Anon:
Ohhh!! What kind of fey/human holidays are there in your works? What kind of traditions do they entail?
This is a complex question. In the Cloistered Lands, there used to be quite a good many gods, and each god claimed a day or two to be sacred to them. As such, every day is a holiday to someone. Back when the gods still lived, they would often visit their faithful on these days, to personally lead festivities.
But, of course, they don’t live anymore, so they don’t do that. And many of the old holidays lost their heart as a result. Imagine trying to celebrate someone’s birthday after they’re, well, dead.
This doesn’t mean there aren’t still celebrations of an annual nature. Every society needs its opportunities to blow off steam—and a world like the Cloistered Lands needs it a little bit more than most.
Festivals and Holidays
Okay, enough calendar rambling. Here are the holidays and festivals currently celebrated on the Lacratian Continent, in order from the first of Ivormoon to the thirty-third of Icemoon! Calendar information can be found below.
New Year’s Day (Ivormoon 1)
For those communities that do track their days by calendar year, New Year’s Day tends to be a muted affair—after all, winter has not ended yet, and even well-off communities prefer to save their resources until the orchard dryads are back in business. As such, New Year’s Day is a more somber celebration than most—a day to reflect on the events of the last year, and make bitter prayers into the darkness for a better morrow.
New Year’s Day is sometimes known as “Tithing Day”. This is a reference to an old and now-defunct Courtly function, but nowadays, it means something very different. In villages that tend to face tough winters, Tithing Day is the day the village begins drawing lots.
If the community faces starvation, these lots will be used to select young people of the village to venture out into the wilderness in the hopes of finding help. They may perish in the effort. They may find a friendly meadow fey or orchard dryad who can send back supplies.
Or they may find a holstaur, wine dryad, nymph, or other sinister fey who will send back supplies—but at a cost.
As they say, Better a spell in your belly than nothing at all.
Springheel’s Eve (Ivormoon 23~)
Celebrated when the first crocuses begin to bloom, Springheel’s Eve is a nocturnal celebration in which the children of the community don ceremonial masks and go to "scare” nearby fey into gifting them with little treats and presents to mark the end of winter.
The children are usually unaccompanied—some of the fey the children are likely to encounter on Springheel’s Eve would not be quite so amiable towards adults.
The Orchard Festivals (Glosmoon 3)
A one-week celebration mainly honored by communities with patron orchard dryards, the Orchard Festivals are a loud and boisterous affair meant to expel all the community’s pent-up stress from the lean months.
For the first few days, the communities gather for great feasts, using up the last of their winter supplies—communities without orchard dryads are rather less likely to celebrate this part of the festivals. Patron fey of all kinds—dryads, beastfey, catgirls and satyrs alike—will attend these feasts, playing and dancing with their villager “charges”. Local witches and druids will also often attend. Tournaments and contests are commonly held, such as horseshoe tossing, axe-hurling, baking, and obstacle courses.
After the first few days, things get a little bit more... sensual.
The children are encouraged to leave as the sun approaches the horizon, often lured to their beds or to play with those fey who are not partaking in the village’s “bounty”. Adults certainly have the option to do the same, though few do. The fey often see it as a bit of a faux pas to attend the feast and not provide company, but local Rangers are always on hand to make sure things don’t get too rowdy.
Sometimes they get caught up as well, of course. Catgirls are pretty good at “encouraging” Rangers to put aside their professionalism for a night or two.
The nocturnal Orchard Festivals are passionate affairs—sometimes held in great masses, sometimes held in quiet trysts with fey who lead their mortal lovers into homes, behind sheds, or out into the woods. In communities with fleece sprites, pitcher dryads or alraunes, things can get particularly messy, and such trysts can last well beyond the first night.
The Calendar
A brief and boring aside: There are 297 days in a year, meaning each season lasts about seventy-five days (about one and a half months). The current year is the 116th Year Before (no one is exactly certain what they are counting down to, but arguing with seers is a real great way to waste your day).
Back during the reign of the Kingdom of the Gods, a standard calendar featured nine months, each named for one of the nine great Mage Towers: Ivory, Glass, Verdant, Rose, Song, Golden, Iron, Teeth, and Ice. The year began towards the end of winter and ended as winter hit its stride (Teemoon, Icemoon and part of Ivormoon were winter, and you can gauge the rest from there).
However, with the Kingdom’s fall, the use for calendars has faded substantially. Only Nyaska and a couple baronies still hold to the King’s Calendar, while most common folk simply rely on the seasons—the year begins in spring and ends in winter. The Kingdom of the Chosen keep their own calendar, with months named after long-dead mythical heroes.
We will use the King’s Calendar here for simple ease of reference.
