Afterword by Bertrem

I trust the reader has found this little book helpful in offering a flavor of everyday life in Krynn of the Fifth Age. In fact, I have sought through my researchers' reports to offer not one but many flavors. Our land, wracked though it still may be by strife, is a place of great wonder and terrible beauty. Through reading these reports I have come to love it more and to wish for a day when the folk of Ansalon can put aside their swords and spears in favor of ploughs and harps.

There is still much to be told about this land, and I have not attempted to be systematic in this book. Rather, in organizing and annotating the reports of the researchers, I have, I hope, deliberately encouraged the reader to skip back and forth, to browse rather than to study, to pick the book up, put it down, and pick it up again. Such, I feel, is the best way to experience its pleasures.

Indeed, I hope very soon, when the press of my duties permits, to return to this subject and to offer yet another guide. Until then, kind reader, I ask your indulgence for an old man who occasionally allows his pen to run away with him. Bear me in your thoughts as I do you in mine.

Greetings from Krynn in the Age of Mortals, known also to her people as the Fifth Age.