwig is handling his last batch of fancy sweetbreads now, and Clara has some peppermint patties hardening now. You should be all set for you and the day crew to take over."

"Mrmph. Sleep well and thanks." Gnorma mumbled around her coffee mug, which was being held in a death-grip."

"Thanks." As Scarlet pulled her wings more tightly to her sides as she exited the shop, she called over her shoulder. "I wonder how easily gingerbread men could be animated. One as a shop mascot could be kind of cute!"

"NO! I mean, they'd getunderfootwithallthecustomertraffic andtheydleavecrumbseverywhere!" Gnorma was practically speed-babbling as she responded.

Scarletwing simply nodded calmly and continued out the door. "You're likely right. Ah well, g'night!" She didn't know why Gnorma was acting a bit weirder than normal, but, well ... gnomes. They got their knickers in a knot over the oddest of things.

Mum note: this isn't the story that I planned on writing. It isn't even the one that I deleted once it was half-written. Ah, the muse is full of crumbly holiday mischief, and wants to give me a hard time. It is what it is - just a tiny little morsel of silliness to kick off the event that is launching in another 10 hours or so. Happy Frostfell all!

Don't let that little ninjabread man at the top of the page make you crumb-le from fear. He may be a bit spicy from all that ginger, but he's a sweet little softie!

Frostfell, the annual mid-winter celebration, runs from as soon as the servers are up from the December 5, 2017 patch until the 7 a.m. patch on the morning of January 4, 2018.

Stacking

While new furniture from the Planes of Prophecy can now stack up to 10, and there are plans to make other furniture stack as well (including the Frostfell stuff), it hasn't happened yet. It may or may not be in place the event, but it is something to look forward to down the line.

In the meantime, there is more stacking-type news! Holiday harvests will now stack into stacks of 800. This may ease the storage strain on the event harvest packrats a little.

How to Access the Event

If you are new to Frostfell, or simply feeling a bit brain-fogged, the main Frostfell hub, the Frostfell Wonderland Village, is available from every home city via a magic cabinet. There is quite a bit to see and do in there, and I recommend that you visit the wiki for details on the quests. If you have a lot of alts that you want to run through the event, you might also want to download Casdoe's quest trackers. (Frostfell Quest Tracker in XLS format and Frostfell Quest Tracker in pdf format.)

Make sure to clear out a bunch of bag space - or make room for one Frostfell shopping bag from the vendor, and some extra room in another bag or two not only for the overflow from that bag, but also for the items that you craft, gifts from Santa, quest rewards, etc. If you forget to unload before you head in, there is a banker at the top of the zone, near the entrance.

New Crafted

There are three new crafting books again this year: "Frostfell Outfits You Can Make X", "Frostfell Feasts and Decorative Crafts X", "Scholarly Pursuits for a Festive Frostfell X" As usual, recipes from these books will require Frostfell harvestables and will need to be crafted on the Frostfell crafting equipment.

Your Frostfell harvestables will come from your upgraded pack pony as well as from harvesting the various present nodes in the Frostfell Wonderland Village. As a quick refresher, the stacks of presents with the blue gift on top are for items from the "Frostfell Outfits" books, the stacks of presents with the red gift on top are for items crafted from the "Frostfell Feasts" books, and the single red gift nodes are for items from the "Scholarly Pursuits" books.

Crafting of these items must be performed on either the crafting equipment in the Frostfell Wonderland Village, or on the home Frostfell equipment obtained during the event.

Blue Draconic Toy Block	Cool Mint Bed	Cool Mint Chair
Cool Mint Grandfather Clock	Cool Mint Nightstand	Cool Mint Rug
Cool Mint Table	Festive Tartan Cushion	Festive Tartan Pillow
Flat Envious Vine Wrapped Present	Flat Festive Tartan Wrapped Present	Halasian Holiday Fruit Basket
Holiday Fruit Basket	Purple Draconic Toy Block	Snowflake Cushion
Snowflake Pillow	Square Frost Wrapped Present	Warm Direbear Pelt
Square Festive Vine Wrapped Present

Then there are eight Baked Gingerbread cutouts to add to the existing building block set. (Arched Door Frame, Horizontal Window Frame in a Tall Divider, Rectangular Door Frame, Square Window Frame in Narrow Divider, Square Window Frame in Tall Divider, Tall Window Frame in Narrow Divider, Tall Window Frame in Tall Divider, and Vertical Window Frame in Tall Divider.)

