Ideas for participation in a festival?

[PhoenixPhyre]

My players are going to be in a mixed-race but dwarven dominant area during what’s called a Festival of Virtues. They’re there to support an NPC who is vying for the title of Exemplar of Metalwork. But that’s mostly scene dressing. I’d like the characters to have the opportunity to get involved in the general festival for fun and potential profit (whether physical rewards, reputation, or possible boons).

The general plan for the festival is “friendly competition showcasing the dwarven Virtues(1).” Those virtues are:

Craftsmanship in one of
- stonework
- metalwork
- gem cutting/setting (separate for historical reasons)
- textiles
- cuisine (including brewing)
- live crafting (farming, including animal husbandry)
- wood working
- rhetoric/debate
- music

Endurance (physical and mental)
Faith (including knowledge, not limited to religious knowledge)
Unity
Diligence/hard work.

So far, I’ve thought of basically running this as a county fair, but with some opportunities to act as judges or participate in the contests.

Mechanics are less important and can be ad-lobbed, but ideas for competitions and prizes would be nice. Party is level 3, world isn’t super high magic.

For the record, my dwarves do drink, but not to excess most of the time. Tradition is important, as is clan.

(1) more particularly this sub culture’s virtues.

[Palanan]

Axe-throwing, knife-throwing, and of course caber-tossing could all have a place here.

For tests of both faith and endurance, public recitations of great oral epics would be appropriate. In debates, the arguments and counter-arguments can be judged not only on content, but the choice of meter, verse form and structure, especially if these emulate (but not copy) famous passages from beloved characters in those epics.

[KorvinStarmast]

My players are going to be in a mixed-race but dwarven dominant area during what’s called a Festival of Virtues. They’re there to support an NPC who is vying for the title of Exemplar of Metalwork. But that’s mostly scene dressing. I’d like the characters to have the opportunity to get involved in the general festival for fun and potential profit (whether physical rewards, reputation, or possible boons).

The general plan for the festival is “friendly competition showcasing the dwarven Virtues(1).” Those virtues are:

Craftsmanship in one of
- stonework
- metalwork
- gem cutting/setting (separate for historical reasons)
- textiles
- cuisine (including brewing)
- live crafting (farming, including animal husbandry)
- wood working
- rhetoric/debate
- music

Endurance (physical and mental)
Faith (including knowledge, not limited to religious knowledge)
Unity
Diligence/hard work.

Not seeing that bold one as a particularly Dwarven virtue.
Full disclosure: I am a player in this campaign, and I'd like to contribute to this as have done with a few other bits of the world building before.
But I love the approach to getting the players involved. I think it will help immersion. (Not like we need any, as we are on campaign three ...)

I have an idea, though:
Wrestling. Hammer Throwing. Ax Throwing. Pulling a heavily laden mine cart. Something like what is done at the highland games, such as the Caber Toss, but in this case it's like a long beam from a mine.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Not seeing that bold one as a particularly Dwarven virtue.
Full disclosure: I am a player in this campaign, and I'd like to contribute to this as have done with a few other bits of the world building before.
But I love the approach to getting the players involved. I think it will help immersion. (Not like we need any, as we are on campaign three ...)

Note--my dwarves are not "stock" dwarves. These ones like to argue. They're legalistic and tradition-driven, but also hard-core rationalists...or is that rationalizers? Unlike most settings where dwarven clerics are the "stock" icon...dwarves here only have a so-so relationship with most gods. Because they like to argue with them and don't really want to believe unless convinced. If they are convinced, they do the zealot pretty well.

And the reason I didn't spoiler this is that I'm totally fine with you participating in the discussion. This is not really something "secret" as to the plot (such as there is). So nothing would be spoilered. It's mostly just for fun and hijinks.

[Glimbur]

Cuisine? Perfect excuse for an Iron Chef competition. Possible side quests include ingredient collection and recipe acquisition. Might be more involved than you want the side plot to be though.

Endurance and community sounds like a tug of war contest to me.

