Holidays

[random11]

I'm trying to fill the calendar for several cultures, so I'm looking for ideas about special days and holidays.

Of course, there are the obvious events such as a religious holiday symbolizing the creation of the world, a national day for the king's birthday and seasonal holidays.
I'm looking for unique ideas and traditions.


This is one example I came up with:

Many years ago, two armies gathered to fight each other, each on a different side of a river.
Both leaders knew that the first one to attack would be on a great disadvantage. In fact, both of them didn't really want to fight, and didn't even remember what was the cause for the war, but were bound by honor and duty so they could not retreat.

One day, after many weeks of small skirmishes in this never ending war, a man appeared on the bridge between the two armies.
The mystery man started to insult both leaders in very "colorful" ways.
Both leaders captured the man, who was executed right on the bridge, and then the leaders used that event as an excuse to stop the war.

Some claim that the man was just crazy, others that it was his intent to sacrifice himself so the war can be stopped.
Whatever the reason, that day started a tradition that includes a lot of booze and a full day of people insulting whoever they see. Most villages even have an insult competition in that day.
Ironically, an event that stopped wars let to a tradition that often has many brawls, but most people do not take the insults seriously, at least not until the day ends.

[1nfinite zer0]

Roleplaying Tips had two great articles specifically about creating holidays that you might find helpful: issue 336 (http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=336#tips), issue 337 (http://www.roleplayingtips.com/readissue.php?number=337#tips)

[Bagelz]

You've pretty much got it right.
Most holidays come from significant historical events (the day country X declared/won independance from Y, or the birth/death of a king, the day the volcano went off, the day St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of ireland, or the day we won a war)
Agricultural / astronomical events (first fruit, largest harvest, last harvest(thanksgiving), seasonal equinox (longest day or night of the year), first full moon of the year, first new moon in winter)
or Religious. Most Christian holidays were the church's way of Christianizing pagan holidays (Christmas is winter solstice, easter is the first sunday after the first full moon in spring or some such rediculousness)

A fishing village might have a holiday at the highest high tide of the year, The silk farmers might have a holiday when the most silk worms start building cocoons.

our days and months are generally named after gods (thursday/thor'sday, monday/moonday, saturday/saturn'sday) it would make sense that if a god had a day and month named after him/her that the day would be a religeous holiday.

[random11]

Yes, of course that covers the basic list, but holidays are more than just basic descriptions such as "celebrate summer". The traditions themselves can be original, interesting and sometimes with very little connection to the first intention.
Real religions and cultures had hundreds of years to create weird traditions such as painting eggs, while I only have one life time (preferably a lot less).

Also, fantasy worlds have a lot more base for religious based holidays and traditions, since in many times the described miracles and events are very unique.
After all, the basic D&D based fantasy world will require something really great since it will not be satisfied with just water walking and raise dead...

[Yanagi]

random11 -- If you're looking for a whole creations, more detail might help people. Who are these cultures? What's the religion like? What's the government like? For that matter, what's the calendar like? Is there a count of years kept, and how is a year subdivided?

A holiday is a scheduled repetition of cultural memory: Every year on the same day we do the same things--sounds less fun and more sinister, eh? Shared concepts and shared rituals create communities; annual events formalize a schedule of we will, together, revisit these concepts, and thus re-establish who we are.

So in creating fictive holidays, consider:
- Who wants what remembered, and why?
- How does that rememberance shape people's worldview the rest of year?
- How does participation create or reinforce a sense of (shared) identity?

[Ummm...incomplete thought...gotta go to work. Later.]

[random11]

What I'm looking for is sort of like adventure seeds, but for holidays.

I have about 8 different human cultures in my campaign, so I guess I will be able take many ideas with minor changes only.

For the sake of simplicity, assume that every culture have counts for years, months, weeks and days.
They are several different calendars, but it will not take a lot of changes to fit any idea into one of them.