Holidays and Special Days

New Year Jubilation / Summer Solstice

Celebrated on the very end of the year, the New Year Jubilation celebrates the end of the current year and the beginning of the next, as well as the anniversary of the Unification, and the Summer Solstice (northern hemisphere) which coincides the same week or day (One year it lands on the 1st, next year on the 2nd, then 3rd, then 4th, then wraps back around).

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The New Year Jubilation is a holiday. It is celebrated on a national scale, meaning many occupations as well as Temple schools will take the day off. Cities and towns will be decorated to celebrate the Unification and appreciate the unity between the natural elements. There are parades, games, and competitions in the day and private festivities in the evening.

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If the Summer Solstice does not fall on the 1st, there is generally not a celebration on the day that it does.

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Winter Solstice

For the northern hemisphere, the Winter Solstice falls in the middle of the Fifth Moon, day varying by year. The southern hemisphere has their Summer Solstice on the same day, but due to Warfang mainland being in the northern hemisphere, the Winter Solstice is the usual name of this special day.

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This day marks the beginning of winter, and every Winter Solstice, the Temple schools host an event for its students. For the students between Year One and Year Ten, these are social gatherings with food, entertainment, and games. For Year Eleven up to Year Eighteen, the highlight of the evening is the Solstice Dance. Leading up to the Solstice, students may approach other students to ask them to be their date for the event, and they will dance together at the height of the evening. While one may dance with a friend or a relative, many students wait eagerly for this day to explore their romantic interests. Attendance is obligatory, but dance participation is not.

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The Winter Solstice is also an excuse for high society to mingle. Gatherings will be hosted worldwide, with drinks and entertainment for its guests. Masquerades are popular for the Winter Solstice.

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Day of Remembrance / Remembrance Eve

1st Day of the Eighth Moon. Remembrance Day is a holiday dedicated to the Ancestors and the recently departed. In the early morning, shrines of loved ones will be visited. They will have been cleaned the night prior. Incense and candles will be lit, and words and prayers may be spoken to the shrines. Each family member will offer something to the family shrine. Children may leave trinkets they'd made at school the days prior, or some flowers they picked. Adult dragons will generally buy or commission some kind of decoration or utility for the shrine, or make it if they can do it well. Among the clans and rich, these will often be of expensive materials, and even the clan youth and children will be pressured to offer something of value. Clans may, before Remembrance Day, arrange expeditions for clan youth to attain something rare or uncommon, to put effort into their offerings as they lack the coin to buy something expensive.

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While offerings can be given to the shrine, or specific shrines, every day of the year, Remembrance Day offerings are given to the family shrine as a whole, not any individual's shrine. The offerings will be distributed by the family elders. Some families will distribute evenly, others will be biased. It's not uncommon for clan leader shrines in particular to be overflowing with offerings on Remembrance Day.

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If food is offered, it must stay until the next day before it can be eaten by the living. Flowers will be removed just as they start to wilt.

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Offerings need not be given every year, but in big, wealthy, and/or clan families, a rich, impressive shrine is extremely important for appearances, and they will do the ritual every year.

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Remembrance Day ends with a feast before the evening, as everyone will have fasted up until this point.

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Once night falls, Remembrance Eve begins. This is seen as an informal part of Remembrance Day and is frowned upon by those traditional. As a day dedicated to death and the deceased, children and young dragons may celebrate it further by adorning costumes and makeup, turning them into depictions of the macabre and 'evil'. They'll take the appearance of skeletons, corpses, the wounded, the sick, dragon-eating creatures, dark dragons, cheetahs, apes, spirits, ghosts, and imaginary monsters. Liberties are often taken to allow for colorful and stylistic designs - glowing paint is popular. Some costumes may not be a depiction of death at all; it has become commonplace particularly for older children and young adults to depict themselves as something abstract and appealing. Costumes don't depict an occupation, particularly as it would be frowned upon to dress as a Guardian, Templar, Soldier, Guard, etc.

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Cities and towns will have festivals and parades where dragons in their costumes can frolic the streets, sending up colorful displays of elemental fireworks. Music will be played, and performers will follow. Thematic food will be sold by vendors.

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The parade and festival will have been pre-approved by the city/town, and Guard presence will be heavy. Young dragons like to make a game out of pranking Guards but this can often go poorly.

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Besides the parade, there may be private parties, competitions, and games.

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In high society, it's frowned upon to participate in the dress-up, parade, and the festival. It is viewed as a commoner's event. High society has their own events for Remembrance Eve; usually masquerade parties. Make-up and body paint may be used but only in flattering ways, no macabre depictions. It's not too unusual for high society children to make themselves unrecognizable in paint and a costume and attend the festival anyway, as the high society events are much more dull.

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Week of Aether

The Week of Aether is also known as The Week of Elements. It is in the first week of the Third Moon. It is a week long, city-hosted festival celebrating each element, marked by element-based performances and competitions with big prizes.

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On the first day, Day Draco, the festival starts. There is food and general entertainment, and anyone can sign up for the week's competitions. The next day, Day Ignis, is the day for Fire. Banners and decoration are changed into the standard colors of fire and depicts fire and fire imagery. Non-fire dragons may paint and decorate themselves so they look like fire dragons. More formal dragons will dress in appropriate colors.

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This pattern is reflected for each day of the festival; Electricity for Day Fulgur, Ice for Day Glacies, Earth for Day Solum, Wind for Day Ventus, Water for Day Aqua.

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The Week of Aether is a tradition dating back to not long after the Unification, a festival created by the nation of Warfang in an attempt to better relations between dragons of different elements who were now living together. The festival allowed dragons to expose each other to their different elements outside of conflict, encouraging appreciation and understanding. The Week of Aether is culturally significant and important to all economic classes, the Temple Schools will even close for the whole week. Masters and even Elementals may be encouraged to appear and demonstrate their elements. Winning high-end competitions may open many doors to a dragon, such as a marriage invitation into a clan.