Festivals

There are a number of festivals in Camora, most of which are connected to the Winds but a couple of which have lost their religious connections, if ever they had them to begin with.

Because the passage of time is ill-kept, festivals are most commonly announced at temples and by town criers a week before they happen. This is thought to give people enough time to prepare and anticipate the festival but be a short enough interval that they're unlikely to forget.

The Last Turn
The death of the old year is mourned under Caeciah's ever-watchful gaze. Skyshards are covered all over the city over the course of the evening, the only time many areas of Camora are truly dark. This continues until the Silver Tower is the only light source left. Most people gather around the windows to see the Silver Tower glowing alone, the only point of light in the city, at the moment of the turning.

This is a time of reflection, quiet meditations, and stories. The most important events of the year are recalled, be they good or bad, and people are supposed to reflect both on how they changed and how they want to change in the coming year.

The First Turn
While Caeciah rules the death of the old year, Khamsin celebrates the birth of the new. This day is all about growth and birth, and is considered an especially auspicious day to start any new venture. Many proposals or new business deals take place on the first day of the new year because of the lucky connotations.

This is a much more jovial holiday than the Last Turn, and is usually celebrated with feasts and celebrations with family, friends, and acquaintances - or much more public celebrations involving simply everyone!

The Burning
The Burning is a day of renewal rather than destruction, and is the only holiday of Notos' that is widely celebrated. Huge fires are built in his temples, many of which have access to large, outdoor terraces. The fires burn in the freezing darkness, and people throw in things they want to forget, change, or otherwise remove so as to make room for the new. Notos' devout make themselves readily available to any who would like to speak with them, as do Nua'ma's Rapha.

The Burning is often a very emotionally charged holiday for people. Even the monarch participates in it yearly, burning rosters, legal documents, or even tower effigies to symbolically renew the city.

Day of Dances
Traditionally, this holiday celebrates a myth of Saban's and was used to teach one another important lessons through tricks and mischief, but it has become a day to simply have fun and spread mischief. To be fair, this is also in keeping with the holiday, which originated from some of Saban's own mischief and involves enormous dances and public celebrations. Some think Saban arranged all of this just so her favourite thieves would have some truly fertile hunting grounds!

Heart's Eve
This is eve of the day the two souls of Adima and Nuada became one, joining via their mothers' congress into the god/dess Nua'ma. As such, it is a day for joinings of all kinds. It is considered immensely auspicious to begin a relationship or propose on Heart's Eve - or to end a romantic entanglement, leading to the holiday's second name: Bloody Heart's Eve.

Though seeking a Rapha's guidance in matters of the heart usually requires an (often substantial) offering to the temple, Heart's Eve is the one day when they will offer advice freely to those who prove themselves. People must show their commitment to the idea of finding their soulmate, which can be done in all kinds of seemingly unrelated ways. Nevertheless, stories of Rapha matchmaking on Heart's Eve are well-loved, and many of the popular folk tales involve it.

Celebration of the Crows
Though this strange holiday is often associated with Zaphyr and/or Saban due to their connections to avian kind and Caeciah for his connection to the dead, there is no evidence that the holiday actually originated with any of them.

The day involves small but festive parades, and people paint their faces as crows, blackbirds, and raptors to go dancing through the streets. Most people carry bags of breadcrumbs and feed their local flock of crows, whispering messages meant for the dead to the birds as they do. There is a belief that crows and blackbirds are able to fly between the realms of the dead and Camora, and can be used as messengers between these realms. Those who feed the crows well and honour them with dance and costume are said to be visited by whichever crow took their message, bringing back a reply.

The Masking
The Masking is one of Saban's holidays, and is a real favourite among youth. Participants, called Maskers, don masks and cloaks to roam the streets, banging pots and pans and setting off loud noises or growling, howling, and snarling, all towards the goal of frightening off demons and spirits. Among the youth it's common for groups of friends form "packs" of sorts, and altercations between Masker packs or Maskers and unmasked citizens are common on the lower rings. All-night celebrations, both public and private, can be found on every level, though children are typically banned from those festivities.

The Week of Najma Ma'ayb
The Week of Najma Ma'ayb (roughly, the Week of the Festival of Dead Stars) is the Camoran Independence Day, if you will. It is known both by its original Hajj-Isan name and by the simpler Starfall Festival. Though it isn't precisely thanks to Acitas the war was won, as the god of battle he is often considered the focal point of this week-long celebration of the end of the Ashen War.

Holiday markets, parades, dances, and mock battles are all staples of this 10 day long celebration. That said, the particulars of each day are not necessarily closely observed or even known. Unless otherwise noted, the festival likely continues in the more general vein of jubilation noted above. Even so, most people have a rough idea of the days from one of the songs of the festival, "The Days of Najma Ma'ayb."

