Festivals and Holidays

[Maelynn]

I'm making a list of various festivals and holidays throughout the year, both those existing in FR (Midsummer, Shieldmeet, etc) and those created by myself (see below). The existing ones are easy enough to add to the list; at most I'll just need to tweak them a bit here and there to make them less religious and more typical to my city. The new ones, however, are yet few in number. I do have some ideas already, like these:

- Halfling cart racing (carts pulled by billy goats, onlookers are encouraged not to carry any produce on them)
- Fighter's Festival (anyone wishing to prove their mettle can fight in the arena, 1v1 or 2v2)
- Scarecrow's Goodbye (variant on Harvest Festival, where a large scarecrow is filled with whatever people want to say goodbye to and then burned at sundown)
- Magical Creativity Competition (anyone adept with magic can show off creative ways to use magic in daily life, with prizes for ingenuity and practicality)

So, my question would be: what kind of fun festivals/holidays would you suggest? Or even just activities, that I can create a festival around?

- Slimy Docks Day

several years ago on this day, the docks were the stage of a fierce battle against an army of encroaching merrow. Many heroes and brave citizens united under the command of two Council members (retired adventurers themselves) and, despite being outnumbered, they managed to slaughter a large amount of the merrow until the remainder had to admit defeat and were driven away. The day is a two-sided coin, on the one hand remembering those who fell in battle (including one of the Councilmembers), on the other hand rejoicing in the strength and independence of Salinport and its citizens. It's a patriotic day where every citizen feels proud of the city and their fellow Porters.

Activities:

- there's a stage set up on the market square, where bards and other performers play music all day and evening
- the docks are rubbed with soapy water, reminding people of the battle by mimicking the slime left by the merrow (which doubles as an opportunity to scrub the docks clean afterwards)
- ships are adorned with colourful flags and offer free tours up and down the river delta to everyone, rich or poor
- it's custom to eat fish for supper, to re-enact (and mock) the gruesome myth that after the battle, the city was fed with the flesh of the fallen merrow
- almost every merchant has special offers called 'Slimy Discounts'
- at sundown, the Council oversees a solemn procession where the busts of the two Council members that led the battle are carried from the Hall of Waves to the Long Wharf. Once there, one of the current Council members will hold a speech, after which one minute of silence will commemorate and honour those who fell protecting the city

[PiperThePaladin]

I made up a couple of holidays in my world that I like a lot!

Silvernight: celebrated in winter, the holiday of the god of romance and luck. Everyone dresses up in animal costumes, and people gather in dance halls by age. The evening alternates games of chance and dancing. The games of chance determine your partner for the next dance, who you are supposed to kiss at the end. Alcohol is served liberally throughout the evening.

Druid's Day: celebrated in spring at the start of the farming season, the holiday of the god of rain and art. It is an especially big deal in farming towns. Over the winter, the whole town builds and decorates a special plow. On Druid's Day, the whole town pulls the special plow through one of the fields, opening planting season. Then everyone has a bonfire and outdoor feast.

The Queen's Games: celebrated in summer, the holiday of the goddess of strength and law. Contests of strength and skill are held in towns and city neighborhoods, with plenty of betting on the winners. Anyone who holds a government office or leadership position is expected to participate. Corn and beef pastries are sold with random amounts of money baked inside.

[Bohandas]

Do they have to be for Forgotten Realms?

[Fire Tarrasque]

You should probably place this in Worldbuilding.

[Maelynn]

I made up a couple of holidays in my world that I like a lot!

Oh, those are nice. The Silvernight one could work for me, with some additions to make it big enough for a city-state. One of the Council members is a Halfling who owns a few taverns around the city, she'd be just the kind to bring an evening of matchmaking to her establishments if that means a) giving people a good time and b) get some extra patrons. The temple of Sune opens up their public baths and cosmetic services to give girls/women a complete make-over. Those in the orphanage old enough to run errands will offer to deliver letters, flowers, and evens songs (though slightly off-key) to earn a little extra.

