Festival and Holy Days

Universal Religious Holy Days - Worldwide Arasconian Festivals 

 Worldwide Gildenese Festivals - Worldwide Roseden Festivals 

Calendar of Celebrations

There are several major festivals that take place throughout the year. The religious holy days are generally celebrated throughout the world. And, some of the festivals that originated in one country have been adopted by the other countries as well.

Universal Religious Holy Days

All Gods Day

1st Decaten

All Gods Day is a celebration of the Gods and their similarities. Traditionally, people decorate and set out visages of the twelve gods outside their front door. This is to invite the Gods into their lives for the coming year. More elaborate celebrations have been made for this holy day including feasts and dances. People exchange breads and dried fruit on this day to celebrate the good will of the Gods and their granting of a sweet life. This is a Holy Day common to all churches.

Sosenah

11th Trevoden - 21st Trevoden

The Holy Day was originally named for Sosen, though it doesn’t really have much religious connotation any longer. It is a springtime celebration of the arts. This is a day that people celebrate the culture of Arascon. There are usually large markets of paintings, cloth, pottery and other arts set up in cities for a week. Many people travel to Lilurline, Grand Emeris or Amberlin-Pastine to see the markets set up there and buy artistic goods from the artisans. Music fills the street; as does dancing, acting and other performing arts. It is tradition to leave cut stones for the performers. A red cut stone means that the performance was bad, a blue cut stone means that it was passable and a green cut stone means that it was good. Many times, a performer will wear the stones they’ve collected from previous years as ornamentation. This is the only time of the year when it is considered improper to haggle with artisans. This is a major Holy Day of the Church of the Cup.

Evensuns

1st Torilden (Eve 40th Planting)

Evensuns signifies the day that the suns rise and set at the same time, both passing in parrallel through the star signs. Evensuns Eve is celebrated the night before. It is tradition to watch the suns set on Evensuns Eve and watch them cross the horizon at the same time. People awaken early the next day to watch the suns rise. At the first light of the suns, people kiss the person with them or exchange drinks. It is very common to greet this day with a glass of honey mead or beer. On this day, people exchange gifts of all kinds, usually something of gold or silver, but it can be anything. This is a day of great celebration- it is the day that A'a and Minol are equals. No work is done on this day and food is shared with any who need it. This day celebrates life and all its joys.

Blessed Aris Day

9th Planting

Blessed Aris day is a Holy Day celebrated by the Trine of Hearth, Home and Happiness. It celebrates the life and work of the first Blessed Mother of the Church Aris Avi. This is a celebration of the family and is celebrated within each household differently. It is common practice to have large feasts and praise each other on this day. This is a day to celebrate happiness and the joy of family, marriage and children.

Children's Week

12th Tamaden - 22nd Tamaden

Children's week is celebrated when parents pray for the well being of their children and future children. They pray for the success and fortune of their children by setting up a shrine of Aviva in their house. Upon this shrine, they put up dolls representing each person in their family. During this week, people go to orphanages taking along with them sweet cakes, honey milk and sweet smoked fish to give to the children there. They also bring their own children to play with them, showing that all children are the responsibility of the community. Festivals are held with games, foods and toys for children who wear colorful garb and masks. It is tradition to give children under twelve 'luck dolls'. Luck dolls are small cloth dolls with a spiral on their belly and a large smile on their face. These dolls are said to transfer the kind heart, playful spirit and fortune of Aviva to the children. This is generally celebrated by the Trine of Hearth, Home and Happiness.

Angenue Day

23rd Caleden

Angenue Day is a popular festival where the Pleasure Seekers distribute candies, pastries and honey milk to people in the city. It is sometimes refered to as the Festival of Sweets. Candy makers, children and adults alike hand out treats to each other. It is tradition throughout the world to celebrate this festival. Many people buy sweets to distrubute, others make them. To take a sweet directly from someone's hand in your mouth (or to feed someone a sweet directly) means that you find that person sweet. It is a sign of affection. Of course, candy and sweets are given to anyone, whether you know them or not.

Fleshing

5th Gaviden

Fleshing is another popular festival that the Pleasure Seekers throw. It celebrates the body with dancing, acrobatics, competitions of strength and sex. It is a celebration of the joy of being alive and having a body to enjoy. It is tradition to compete in the competitions of agility and strength naked and oiled up to accentuate the beauty of the body. Some competitions include wrestling, balance beams, pole walking and gate jumping.

Savorie

35th Tamaden - 40th Tamaden

Savorie is a festival that celebrates food- also known as the Festival of Savories. People flock from all around to sell, eat and enjoy food during the festival. Prizes are given for the best dishes and people spend several days gorging themselves on the finest cuisine in the area. This is a celebration led by the Pleasure Seekers of Gira.

Equilibrium

28th Trevoden

On Equilibrium, people try to balance out their lives, making sure the old is balanced with the new, the good with the bad and the past with the future. It is tradition to do major house cleaning on this day, removing anything old or unused from the household. It is also a day where people go and ask for others to forgive them for any wrong they may have done to them from the previous year. People do not have to be forgiven on this day, but if someone asks for forgiveness on Equilibrium five years in a row, it is tradition to forgive them because they have since balanced the scales and seen the harm that they have done you.

