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Holy Days
Elven Reckoning, based on the procession of the nine constellations of the Circle, incorporated monthly Transit Festivals. These four-day affairs occur on the last and first two days of each month, during which one constellation departs from behind Ammonkis and is replaced by the next. During the Age of Fable, each festival's theme was based on the transition from the outgoing to the incoming god.
To a one, the human cultures on the Continent still observe the Transit Festivals, albeit divested of their Ardic trappings. Instead, they are each devoted to some aspect of Chaos, Law, and Neutrality, typically in a three-month cycle, four times a year. In the Midlands, Ostland, and the Sovereignties, these aspects are represented by the Lawful Faith and (in more clandestine ways) the Elder Powers; in Nordland and the Frost Reach as aspects of the
AEsir; and in the
Scour as a conclave of the
Uliger.
The druidic henetheists in
Albion are devoted to Cygnus, and each Transit Festival is celebrated in the context of how balance drives ebb and flow of order and disorder. In godless
Austrus, Transit Festivals are secular Triumphs, invariably commemorating some achievement of the current or a past Autarch.
The various cultures of
Sudenland worship an array of
Local Gods whose holy days frequently fall sometime during each Transit Festival. The mixed-cultural territory of the
Thornveld tolerates the observances of its heterogeneous population, and consequently, someone is celebrating
something nearly every day, while the Transit Festivals themselves are riotous affairs.
For their part, religious orders of the Lawful Faith also have their own holy days. These "Saints' Days" invariably mark a major event in the life of the individual to which the order is devoted, and festivals are themed to enact that event as reminders to the devout. Because there are so many religious orders, Saints' Days occur throughout the year.
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