I also like the idea of pastries with coins in them. Maybe for some charity day, have these handed out to the poor.


Do they have to be for Forgotten Realms?

Oh, not necessarily. I've already taken elements from Greyhawk for my setting, making Pelor a very prominent deity in my city alongside some FR ones. The only thing that matters is that it makes sense, so no Eberron stuff like flying zeppelins.

[brian 333]

Festival Of Lights

In the coldest part of winter in Silverymoon there is a two week celebration for the coming new year. There are several aspects to this celebration, beginning with The Lighting Of The Lamps.

In the Lighting Of The Lamps, families and social organizations place candles and oil lamps in windows while wizards and clerics renew the Continual Light spells which power the lamps which light the streets. Beginning at dusk, parades of lamp and flambeaux carriers march in random paths around the city, cheered on by the crowds of paradegoers.

This is followed by two weeks of revelry in which social clubs host parades of costumed dancers, clowns, bands, and choral groups, most of whom follow a particular route through the city every year, followed by open door parties in which everyone is invited to participate.

The final day of the celebration begins early, with the core groups of the social clubs competing in a dance-off where two clubs directly and simultaneously compete to advance to the next round. The audiences pick the winners, who advances to the next round. They are graded on choreography and costumery, and the final victor is chosen as the lightbearers who keep the trophy lamp until the beginning of the next year's festival.

Non-natives have a very poor concept of how the various parades and competitions are judged. There is no official who says who wins and who loses, but the dancers seem to know when the crowd is for or against them, and one team resigns, bowing out of the competition when it becomes obvious they cannot win.

[Bohandas]

Iuzmas

In the lands controlled by the evil demigod Iuz, every year, on the ruler's birthday, all subjects great and small are required by law to send the ruler a gift worth no less than three weeks of their wages

[Derpaligtr]

I'm making a list of various festivals and holidays throughout the year, both those existing in FR (Midsummer, Shieldmeet, etc) and those created by myself (see below). The existing ones are easy enough to add to the list; at most I'll just need to tweak them a bit here and there to make them less religious and more typical to my city. The new ones, however, are yet few in number. I do have some ideas already, like these:

- Halfling cart racing (carts pulled by billy goats, onlookers are encouraged not to carry any produce on them)
- Fighter's Festival (anyone wishing to prove their mettle can fight in the arena, 1v1 or 2v2)
- Scarecrow's Goodbye (variant on Harvest Festival, where a large scarecrow is filled with whatever people want to say goodbye to and then burned at sundown)
- Magical Creativity Competition (anyone adept with magic can show off creative ways to use magic in daily life, with prizes for ingenuity and practicality)

So, my question would be: what kind of fun festivals/holidays would you suggest? Or even just activities, that I can create a festival around?

- Slimy Docks Day

several years ago on this day, the docks were the stage of a fierce battle against an army of encroaching merrow. Many heroes and brave citizens united under the command of two Council members (retired adventurers themselves) and, despite being outnumbered, they managed to slaughter a large amount of the merrow until the remainder had to admit defeat and were driven away. The day is a two-sided coin, on the one hand remembering those who fell in battle (including one of the Councilmembers), on the other hand rejoicing in the strength and independence of Salinport and its citizens. It's a patriotic day where every citizen feels proud of the city and their fellow Porters.

Activities:

- there's a stage set up on the market square, where bards and other performers play music all day and evening
- the docks are rubbed with soapy water, reminding people of the battle by mimicking the slime left by the merrow (which doubles as an opportunity to scrub the docks clean afterwards)
- ships are adorned with colourful flags and offer free tours up and down the river delta to everyone, rich or poor
- it's custom to eat fish for supper, to re-enact (and mock) the gruesome myth that after the battle, the city was fed with the flesh of the fallen merrow
- almost every merchant has special offers called 'Slimy Discounts'
- at sundown, the Council oversees a solemn procession where the busts of the two Council members that led the battle are carried from the Hall of Waves to the Long Wharf. Once there, one of the current Council members will hold a speech, after which one minute of silence will commemorate and honour those who fell protecting the city


I don't have any for the Kuo-toa but I'm sure their holidays are the best.

