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The are the revised and published journals of Midwinter Snowfall, an Air Aspected dragonblooded who decided to walk away from his family and his place to become an explorer.

Volumes 1-4 discuss about Snowfall's rearing in the northern provinces to be a research assistant to an old and powerful Twilight Solar, his education at several key schools in the region and his time spent hiking
during vacations. Volume 5 tells the tale of how, on a hiking trip, Midwinter realized that it was his lot in life to see the world and to write all he could about it, and how he managed to talk his way out of his apprenticeship, and out of his family.

Volume 6-8 Tell of his travels throughout the Old Realm and all the marvelous sights of Civilization Volumes 9 and 10 discuss his travels in the West -- while these took up the majority of his lifespan, much of
this time was spent in the humdrum life of a sailor. Volumes 11-17 detail his travel around the borders of creation, seeing the sights on the edges -- this is where most of the best selling material came from.

Volume 18, written by the editor, explains the circumstances of Midwinter's failing health and ultimate death in a small town in the East. Despite its morbid subject matter, the editor is a far better writer than
midwinter and thus this is, perhaps, the best written of all the volumes.

• Vol 1: 'Wars Across Fields of Marble'
  
  This volume covers some of the greatest games of Duras
  ever played. Gurag's writing style makes this excellent
  and suspensful reading. Although he writes about the
  games almost as if each one is a grim and bloody war, it
  does not seem excessive or out of place.
  
  At the end of each game, Gurag writes a report on the
  strageties used through every move on either side of the
  board. It makes little sense unless a person has read
  volumes 2-4; however, if they have read those volumes, it
  does provide an excellent example of how the games and
  strageties work.
  
• Vol 2: 'The First Taste of Blood: Beginnings'
  
  'Beginnings' begins with a quick but comprehensive
  overview of the rules of Duras. Duras is a two person
  game, where each player has 96 pieces. Each piece has its
  own rules for movement, and not all pieces and take all
  the other pieces. It is played on a board with three
  seperate but connecting "fields" of varying heights. Each
  player initally controls one field, with the middle field
  being open. While this section is accurate, it is a
  little hard to understand for those new to the game. Gurag
  Tural wrote this book assuming the
  majority of its readers would already be Duras players.
  
  'Beginnings' then moves on various opening moves and the
  strategies behind them. Each and every possible opening
  move is discussed, and there are over a thousand. Each of
  these openings has an exhaustive but well written essay on
  the theories behind that particular move.
  
  'Beginnings' then covers what is considered 'the first
  part' of the game, which is the first three hours of play,
  or until one side loses a quarter of its pieces, whichever
  comes first.
  
• Vol 3: 'The War Wages On: The Middle'
  
  'The Middle' is the largest volume in 'Wars Across Fields
  of Marble'. It covers literally tens of thousands of
  strategies, sub-strategies and adjustments that could be
  made in the "middle" of a game of Duras. The "middle" of a
  game of Duras, according to the book, is hours 3 - 20, or
  until one side is reduced to a quarter of its pieces left.
  Each strategy described in 'Beginnings' is continued
  herein, as well as mentioning nearly countless branching
  strategies. In spite of its incredibly length and
  technical subject matter, Gurag manages to make it a
  bareable, if not exciting read.
  
• Vol 4: 'A Feast for Raitons: The End'
  
  This volume covers the end of the game of Duras. It is
  far smaller than 'The Middle', and the many branching sub-
  strategies that were developed from the strageties
  in 'Beginnings' are reduced again to their broadest forms
  in 'The End'.
  
  It covers thousands of strageties of the game's last
  turns, and, like the other volumes, has exhaustively
  detailed essay regarding to theories behind these
  strategies.
  
  As 'Beginnings' outlined each and every opening possible
  in Duras, 'The End' outlines every end move.
  
• Vol 5: 'Upon Distant Shores: Variations'
  
  This volume covers hundreds of variant games of Duras,
  and outlines how each variation should alter the
  strategies outlined in volumes 2 - 4.
  
• Vol 6: 'A Warrior's Memories'
  
  This final volume outlines a few of Gurag's favorite
  games. He lovingly writes about them. When Gurag
  describes how Usara Deva made her brilliant comeback
  against him, people have been known to cry, both for
  Gurag's loss and for Usara's victory.
  
  This volume has the smallest page count of any of the
  books. However, this book also contains within it, a
  folding Duras board and pieces. The board is made from
  silver and gold, and has silver and gold pieces. Oddly,
  although the silver and gold seem mundane, the board and
  pieces are as hard as steel.

This book is an incredibly long and boring work on First Age economics. Anyone hoping to actually learn anything of the First Age's system of economy; however, will be disappointed. 

The work if filled with large, empty words, and even those who know Old Realm are likely to find it is full of words they don't know.

However, in the margins, there are words written in black ink. Seconds of text are marked through with a simple line, so that they are still readable. Small diagrams and other drawings are present.

All of these markings are very cryptic in nature, and, at first, make little sense.

However, if a character with an Intelligence of 3 or more studies this work for more than a few hours, it becomes clear that the handwritten notes are an attempt to decipher a code within the book. It is apparent that whoever was scribbling in this book believes the whole thing to be a coded message, or several coded messages.

The dreams themselves are laden with obscure symbolism and disquieting portents; any scholar of dreams will immediately recognize them as more than mere fancies of the subconscious. However, their meaning is as opaque today as it was in the First Age. None of them appear to be prophecies of any event which has yet occurred, and they frequently contain characters which do not correspond with any mortal, Exalt, or god known to have ever existed.

Thousands of copies of this book exist, even today. Aorang was so troubled by his dreams that he expended almost his entire personal fortune printing copies of the book and distributing them gratis to all five corners of Creation.

The Wheel Turns

When the Eclipse Caste Lyman Ganjes was finally driven to
ground by Dragon-Blooded pursuers in the Usurpation, he
requested that he be allowed to write down his last words.
The honorable Terrestrial captain agreed, and further took
an oath that the memoirs would be preserved for as long as
her bloodline endured. It took Lyman an hour to write out
the document, after which he took his own life.

The Dragon-Blooded captain held to her word, and although
she has long since passed away, the memoirs still exist,
locked away deep under her ancestral Manse in Lookshy. In
them, Lyman is surprisingly candid about the corruption and
hubris which plagued the Solar Exalted, and holds out hope
that the Terrestrial and Sidereal Exalted may be able to
guide the world into a future equally as glorious as the
fallen past.