Last, but not least, are new Frostfell Fae outfits. The leather appearance set consists of all armor slots. The cloth appearance set consists of robe, slippers and gloves.

New Purchased

Gerbi Frostfoot, the permafrostfell merchant in Frostfell Wonderland Village, has 5 new items for sale, including a new mount! These items cost Frozen Token of E'ci, the Frostfell currency that is earned from various Frostfell quests.

Deepice Gnomophone plays "Frostfell Opus" 20 tokens	Ferocious Cool Mint Striped Steed (flying mount) 500 tokens	Petamorph Wand: Tundra Snapper 4 tokens
Hinged Frosted Hedge (functioning door) 20 tokens	Hinged Frigid Snowmound building-block, swivels 20 tokens

Last, but most definitely not least, with the next live server patch (likely around Dec. 12), a new Frostfell Merry Kitten Familiar will be added to Gerbi Frostfoot's wares. He will cost 50 token of E'ci. (Stats are based on an examine by a level 98 character, so take level scaling into account.)

There were also several more kitten familiars added to the event section of the familiar tab. I will drop in a link to a separate page for them momentarily.

New Santa Glug Gifts

Every 18 hours, each character can ask Santa Glug for a present. There are 15 possible gifts from him this year, including 8 that are brand-new.

bold=new gift for 2017

• Sweet Dreams Cushion
• Sweet Dreams Pillow
• Sinister Gumdrop (heirloom fluff pet)
• Chocolaty Ninjabread Man housepet
• Molten Throne Snowglobe - plays "Chrono Gate's Reprise"
• Plane of Magic Snowglobe - plays "Arcane Concerto"
• A Midnight Pekin housepet
• Cool Mint Candy Crown - appearance-only
• Majestic Stag Ice Sculpture
• Gumdrop Tower
• Alabaster Pekin housepet
• Gigglegibber Frostfell Pillow
• Snowfall Tapestry
• Envious Santa Glug Beard and Cap
• Purple Banded Knit Scarf

Plane of Magic Snowglobe "Arcane Concerto"	Molten Throne Snowglobe "Chrono Gate's Reprise"	Sinister Gumdrop (fluff pet)
A Midnight Pekin (housepet)	Chocolaty Ninjabread Man (housepet)	Cool Mint Candy Crown
Sweet Dreams Cushion	Sweet Dreams Pillow

Old Quest, New-Old Rewards

There's plenty to do this holiday season without stressing over running all your alts through a new holiday quest, so I'm kind of glad this year's event doesn't see any new quest. However, for those of you who happened to have missed certain small items that are no longer available, the Great Candycane Chase offers up 5 quest rewards that were no longer available.

TLE Servers?

TLE server, Fallen Gate, will have special Frostfell themed house items and equipment merchants in Freeport and Qeynos Province District.

TLE server, Stormhold, gets nearly the full live event! Exceptions (due to zone limitations these quests are not available):

• "Little Lost Goblin" quest offered by Meg Gingersnap.
• "Deepice Dreams" quest series offered by Jarith Icewing.

Video Tour?

{sings} On the second day of Frostfell (testing) Oaky gave to meeeeeeee, a video of the good-ies. Bad Ocarinah, naughty Ocarinah stressed about getting this video tour done ASAP, shorting herself on sleep. She's doing a me. That's not allowed! But we love her dearly, so she only gets a small scolding. Here's her video tour of the Frostfell 2017 offerings.

Quest Tracker?

There is nothing really new to track this year, but Casdoe has updated the Frostfell quest trackers to reflect the new year. Frostfell Quest Tracker in XLS format and Frostfell Quest Tracker in pdf format.

What About that Frostfell Crafting Instance?

While the Frostfell tradeskill quest is a good way for lower level crafters to level up, it is NOT going to help level 100 crafters get any higher level. I know some folks were asking about it, but it isn't going to give you enough xp to even be noticeable on your xp bar. Sorry folks!