[Crisis21]

WizardCon: Every year, wizards (and other spellcasters) from around the world get together for a week of socializing, trading magical knowledge, and spontaneous displays of magic (aka spellcasters trying to impress each other).

[brian 333]

Festival of Songs

Gods of music are venerated in many lands, and in many lands this worship culminates in an annual music festival. On the day of the festival, ceremonies begin at dawn with singers greeting the rising sun with music. The singing continues all day long and through the night, culminating at the dawn of the next day with the last song ending when the sun rises. Thereafter a silence is observed until the sun rises above the horizon to contrast with the previous day's noise.

In isolated areas the celebration may be only in the evening due to not having enough singers to keep the music going, while in more populous areas there may be year-long competitions to select the performers who will be scheduled for the festival. Famous and popular musicians and groups are able to charge premium prices for their performances, while volunteer choral groups compete for fun and prizes.

In whatever land it is held, and to whichever god the day is devoted, the Festival is a day of feasting and camaraderie shared by all.

[Soylentmatt]

I love everything about this idea. I wanted to participate, but I realized that I couldn't possibly make up crazier holidays than the ones that exist in real life, so I did some judicious googling and came up with a few that could totally work in a D&D setting. I hope this is in the spirit of what we're talking about;

The Feast of Anastenaria
an eight-day celebration beginning May 21st celebrated in Northern Greece and Southern Bulgaria, it's full of live music, dancing... and of course fire-walking. It dates back to the burning of the Church of Saint Constantine in the middle ages. Evidentally people could hear the statue of Constantine and his mother Saint Helena crying inside, and the people who ran in to save them came out unharmed. In the modern festival everyone parties and dances (and performs fire-walks) for eight days and they sacrifice a bull, so everyone in the village gets meat and a set of sandles.

Groundhog Day
My country has weird holidays too! Having the entire country hanging on bated breath over whether a tiny little animal in Punxsutawney, PA sees its shadow or not... that could really easily be some sort of fantastic beast.

Hadaka Matsuri
The infameous Japanese "Naked Man Festival". It's the third Saturday of February, one of the coldest nights of the year. The rituals vary from town to town, but they all revolve around thousands of men stripping down to loincloths (or not even loincloths) to test their bravery and manhood to secure a year of good luck... The example I found was in Okayama, where they douse themselves in the Yoshi River and then run to the Saidaji Temple to try to catch sacred sticks being thrown at them by priests.

La Tomatina
The largest food fight in the world happens in Buñol, Spain on the last Wednesday of August when 30,000 people fill the main square, get armed up with locally grown tomatoes dumped all over the streets by tractors, and have a 90-minutes free-for-all. They literally don't know why the do this.

Lopburi Monkey Buffet
in Lopburi, Thailand they have these incredibly agressive monkeys that steal everything and literally come up and take the food from your hand. since 1989, the villagers have embraced them by laying out a huge buffet of peanuts, cucumbers, raw crabs & Coca-cola in the Pa Prang Sam Yot temple. It's basically a giant thanksgiving day for monkeys.

Rouketopolemos
the town of Vrontados in Greece sits astride a wide valley, and there are two churches, Panagia Erithiani and Agios Markos, that site about 400 meters apart on opposite hilltops. Every easter, during evening mass, both congregations fire off thousands of homemade fireworks across the city at each other in an attempt to hit the other church's bell. Evidentally the practice dates all the way back to the ottoman era when it was done with honest-to-god cannons.

San Juan de Oriente's Fiestas Patronales
Literally the Patron Saint Festivals which are celibrated across spanish influenced cultures, but in San Juan de Oriente in Nicaragua, in addition to the erection of a huge pavillion to make offerings of a huge variety of foods and a massive rushed procession across the city to secure a prime location for your offerings, which are hung from huge pillars... the whole thing becomes a massive open challenge to fight your neighbors using special sword-length whips made from dried bull penises. it's... f*cking crazy.

