Holidays In D&D 3.5

[Bartmanhomer]

Are there any holidays in D&D 3.5 universe? If so, how many are there and what's the name of those holidays. :smile:

[Kobold Esq]

3.5 is a rules set. You're asking setting information. Do you mean the default, presumed Greyhawk setting?

[flappeercraft]

On the Greyhawk setting there are holidays by religion, I don't know of other settings though. Sources for the holidays are on the Dragon Magazines covering the deities.

[Hellpyre]

Generally, in my settings I have solstice and equinox festivals, and states tend to have one additional holiday a year for something or other. But officially, only the Campaign Settings have defined holidays.

[Bartmanhomer]

3.5 is a rules set. You're asking setting information. Do you mean the default, presumed Greyhawk setting?

Yes and any other setting.

[Bullet06320]

http://www.candlekeep.com/library/articles/holydays2.htm
http://www.candlekeep.com/library/articles/holydays.htm
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Holidays

[Yahzi]

Yes and any other setting.
You a want a list of all holidays in all settings?

That's not even possible.

[weckar]

I think you're technically looking for the term multiverse, rather than universe. Maybe even omniverse, technically.

[Loxagn]

When deciding what holidays exist in a setting, look to the real world and see what exists here.

Most religions have a holiday around the Winter Solstice and the New Year, which has its roots in the pagan holiday Yuletide, a vigil on the longest night of the year that is traditionally observed to ensure that the sun is 'reborn' and another long winter will come to an end. New Year, of course, is usually a celebration of new beginnings and starting anew.

From there you can extrapolate. It's probably not a good idea to just make carbon copies of existing holidays, but common themes are a fixation on death in autumn, fertility festivals in the spring, and commonly the summer solstice is cause for celebration as well, of the more 'dancing and drinking, the fields are producing, let's get together and have some fun' variety. Different religions will have different holidays, as well; a worshipper of Pelor may participate in a day of revelry on the longest day of the year, while an Asmodeus cultist will probably be invited to a remembrance of his dark lord's ascension.

[weckar]

In real life, most holidays are either astrologically relevant (easy to remember/track) or in remembrance of some event or another (even if the day has long since been disassociated from that event).

Everything else tends not to endure.

[Guinea_Pig]

In my most recent campaign, we had PC Halloween. After regular Halloween where kids went trick or treating, adventurers would go out and trick or treat. The PC's went out trick or treating, and all their NPC friends gave them different magic items depending on which NPC's house they visited.

It was a bit out of place in terms of the setting, but the PC's certainly liked it.

[flappeercraft]

In my most recent campaign, we had PC Halloween. After regular Halloween where kids went trick or treating, adventurers would go out and trick or treat. The PC's went out trick or treating, and all their NPC friends gave them different magic items depending on which NPC's house they visited.

It was a bit out of place in terms of the setting, but the PC's certainly liked it.

May I copy that idea? I want to add it to my campaign setting

[Bartmanhomer]

In my most recent campaign, we had PC Halloween. After regular Halloween where kids went trick or treating, adventurers would go out and trick or treat. The PC's went out trick or treating, and all their NPC friends gave them different magic items depending on which NPC's house they visited.

It was a bit out of place in terms of the setting, but the PC's certainly liked it.
Cool. Everybody must have enjoy it a lot.

[Guinea_Pig]

May I copy that idea? I want to add it to my campaign setting

Absolutely! A variant of it also works well with Christmas right around the corner.

[Guinea_Pig]

Cool. Everybody must have enjoy it a lot.

Thanks! Yeah, everybody enjoyed the idea and they got some nice magic items. Then it turned out that a night hag had been poisoning the children's Halloween candy, so the party tracked her down the next day and killed her with their nice new magic items, making them the heroes of the town.

...It was a different kind of Halloween.

[Red Fel]

A lot of religions also have religion-specific holidays. For example, if you look over at Wee Jas' page on Wikipedia, they list three different holy days for the Jasidin church (Goddess' Blush, Ruby Convocation, and any night when Celene or Luna are waxing). Such days exist for pretty much any religion.

Hence why asking for a complete and comprehensive list, across settings, is an herculean task.

[Bohandas]

A list of religious holidays in the Eberron setting appears in Faiths of Eberron page 22

[Akal Saris]

Here's the holidays in Dragonlance: http://www.dlnexus.com/lexicon/14778.aspx