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Herein you can find the biographies of the 63rd Games tributes

When they rise from the ground, this year's tributes will find themselves almost nose to nose with the pale gold Cornucopia. The reason is obvious as soon as they glance behind them: there is very little room before the land makes a sudden and unexplained drop. While that is both intriguing and discouraging , far more pressing is the Cornucopia itself, or rather the valuable items within and around it. The most useful items sit inside the mouth of the massive horn, although the tail opens to a secondary cache that is also worth looking into—as long as you don't get trapped between the two openings. Should anyone care to linger, they may notice ornate carvings across the top, hard to make out but unmistakably ominous—something that could be a dragon here, a weapon there, all reminiscent of death. This is not going to be a fun Games—but then, are they ever?

No place in an Arena is safe, so perhaps it comes as no surprise that tributes who flee the Bloodbath will be disappointed. Still, the steep pit around the Cornucopia is a bit more of a slap in the face than usual, less because of the height and more because of the writhing mass of snakes. Shimmering black twines through green and gold splashes, the beauty a startling counterpoint to the fear it inspires. Whatever is on the other side is indistinct and far away, offering no hope of food or water—but spending the entire Games at the Cornucopia won't make those things appear, either, so ultimately tributes can only take a deep breath and a leap of faith.

Stunning under the sun and ethereally beautiful in moonlight, this golden building is hard to resist. Once inside, though, one almost has to wonder if the door led them to another world altogether, for the unadorned halls utterly fail the promise of their wildly ostentatious shell. The building offers a cool refuge from the heat of day, but little rest, for darkness shrouds patches of slippery rot and the smallest movement sends haunting echoes down the hall. Only if tributes venture all the way to the back will they find a reward for their curiosity: a room so bloated with treasure that walking through it is a chore. Most of it is useless in the Arena—shining gold chalices and pearl jewelry would fetch a fortune in the Districts, but can't be eaten or distilled into clean water. But the room must be here for a reason, and if anyone has the patience to shove enough piles aside they might find something of use.

Next to the huge, intricately adorned structures with which it shares an island, this unassuming tomb seems out of place. While not exactly simple, for its entrance and sides were clearly decorated in the same taste as its neighbors, it is much more sedate and might be easy to miss if it wasn't the only vertical object in a sea of (admittedly tall, but not exactly obstructing) grass. But there is something about it that commands respect, a somber air that makes its purpose clear even if its inhabitant is unknown.

Something about this place—perhaps the trellises that still hold steady, perhaps the novelty of bright flowers—suggests love. But it is an old and mostly forgotten love, long since choked by vines that outgrew their bounds. There are places where the sweetness of the flowers has become cloying, even choking, and where plants have started to kill one another in bids for light and water, marring the vivid greens with layers of dead brown. If observers squint hard, they might be able to see the careful patterns that defined this garden, but for the most part the plants have returned to the wild from whence they were originally tamed, and in the process they have welcomed back all the creatures that the gardeners so carefully drove out.

Panemites are bathed in blood almost from the day of their birth. For watchers and tributes taught to celebrate (and fear) ritual murder, the temple to the east of the Cornucopia is unsettlingly familiar: gilded in gold but soaked in blood, a thing of equal terror and beauty built to appease higher powers through death. Its single winding hall and the room at the end, where dim remnants of sunlight eek through the ceiling to illuminate a slab stained dark with the blood of nameless sacrifices, offer places to hide at the price of giving tributes nowhere to run—not from outside pursuers, and not from the realization of their fate.

The Golden Pyramid is impossible to miss. Shining even through the thin veneer of dust and dirt, it is impressive even from a distance and draws the curious through the grass like a beacon. Each massive, sloping side features a staircase whose sides are fronted by snarling, stylized animals. At the top sits a square platform with some sort of room; the intricately-patterned walls promise something fabulous, but the open doorways lead only to an empty room. During the day, climbers can find an unparalleled view of the northeastern Arena—as well as a bit of safety, since most mutts will be wary of the painfully warm gold and enemy tributes will not be able to see anyone resting inside.

After the thrashing snakes, blood-soaked buildings, and wild gardens, the lake that encloses most of the Arena seems like a welcome break from the horror of everything tributes have seen so far. The water is clean and tasty, and huge pieces of jungle driftwood dot each shore like ready-made (if slightly precarious) rafts. Staring out from the bank, it's easy to imagine oneself as the last living soul in a pristine world—but of course, that can't be true, and even the lake itself may not be as peaceful as it seems. Let yourself be lulled, tributes, but never forget where you are, for there's no telling whether the fish at the shore want to nibble at roots or toes, let alone what deeper waters hold.

Vivacious and colorful, the jungle at the edge of the Arena promises life in the same way that the cold, open expanse of the lake promises safety: enticingly, convincingly, and falsely. The soft layer of vegetable debris on the floor hides treacherous roots and vicious creatures, edible plants lie side by side with poisonous relatives, and while the thick canopy gives some relief from the oppressive sun, rampant humidity makes the days seem even hotter. Something or someone is always on the prowl here, and between the dim light and the constant noise, spotting enemies takes as much luck as skill.

Once, surely, this was a fearsome place. Even now you can feel traces of it; broken but still somber, the rat-shaped idols that line the shrine's entrance grin eerily as you approach from the jungle, and each footstep draws out the rustling of what you can only assume are actual rodents. But today the stone is crumbling and sunlight streams through holes in the awning, robbing even the massive rat at the front of his terrifying supremacy. No matter how intimidating he is (What's with the eye scars? And are rat teeth really that long?), the only things you have to fear are sounds: the threat of the creaking pillars, and the haunting echo of footsteps you hope are your own.