[Pauly]

For stonework and metalwork:
Competitors are given a standard raw material then compete to make the target item. This can be timed or head to head. Points awarded for quality and time.
For an example with metalworking the blacksmith apprenticeship final exam in the British army was the candidate was given a round bar and then they had to put it through evolutions, turn it into square bar, turn the square bar into a triangular frame, and so on. The final test was turn it back into a round bar with the same dimensions as the original bar.

Woodworking and faith. Construct an altar devoted to [insert god]. This will be display and judging and the artisans have spent all year making their altars. Can be split into several categories. Winning entries get enshrined at the appropriate temple.

Animal husbandry.
- Standard agricultural show judging.
- Sheep dog (or equivalent) trials
- bull (or equivalent) riding. But its the bulls that earn the points and accolades not the riders.
- for draft animals - log pulling. How far can the team move the massive log?

[Lacco]

Dwarf-tower!

A unity/endurance task: a dwarf atop the highest tower (human pyramid) made out of dwarves gets a prize (depending on magic level of the setting I'd go for a pair of mugs of friendship - they get filled with beer if you are sharing the mugs with someone and not drinking alone). It would be a timed event ('the highest tower at midnight/noon/whatever time is chosen'). Or whoever grabs the mugs from a tall column.

Debate-time!

My dwarves are similar, and some would even switch sides from 'pro' to 'against' during a debate just to prolong the debate or to argue all the points. So, the idea would be that anyone could stand up and provide a debating point, argue its merits and basically argument to either extend the current virtues known, or change one of them. The prize would be a spot on the Wall of Wisdom: a wall engraved with results of such debates; the most worthy argument (voted by everyone present, and only if overwhelming amount of dwarves agreed) would be engraved in addition to the previous ones. The catch is: the newest addition would be basically equal to local law.

Metalwork marathon!

You are given the raw materials and a goal (e.g. this year it's axe heads): your goal is to match the standard (given by the masters of the ceremony) or make ones that are better. The goal is: you work for as long as you like within the 24h. You score points based on the amount, the quality/workshmanship, but mainly on how many hours you did work in total. The winner has the ownership of everything he created - the rest is owned by the organizer/king/whoever.

Same could work for cuisine: working at some food station for the longest time possible without collapsing could be viewed as form of competition.

Pig juggling and pig racing!

Okay, so we have pigs. And dwarves. And some beer.

1. Pig juggling: whoever manages to juggle three small pigs (weight from 12 to 30kg) for the longest without dropping them, wins the pigs and as much fodder as he can carry.

2. Pig racing: the dwarf that runs across an area carrying as many pigs as they want wins anything they carry.

...and I'll think about more stuff later.

[Pauly]

Gob-lobbing.
Teams build a siege machine such as a trebuchet then compete as to who can lob the goblin proxy the furthest. Best to use a dwarf powered trebuchet (aka traction trebuchet aka mangonel) not a counterweight example for the teamwork, endurance and unity.

Any party member who stops to talk will be accosted by old timers grumbling about how they can’t use real goblins anymore.

[Lacco]

Gob-lobbing.
Teams build a siege machine such as a trebuchet then compete as to who can lob the goblin proxy the furthest. Best to use a dwarf powered trebuchet, not a counterweight example for the teamwork, endurance and unity.

Any party member who stops to talk will be accosted by old timers grumbling about how they can’t use real goblins anymore.

I love the idea.

Ideally, they can't really use any materials save for leather stripes and rope. Build a trebuchet out of dwarves and rope!

[Anonymouswizard]

For endurance: competitive dancing, in my mind it was specifically Morris dancing. Last dwarf prancing is crowned as the champion, but you can also be disqualified for missing a step.

Or just go for full on ferret-legging. Remember, it's customary to wear white trousers.

Plus any good festival is incomplete without at least bizarre custom that people from elsewhere can't understand. Ferret-legging, cheese rolling, burning a member of an opposing religion...

[theNater]

Mostly I hade event ideas.

