D&D 5E Holidays in your world

[Lanliss]

Hey there, all you nerds with enough time to have in-world holidays of specific significance. What are they? Do your gnomes celebrate the Winter solstice particularly wildly? Do your Orcs celebrate Halloween with their own Olympics? Our real world holidays are coming around, let's talk about the "fake" ones.

Nicholas day (held the next moon after the Winter Solstice)

In my world Saint Nicholas is an Archfey Patron, known for joy and gift giving. His servants travel the world, dispensing joy to all, and every winter solstice they serve as messengers. Find the nearest Warlock of Saint Nicholas and give him your list, he will burn it in a ritual to Saint Nicholas. It is not uncommon for towns to build a Holiday out of these rituals, holding massive bonfires for the collective burnings of everyone's lists. However, let it be known that Krampus, Nicholas's Fiendish brother, also looks in on these messages, and sets out to punish those asking for more than they deserve. However, the good boys and girls will find gifts hidden around their homes one month after the ritual, always just what they wanted, even if it isn't what they actually put on their list.

 

[Istbor]

I like your description.

I do use holidays and festivals in my homebrew world. Each of the 8 deities have their own. I don't have my campaign bible with me so I lack the details.

There is though, a Day of the Dead themed one.
A Thanksgiving like one.
Both a winter and summer solstice festival
I am not sure about some of my more obscure/fake ones right at this moment though.

I guess it is nerdy to have these on the world's Calendar. I feel that it helps bring the world to life though. It would feel odd without it. Looking back, I can't understand playing a long campaign without these. I must have been crazy in College, or just really into killing orcs.

 

[Shiroiken]

My campaign world (Greyhawk) has four festival weeks (at the solstice), with a holy day at each. Several regions have their own special celebrations too. I haven't used them in my campaign, other than a casual mention, because I haven't been very good about keeping time. I really need to do that though...

 

[MechaPilot]

There are a LOT of holidays in my Tenesia setting, but that's also because there are a lot of religions. It's common for each deity to have at least two, sometimes as many as four or five, religions centered around worshiping them. Probably the only universal holiday in the setting is New Year's Day, though even that is celebrated on different days and in different ways in various parts of the world. I don't have much time right now, but when I get back I'll delve into at least one of them as an example.

 

[Istbor]

I have even added some secular holidays in my home campaign world. Dominated by an Empire not too different from the Roman empire. They have a few holidays to memorialize great victories and famous emperors/empresses.

An example:

The campaign itself starts in a small town, during a two week long festival for the 1000th year of the Empire's founding. Each of the provinces are holding one of these events so that all that desire can attend.

Games
Jousting
Creature menagerie
Feasting and drinking
Rare vendors

It has it all and the fairgrounds are quite large, the town itself is crowded from the influx of travelers and festival goers. Of course there is also something else here... something that will shake the province and mold a few common folk turned adventurers to perhaps Imperial heroes.

I have had a couple different groups run through that beginning piece and have enjoyed it as much as I had enjoyed building and running it. And really? What more could a DM ask for?

 

[pdzoch]

I have not really incorporated holidays into may campaign world. They exist, but they haven't driven the campaign, so they seldom come up. They are mostly used as a reason for certain events in the game, but they have never been anything that the players or characters would track. Any religious holiday associated with my druids, clerics, and paladins have never come into play during the campaign, and none of my players expressed any interests in role playing those obligations for their character.

Several festival occur in the game, mostly tied to harvest and planting seasons. I tend to use these to establish seasons in the campaign, but the players have never planned or prepared for the upcoming events (unless is was the objective of the mission, e.g. ensure Brother Davin makes it to the Feast of Harvest celebration in some town safely and on time).

Fairs are local events and occur once per town per year, but these are market/money producing events, not holidays. Though much of the activities are the same (depending on the solemnity of the religious holiday).

I've run a campaign or two where annual celebrations of a famous victory are celebrated. In one case, this was a war between two races (dwarves and elfs). Tensions always rose during the celebration as the city was now racially mixed and the tension became excuses and diversions for misconduct. A military parade of veterans and soldiers was one of the events associated with that holiday.


I do run "one shot" adventures for my group that are holiday themed (a little of topic from the original thread question). This year, the group recovering an artifact from the Winter Goblin, a powerful goblin who wear white fur lined red coat and hat (sort of twisted Santa). The artifact is located in the Winter Goblin's "workshop", where a band of goblins hammer out crude contraptions on an assembly line. The contraptions are delivery via a sleigh (because they live in a snowy environment) pulled by wolves enchanted to fly.

 

[aco175]

I would like to have more of this, either for FR or generic enough that could be applied to gods based on something such as a 'sun god', or 'moon god'. This would make a good project for DMs Guild. Holidays could be general such as listing something as 'late spring' or 'the 3rd full moon of the year' rather than January 12th (Hammer 12 in FR). A paragraph or two on each and maybe main areas of the country where the holiday is most prevalent.

 

[Lanliss]

I would like to have more of this, either for FR or generic enough that could be applied to gods based on something such as a 'sun god', or 'moon god'. This would make a good project for DMs Guild. Holidays could be general such as listing something as 'late spring' or 'the 3rd full moon of the year' rather than January 12th (Hammer 12 in FR). A paragraph or two on each and maybe main areas of the country where the holiday is most prevalent.

Do not have a subscription,but this sounds like a good subject for an En5ider article, if I am not mistaken. They seem to do a lot of Drop-in things, and a set of holidays would be cool.