Straw Bear Day
This actually feels like a variant of something that is probably done in one form or another all over the world, but in 1980 England they brought back this ancient custom where on January 7th (which is evidentally after Plough Monday, the traditional start of the English agricultural year) they have one guy completely covered in straw that is lead around town to houses where he dances in exchange for food, beer or money.

Tinku “Punch Your Neighbor” Festival
In the the pre-hispanic culture of the village of Tinku in Bolivia the earth Goddess Pachamama demanded blood to ensure a good harvest. Somehow that translates to a modern festival where once a year everyone full-on fistfights eachother in a village-wide fightclub.

Up-Helly-Aa
This is a Scottish holiday but it's descended from a Viking celebration of the rebirth of the sun, celebrated in the middle of winter to mark the end of the Yule season. it's a huge fire holiday but it starts with a massive procession with hundreds of costumed torch-weilding people that ends with everyone throwing fire into a giant replica viking ship.

Vatertag
Essentially just German father's day, but it's celebrated by spending time building and decorating a hand-drawn cart with your father (or other male figures in your life), filling it with beer and regional foods, going hiking together, and then getting sh*t-faced in the woods. Alcohol-related traffic accidents go up by 300%. Germany, man.

[Bohandas]

I love everything about this idea. I wanted to participate, but I realized that I couldn't possibly make up crazier holidays than the ones that exist in real life, so I did some judicious googling and came up with a few that could totally work in a D&D setting. I hope this is in the spirit of what we're talking about;

In this vein:

Bicycle Day and 420
Two consecutive substance use related holidays in april which respectively commemorate the anniversary of the first human test of LSD (bicycle day, 4-19) and weed culture (420, 4-20). In a fantasy setting this could be expanded into an entire weeklong festival dedicated to various substances and to the local god of rogues

[Soylentmatt]

In this vein:

Bicycle Day and 420
Two consecutive substance use related holidays in april which respectively commemorate the anniversary of the first human test of LSD (bicycle day, 4-19) and weed culture (420, 4-20). In a fantasy setting this could be expanded into an entire weeklong festival dedicated to various substances and to the local god of rogues

You could also totally use this in relation to any of the drugs I cooked up over here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?562346-Illicit-Drug-System&p=23179554#post23179554)

[Derpaligtr]

You could also totally use this in relation to any of the drugs I cooked up over here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?562346-Illicit-Drug-System&p=23179554#post23179554)

Risky click of the day...

[rferries]

Ebon Noon
This holiday is observed by necromancers, warlocks, blackguards, and other practitioners of evil magic. It occurs only once every few years at most (rather than annually) and is dependent on the alignment of the sun and moon(s) in an eclipse of surpassing darkness. At the culmination of the eclipse all evil spellcasting is greatly enhanced for a few moments (caster level +5), and with the proper timing animate dead, divination, and other spells can yield great rewards.

Guildnight
This holiday is not common knowledge; it is generally observed only by rogues, assassins, shadowdancers, and all others who skulk and lurk in the darkness. A night when the criminal underworld forswears bloodshed amongst each other and with the common citizenry, and when burglars choose to share a flask of brandy on the rooftops rather than break in through a skylight. City guards don't know why crime is greatly reduced on this particular night of the year, but they're grateful for it nonetheless.

Opal Moon
This holiday is the direct inverse of Ebon Noon - a celestial alignment such that the radiant moon turns the night almost as bright as day for a few moments. The powers of good magic are greatly enhanced by the effect - lycanthropy, mummy rot, and similar pernicious curses can be removed with even the simplest spells at this time (or are perhaps instantly broken by the moonlight itself), and undead are harmed by the moonlight as though it were sunlight. Clerics, paladins, and other good-aligned divine spellcasters set aside their traditional suspicion of good-aligned arcane spellcasters for the night.

