Thursday 3 January 2019

Happy New Year to All

Happy 2019 to everyone, those whom are reading this, those who are not, and everyone in between.

Do you celebrate New Years in your game / world?


Every now and then, I check the notes of the calendars of my world and see if its appropriate that locals are having a festival.

Festivals are important for people, to mark the passage of time, If you want to really get into this, go interview some people in small towns about their local festivals, how they plan it, how much time is put into it, and what they do inbetween time.. often its 'plan the next festival'

If we look at modern times, what with the work week, schedules, productivity and such, we've lost a lot of good ole fashioned festivals. We've managed to hang on to a few religious ones, a few non religious ones and some cross-overs.. such as Christmas, New Years and Easter.

Christmas and Easter, might be a tad hard to just plonk into your world, Maybe a great hero from a great time, might have stood for some goal, and people celebrate his birth and death, but I think its a fair call to say that marking the passage of time, the end of the year, would be universal.

So what do your folks do for New years? Local Wizards blowing off some fireworks spells?

In Estonia, we walked to the gravestones of ancestors and gave thanks, said hello. So maybe witches might summon up the spirits and communicate each year?

Russian New years is kinda like Australian Christmas, hand out pressies, eat a big meal, stay up to midnight and give your besty a hug before falling asleep somewhere that's not often your bed.

What of the aftermath, Russian New years is 10 days long, no-one goes to work, they just stay indoors, eating, drinking and so on, If your adventurers arrived in town mid-festival, would they find closed shops? full Inns? people sleeping in the street?

How about mid adventure...

"Hang on guys, before we enter the next room and solve the traps and kill the monsters, I'd just like to say a few words and count-down for New Years, about how much I appreciate you all!"


No comments: