Holidays

Each season is introduced by a holiday in the Drowned Isles.

Cherry Blossom Parade

To bring in the New Year with good fortune and chase away the winter doldrums, it is traditional to parade floats of cherry blossoms. Guilds and families create floats with themes of renewal, new life, and good tidings. Generally the parade ends after noon with a massive picnic in a public space.

Twill has precious few cherry blossoms, but has a longstanding relationship with nearby Ark to its east. A baby tree and thousands of blossoms are shipped through the riverways each year.

Midsummer

A gift-giving holiday celebrated differently across the Isles. In some places the Baron demonstrates his beneficence to the peasants; in others business partners curry favor; in others tribal leaders one-up each other in public displays. The one constant is that children across the Isles hope for a more exciting gift than socks.

In Twill, the quality of gifts is a subject for much gossip (especially when it’s too hot to do anything but gossip). Anything too gaudy is frowned upon, but everyone knows the most unique gift is the best gift.

Harvest Banquet

It is said before the Kern, the farmers of the Drowned Isles shared alike during the autumn months. Every able-bodied person worked their hardest during the day to get the crops harvested in time, and all shared equally in the fruits of their labor.

These days land deeds and tithes and taxes and investments make that sort of communal living impossible, but for one night the old spirit of the commune lives. Everyone brings a dish of fresh food to the town hall for the largest feast of the year. It is traditional for farmers to bring their choicest fruits, and for traders to bring their most unfamiliar wares and spices.

Snowfall

Starting on longest night of the year, a bacchanal is held in each town, lasting three nights and three days. Townspeople party with wild abandon (even scolding aunties and curmudgeonly grandfathers). Each morning, whoever drank the most mead is crowned the King of the Day (though you are disqualified from Kingship if you fall asleep at any point when the sun is down).

Tradition tells us that Snowfall is celebrated as Lady Night encroaches upon Father Day. It is important to stay awake and light up the dark, so that the Lady does not think Her temporary gains from Her Father will become permanent. In the furthest southern reaches where the winter nights threaten to swallow the day entire, the party continues for five nights instead.