The Day of Ash
The first day of Najma Ma'ayb is meant to be a day of remembrance for the horrors of the war. Though most people don't pay much attention to this one, there are some who celebrate traditionally by spending time with their families or in the temples, listening to old myths from the war. Caeciah is the patron of the first day, silently watching over the dead and the passage of time. This used to be a sombre day, but now that it's not widely celebrated most people just dive into the celebration.

Lailat Miraj
One of the few holidays that has kept its original Hajj-Isan name, Lailat Miraj roughly translates into "The Difficult Journey." The holiday commemorates the second day of Najma Ma'ayb, the day the Elder Winds created the first Called to defend the ragged group from the onslaught of the Stars. People make sacrifices to each Elder Wind by burning offerings out on terraces open to the skies, but the day is particularly focused on Boreas and Khamsin as the generators of all life and the heads of the pantheon.

This is a day of gratitude and gravity, especially for Called. All citizens are expected to pay at least lip service to this holiday, but any Called who doesn't take it seriously is seen as particularly selfish or ungrateful. Called and their families usually wear white or gold on this day to honour Boreas and Khamsin for their great gift to them.

The Crescent Festival
This obscure holiday celebrates the creation and implementation of the Aegis by the Crescent Magi. This day is not widely celebrated outside of the Crescent Magi fold, but there it is perhaps the most celebrated day of the year. Invitations to these celebrations are perhaps the most coveted invitations in the city, as this is one of the few days Crescent Magi use their powers for fun rather than magical inquiry or creation. Zaphyr is the patron of this day thanks to her connection to magic and intelligence, and some say that she's the one who came up with the idea for the Aegis in the first place.

The Red Hunt
The fourth day is the Red Hunt, the day the first Starchasers flew out to hunt and kill the last Stars trapped below the Aegis. This day is a favourite among the Orange Tower and the Falcons in particular, and is celebrated around the city with contests and demonstrations of physical skill.

Though the specifics of the day are not usually particularly attended outside of those groups, the biggest contests tend to happen on this day anyway. There are also large-scale scavenger hunts for children, usually held by the temples of Acitas and centered around finding small wax stars hidden all over the city by his Dedicants. The winner or winners (children may enter as a group) are crowned the Falcon King/Queen for the day, a great honour in any child's life.

The Homecoming
The Homecoming is a holiday devoted to the city itself. It's a celebration of the towers and the walls that the weary warriors could return to and call home after their time spent hunting Stars. Due to its close connection to the city itself, this day is devoted to Saban and her ilk. Traditionally the citizenry celebrate the day by cleaning the city streets and caring for the walls that house everyone (instead of letting the drogher do it), but this has fallen farther and farther out of favour as time has gone on.

Due to its connection to Saban, the Homecoming is particularly favoured by the Messenger's Guild. There are all kinds of private parties held by messengers, usually in very hard-to-reach and precarious places that would be very difficult for non-messengers to reach. These parties are reputed to be incredible, but not many would know.

The Sixth Day (Day of Breath)
This day is Eurun's, and celebrates the creation of a new life and culture in a new era, though almost everyone has forgotten the significance of this day. There's some small acknowledgement of her role here in the Green Tower and in her temples, but overwhelmingly people have lost this part of the celebration. Most do not know the sixth day has a name, let alone a patron.

The Silver Day
The seventh day is the Silver Day, and is the day Kaled Kshaeta, the monarch at the time, officially announced the victory of the Camoran citizenry over the Stars. This begins the celebration in truth, and the Kshaeta goes to each tower to deliver a re-enactment of the victory speech. Mesis, as the patron of the monarch, presides over this day. Parades are held for the Kshaeta in each tower, and the citizens come out in force to welcome him to their tower.

In some ways this is a competitive holiday, with each tower trying to give the best reception.

The Day of Weddings
Nua'ma rules the eighth day for exactly the reasons you might expect. Called the Day of Weddings, this was the day a record number of people wed. The joy of victory and the new surety that their children wouldn't be killed by Stars led people to finally exchange vows. It is celebrated today with couples and doubles contests, celebrating both togetherness and the struggle towards it. It is traditional for couples, best friends, or people who want to become closer to enter into these doubles contests.

The Ninth Day
The ninth day doesn't have any special significance, just continuing the general festivities of the days before.

The Day of Prophecy
The tenth day is a strange one, and has largely fallen out of the typical celebrations. It is the day Notos spoke out to remind everyone that their trials were not over. There had been great destruction, and would be again. This day used to be used for preparation and reflection. People would train in weaponry, magic, or other forms of knowledge, and would look hard at themselves for what they could do for the city.

Now, almost no one does this. The last remnant of this tradition is in the games - there's a specific subset of games in which rank amateurs are paired with experienced practitioners, given an hour to train, and pitted against one another. It's all in good fun, and is taken much less seriously than most of the other games.