Seaven

20th Seavenden

On Seaven, Water Dancers travel to the cities bearing gifts from the sea that they give to people. The cities usually greet them with a large festival already underway. Many people refer to this holiday as the Festival of the Sea. Shells of many colors and shapes are exchanged on this day, along with decorative seaweed wraps, dried fish and drift wood. Some cities have developed traditions around the color shells someone gives you on this day. In most towns, windchimes bade from drift wood and sea shells are put up to create music of the sea within their town.

Bonne

36th Decaten

Bonne is a holy day for the Temple of the Water Dancer. The Temple performs many dances praising beauty. People in cities nearby usually travel to the closest Temple to see these dances and leave trinkets for the dancers. This festival is one of celebration and beauty so people usually wear their finest clothes and have their hair styled in the latest and most flattering ways. Water Dancers who are not dancing often help people do their make-up and set their hair, giving them a makeover of sorts. People give gifts of art and money to the water dancers who do this for them.

Heartstrings

21st Serpent

Heartstrings is the day people seek out the Water Dancers to counsel them on love, hate, anger, happiness and other emotions. People come to them and usually Dancers travel to the cities as well. Since this Holy Day takes place in the season of Monsoon, it is tradition for people to bring rain catchers to the Water Dancers. Whatever rain is caught in these rain catchers on the day of Heartstrings is used throughout the year for the dancers to perform in. If it doesn't rain, the water is collected during the first storm after Heartstrings. If it rains on Heartstrings, it is said to wash away the emotions of the previous year and clean the heart and the soul for the emotions of the new year.

Firelight

10th Wilheden

Firelight is the day that Sosen and A'a created fire and light. On this day people make large bonfires and dance from Firelight Eve until the dawn of the two suns. Firelight is one of the major Holy Days of the year because the creation of Fire and Light is a sign of the beginning of Mortals and Life. This Church of Creation festival is celebrated the world over by the young and the old. The bonfires are very elaborate, often carved into various shapes before they are lit on fire. The dances and food during the evening festival flows with alcohol and joy.

Festival of Wheat, Festival of Apples, Festival of Rye, Festival of Bread, etc

Throughout the year

The festivals of the Scythe Bearers are celebrated throughout the year whenever a crop has been harvested. The festivals revolve around whatever crop has just been gathered and it usually involve feasts, dancing and great merriment. These festivals are plentiful and vary on the local crop.

Worldwide Arasconian Festivals

Festival of Ash

1st Wilheden - 2nd WIlheden

The first festival of the Year is The Festival of Ash. The Festival of Ash represents the sloughing off of old things and becoming reborn again like the phoenix rising from the ash. People create giant representation of phoenixes and fill them with things that represent the bad things that happened to them during the previous year. On the first day of the festival, they toss these paper birds into a large fire and let them burn to ash. On the second day of the festival, the ash is cleaned from the fire and thus purged from their lives. After the cleaning has taken place, people generally have a party where they eat "Ash Cakes", pie, dried fruit and other rich, sweet foods to represent all the sweet and fulfilling things they want to enter their lives for the new year. Like the phoenix rising from the ashes to be reborn, so too do the people celebrate this yearly festival to do the same. "Ash Cakes" are a sweet confection made from ground barley, clove, honey and almonds. They are almost cookie like when eaten and often people place a dried fig in the center or jam, though, it depends on what region you are from.

Brochain

39th Torilden

Brochain was originally called Celebration of Broken Chains. It is celebrated in the second month of the year. This day is celebrated to mark the day that slavery was ended in Arascon. This day is generally celebrated by people dressing up in animal costumes, usually beasts of burden, but not always. People gather, and trade food stuffs and clothing in a town common center. This is a way to give things to the poor without making it feel like a hand-out. Because of the costumes, it is assumed that you don’t know who anyone is. By dressing up, all people in the town become equal and thus, the gifts are all traded fairly.

Bloody Dawn

16th Planting

Bloody Dawn is celebrated soon after Brochain in commemoration of the beheading of Commander Troy Regent of the Red Dawn by Queen Tama. This day is generally celebrated with re-enacting of the scene by young children. This is done to show that such fighting about the sexes is ridiculous. After the re-enactment, people watch parades and drink in celebration of this day.

Worldwide Gildenese Festivals

The Lantern Festival

27th Gaviden

Traditionally, the Lantern Festival is used to serve as a day for love and matchmaking. An unmarried girl is permitted to appear in public unescorted and thus be seen by eligible bachelors. It is one of the few nights without a strict curfew. Young people are chaperoned on the streets in hopes of finding love. Matchmakers act busily in hopes of pairing couples. Single people, carry bright, colorful lanterns. The brightest lanterns are symbolic of good luck and hope. However, the festival no longer has such implications in countries like Arascon, but instead it has switched to be a holiday where wooing is common between the sexes. It is a day where arranged marriages are comoonly sealed and dances occur for people to meet potential singles and eventually become wed. This is a very common day to ask for someone's hand in marriage in Arascon.

Worldwide Roseden Festivals

Festival of the Moons

30th Seavenden

This festival is traditionally the festival to celebrate the Moons. In Rosedese, people traditionally make globes of blown glass and place a candle within them. Their carry three of these around at night to show that they are one with the moons. They also adorn women with jewelry of glass discs to symbolise their fertility and the full moon. In countries where glass is scarse, poeple celebrate the moons by giving away gold or silver discs to women to wear dangling from their ears or around their necks. Candles are lit and placed along roadways in the cities. Dancing, feasts and festivals with games are common as well.

Calendar of Celebrations