[brian 333]

Bonedance

On the lasr day of autumn families gather to visit their dead. They tend and decorate the graves and leave offerings of beer or wine as they tell their loved ones of the important family events of the past year. For the children it is a day of games and picnics among the graves while older family members recite family histories, tell stories of the deceased, and pass on the wealth of knowledge they learned as children from their elders. For the oldest it is a time of reflection on their own past as they prepare for the day they join their loved ones in the afterlife.

At dusk everyone goes indoors, some to continue the day's festivities, others to sleep it off. Few are brave enough to remain out of doors, because for that one evening of the year the restless dead rise to walk again.

Those buried in hallowed ground, and those whose graves have been tended, rest peacefully. Untended graves which have been blessed by priests are similarly safe. (A priest may bless all the dead in an area equalling 100 square feet per level per Bless spell. Optionally, the priest may tend each individual grave without the use of a spell, which requires at least fifteen minutes per grave.)

But those dead who do not receive such treatment may rise to search for their families. These undead are not evil unless they were in life, but they are mindless. They only know loss and lonliness, and their only solace comes from the screams of their victims.

The newly dead rise as zombies, those who have been dead a while rise as skeletons, while those who have been dead a long time rise as spectres. They cannot cross water, nor can they enter a house or tread on sanctified ground. They can be turned, (in which case they return to their graves,) but they cannot be controlled, commanded, or rebuked.

Commoners take pity on these lost souls by leaving pumpkin beer and bread by their gates as an appeasement.

By dawn of the first day of winter they return to their graves to wait another year.

[Maelynn]

Scarecrow's Goodbye

A twist on the various harvest festivals. Aside from the usual produce contests, dancing, and stalls selling foodstuffs, there's 2 notable events:

- Saying Goodbye: in the middle of the market square, a huge scarecrow is built from straw and wicker. Throughout the day, people can attach their 'goodbyes' to it: keepsakes of people they lost that year, notes with thoughts/feelings they no longer wish to have, etc. At nightfall, the scarecrow is set on fire as a symbolic way to say goodbye to the summer season and whatever it is they had filled the scarecrow with. *

- Halfling Cart Racing: a race for small carts, pulled by billy goats. Their fickle nature and weird sudden movements make this race all the more dangerous, not in the least for the Halfling drivers. Spectators along the route should be careful not to bring any produce with them.

* I intend to use this as a (rather morbid) plot hook, where the annual burning suddenly devolves into a disaster as the scarecrow starts screaming... it turns out there's a man inside the scarecrow, bound by hand and feet, who was unconscious up until the flames started hurting him.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And the one below was in my first post, but I think I hid it a bit too well behind a spoiler tag. I'd really like some feedback on this one.

- Slimy Docks Day

several years ago on this day, the docks were the stage of a fierce battle against an army of encroaching merrow. Many heroes and brave citizens united under the command of two Council members (retired adventurers themselves) and, despite being outnumbered, they managed to slaughter a large amount of the merrow until the remainder had to admit defeat and were driven away. The day is a two-sided coin, on the one hand remembering those who fell in battle (including one of the Councilmembers), on the other hand rejoicing in the strength and independence of Salinport and its citizens. It's a patriotic day where every citizen feels proud of the city and their fellow Porters.

Activities:

- there's a stage set up on the market square, where bards and other performers play music all day and evening
- the docks are rubbed with soapy water, reminding people of the battle by mimicking the slime left by the merrow (which doubles as an opportunity to scrub the docks clean afterwards)
- ships are adorned with colourful flags and offer free tours up and down the river delta to everyone, rich or poor
- it's custom to eat fish for supper, to re-enact (and mock) the gruesome myth that after the battle, the city was fed with the flesh of the fallen merrow
- almost every merchant has special offers called 'Slimy Discounts'
- at sundown, the Council oversees a solemn procession where the busts of the two Council members that led the battle are carried from the Hall of Waves to the Long Wharf. Once there, one of the current Council members will hold a speech, after which one minute of silence will commemorate and honour those who fell protecting the city