Team Tug-of-War: (I see Glimbur beat me to this, but I wanted to add detail.) Depending on how big the teams are, the party could be a team, or maybe one of the local teams is down a member. Note that in team tug-of-war, part of the strategy is timing coordinated pulls for when the other team is off-balance, so Insight may be more useful than Athletics for people who haven't practiced as a team.

Animal Catching: Whether as a deliberate event or not, a small animal is loose on the festival grounds, and whoever can retrieve it safely will get a reward. Deliberate versions have been known to use a small pig slathered in grease.

Crafting With Unusual Materials: Who can demonstrate their craftskills under unusual circumstances? Pumpkin-carving and butter sculpture are real-world examples.

Endurance Recitation: Contestants are tasked with performing a specific long speech or song. Judges will evaluate both accuracy and entertainment value.

Impromptu Recitation: Contestants are given a topic for their performance at the last moment. Judges will evaluate both adherence to topic and entertainment value.

Instrument Crafting: Contestants are tasked to craft a musical instrument within a strict time limit. Either a team activity, where one teammate plays the instrument, or a solo activity in which the judge plays all instruments.

Footraces: Endurance can be tested by a long enough course.

Modified Races: Participants are racing under some unusual constraint, such as being tied to a team member or carrying an egg in a spoon.

Digging: A prize has been buried at an unspecified depth somewhere within a small field on the festival grounds. Participants must decide whether to dig many shallow holes or few deep ones; whoever finds the prize gets to keep it.

Puzzle Boxes: One of the crafters, to demonstrate their skill, has made a number of puzzle boxes. Successfully opening them may require deciphering hints in the carvings.

I also had one prize idea: Sometimes an attractive young person will offer a kiss as a prize(with the understanding that the choice of lips or cheek is at the prize-giver's discretion). This seems like fertile ground for story possibilities. Maybe one of the PC's is asked to volunteer, or maybe they get to the finals with someone the prize-giver has strong feelings about.

[Kane0]

Competitive woodchopping
Best beard contest
The anvil-carry (its a relay)
Alcohol tastings
Food stalls (lots of mushrooms, cheeses and bittersweets)
Spot-the-fake (gem and glass art gallery)

Edit: The Dwarven Defender (take turns trying to knock over the champion, if you knock him over you are now the champion!)

[Eldan]

For dwarves, you should absolutely use stone tossing over caber tossing. Very traditional Germanic sport.

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[LibraryOgre]

Not seeing that [rhetoric/debate] as a particularly Dwarven virtue.

A couple things I loved in Joel Rosenberg's Guardians of the Flame series were

a) Dwarves had a very formal debate style; they loved to do it, and used it to solve problems and reach consensus, but it was highly formalized "addressing your opponent's points", rather than a more human "my guard's up and I'm fighting dirty."

b) Dwarves use wrestling as a formal means of physical challenge. It's a great sport for them, and continues well into adulthood.

So, I would DEFINITELY see debate on some point (possibly related to crafting techniques) as a dwarven activity, and wrestling matches of several age categories.

If the PCs are notable, you might have them doing exhibitions, even if they're not dwarves. An acrobat, a juggler, a musician... things to either showcase the mastery of dwarves over their skills, or to add an "exotic" spice that other people will appreciate... even if it's Tommy Two-Tone singing Greensleeves, it's going to be different than dwarven music.

[Duff]

Impromptu Recitation: Contestants are given a topic for their performance at the last moment. Judges will evaluate both adherence to topic and entertainment value.

I love the idea that some people take the recitation seriously and do it dead pan, while others use facial expressions and hand gestures to show that they are doing this ironically.

How seriously the different approaches take the different approach could speak volumes about whether the community has a schism brewing or whether it understands people's approach's vary

[Bohandas]

The faith one can be combined with the crafting ones by crafting religious figurines, icons, and other knick-knacks

[Eldan]

Alternatively, scripture reading can be an endurance contest. "Here's 5000 pages of the royal lineage, to be recited in the 12th century lower dawi style, last one to have their voice fail wins."