Barstool Sermons
For much of the fourth and early fifth centuries AC a low Clan tunnel digger named Gherrick Grayhammer spent his evenings drinking mead at a dozen or so pubs in the lowest reaches of New Kharolin, spouting stories about everyday Khadra that exemplified the morals of the working class. Part philosopher, part preacher, Gherrick always waiting until an audience had grown to tell one of his hundred or so tales in a deep, rich voice that could hush a mob with whisper.
Each tale focused on a seemingly common occurrence in Khardric life - from pulling up potatoes under the summer sun to sealing a fissure in a retaining wall. And while his stories always had interesting characters, often with an odd quirk, none seemed heroic, diabolical or in any way exaggerated. Likewise, their experiences never felt mythical or even contrived. Any listen could envision him or herself sweating as they dug for spuds or fretting over an uneven patch of mortar. Yet, Grayhammer held crowds in rapture as he spoke and everyone always left feeling like they had learned something about life.
At first the Khardric intellectual and religious elite assumed that his popularity came from his performance or perhaps even the strength of mead enjoyed by his audience. After a few decades, however, a few priests finally tracked down one of his nightly sessions and, while they could not explain why, understood the appeal. These stories, they claimed, were the word of Kharl: simple, practical, moral and always welcoming. They endeavored to transcribe them and while most agree that they lost something once ink was put to paper, and perhaps something more during the painstaking process of editing multiple retellings of the same tale down to a single narrative during the fifteen years after Grayhammer's death, everyone agrees that Barstool Sermons, the final result published in 460 AC, is one of the finest examples of Khadric literature ever produced.