Today marks the beginning of the Winter Event in City of Heroes, and this holiday celebration adds a new "throw snowflakes" emote and two new badges to the game. In addition, players can purchase a character respec with candy cane salvage. More information can be found on the Winter Event page.

Paragon Studios is also offering free character server transfers for the holidays through Jan. 31, 2010. You can read all of the important details after the jump.

City of Heroes® is proud to announce that starting today character transfers between servers (within North American OR European server lists) will become free to all players and remain that way through the end of January 2010.

• Starts:Tuesday, December 15, 2009 at 8:59 a.m. PST (11:59 a.m. EST)
• Ends: Sunday, January 31, 2010 at 11:59 p.m. PST (2:59 a.m. EST)

Now you will have more freedom to fully enjoy the game and each other...but don't go haphazardly jumping servers without knowing the Character Transfer limit and all the other facts. Visit our Knowledge Base to learn all the specifics so that you can make educated transfer decisions. Amongst other things to bear in mind:

• Transfers are not available between North American and European servers.
• You will be able to complete up to 6 transfers a week (7-day period) per account.
• Not all possessions will transfer over with your character so be sure to read the corresponding Knowledge Base article before you decide to transfer a character.
• Super-group affiliation, Prestige and access to your Supergroup base items will be lost.
• You may lose your character's name when transferring from a server.

Then all you have to do is transfer away and enjoy the holiday server ride!