“ The devil's wind. Explains why people become crazy. They are caught up in this wind which steals their sanity which in turn feeds the wind. The wind is a leftover from when the air elementals banded together in a mass army at one point to attack the True Gods. The wind is leftover of their attack route and on the anniversary of the battle the wind sweeps through causing the madness.”
“ The accepted mode of getting otherwise unobtainable information is to go visit the cranky old hermit living in the mountains. It's just the sensible thing to do. So, naturally, everyone takes their monthly excursion to the hermit's hovel to consult him on everything, from lock-jaw to lovesickness, necromancers to nasal viruses.
Now, if everyone's always visiting the poor old hermit, there's going to be an enormous queue... 'Wellcome to the Hermitt's Hovele, Please Take Ye a Number and Have Ye a Seate' reads the sign outside the packed dwelling.
Imagine the poor hermit, having retreated into the mountains to escape this precise situation...”