Midsummer Celebrations
Jul 7, 2022 0:59:28 GMT -5
StabbingNirvana, ShadowCatJen, and 3 more like this
Post by DM Flash on Jul 7, 2022 0:59:28 GMT -5
Midsummer is an annual holiday that customarily occurs between Flamerule 30 and Eleasis 1 on the Calendar of Harptos. It is a time of feasting and music and love. Acquaintances turn into dalliances, courtships turn into betrothals, and the deities themselves take a part by ensuring good weather for feasting and frolicking in the woods. Bad weather on this special night is taken as an omen of extremely ill fortune to come.
Major Deities of Fearun
Church of Lathander - holds the ceremony known as the Song of Dawn on Midsummer morning and at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. During it, the clergy and the faithful sing a popular and complex set of harmonies and counter-harmonies that attracts even nonworshipers to the cathedrals to praise the Morninglord.
Church of Mielikki - celebrates this day similar to the Four Feasts, but they also include planting rites and the Wild Ride, where herds of unicorns gather and allow the faithful to ride them bareback through the forest at great speed.
Church of Oghma - a holy day traditionally used to mark new agreements or pacts, when many written contracts, deeds, and bonds are drawn or renewed and signed.
Church of Silvanus - a holy night celebrated under the moonlight where offerings to the Treefather are usually made of wood and broken then buried in a circle of trees on a hilltop.
Church of Sune - a holy day of worship to Lady Firehair celebrated with a great deal of outdoor frolicking and with night-long flirtatious chases through forests and parks
Church of Talos - celebrated with great ceremonies that call down lightning and summon storms.
Other Deities of Faerun
Church of Akadi - (not celebrated in Cormyr, but for reference for PCs of the faith) The only official holy day of the church, all who are able spend tendays traveling to South Faerun to gather at the Shaar at the ruins of Blaskaltar to chant of the heroes of the faith is recited by all present and new names are added to the roll commemorating those who have passed on during the past year.
Church of Beshaba - Devotees observe this day with wild revels of destruction and rudeness. Otherwise, they ignore the calendar... (truncated)
Church of Lurue - celebrated on the eve in a night-long festival of revelry, wild antics, and muck hullabaloo. Such events are marked by wild rides through the countryside and sky, numerous theatrical skits, humorous oratories, mock duels, grand songs in which everyone joins in, and romantic declarations.
Church of Loviatar - celebrate the Rite of Pain and Purity: a circle dance that chanting, singing clergy members perform upon barbed wire, thorns, or broken glass or crystal, where the whips of high-level clerics and the drumming of lay worshipers urge the participants to greater effort.
Church of Milil - celebrates the Grand Revel that involves a feast, dancing, and much roistering, and is marked by parodies and wickedly satirical song.
Church of Sharess - Midsummer’s Eve is the time of greatest rejoicing among Sharess’s faithful and an occasion for the most extreme pursuits of boundless pleasure.
Church of Shiallia - the faithful invite all friendly creatures to revel with them in feasting, singing, and dancing.
Church of Tymora - one of only two rituals common to all temples, includes a night-long revel of daring acts, romantic trysts, and meetings between members of the Harpers, relatives, and allied faiths.
Dwarven Pantheon
Church of Berronar Truesilver - this night holds religious significance to the faenor bringing fantastic celebrations above ground where travelers or members of neighboring communities are invited to join in on the festivities.
Church of Sharindlar - practiced when the moon begins to wax and commonly involve secret congregations in hidden caverns. At such gatherings, supplicants dance around a natural pool, chanting to the Lady of Mercy while casting items of gold into a sanctified cauldron. Participants draw a small amount of blood from their forearms, allowing it to seep into the cauldron, the contents of which are heated until molten and cast into the central pool
Gnome Pantheon
Church of Callarduran Smoothands - assemble at twilight for the ceremony known as The Festival of the Ruby, which marks Callarduran's hiding of rubies and other gems in the depths of the earth for the deep gnomes to find, a story symbolized in svirfneblin mythology by tales of the Great Red Ruby (the setting sun) sinking into the earth.
Church of Flandal Steelskin - assemble annually on Midsummer’s Day in great gatherings to celebrate the holy day known as the High Forge. The faithful gather in the morning to make offerings of forged metal weapons to the deity and offer praises to him through rhythmic, percussive hammer hymns culminating at midday in a brief period of utter silence. In the afternoon and evening, the participants exchange ideas and new techniques and exhibit the finest of their wares, and by evening the gathering is overwhelmed by merchants seeking to acquire new trade goods.
Mulhorandi Pantheon
Church of Hathor - Midsummer’s Eve is known as the Celebration of the Moon to clerics of the faith, who spend the day in joyous revelry and uplifting hymns.
Church of Horus-Re - The most important annual holiday when all the clerics of Horus-Re gather in his temples to sing his praises.