D&D 5E HAPPY HOLIDAYS ?

[Beleriphon]

I wonder if mammoth was good eatin' back in the day or if they were just eaten because it was the only meat on the menu.

Given that other large grazing mammals existed and were probably easier to hunt I'm guessing that mammoth probably tasted pretty good, also the hide of one mammoth is probably way more useful than the hides of a dozen elk.

 

[aramis erak]

Good list. I was going to mention harvest, and then I remembered the ultimate harvest festival: Oktoberfest.


Does this include the 5th of November? Remember?


I might be dyslexic, but seeing "feast" made me think of "fast." Are there any fasting holidays? Or is that a tautology, since "holiday" probably means "holy day" anyway, and fasting is often a religious thing?

It is possible, and even relevant.
[HI]The following is no endorsement of any of the mentioned religions.[/HI]

Keep in mind: religious fasting is a major part of the official standard praxis of the Catholic and Orthodox faiths, as well as the Muslims.

There are different kinds and levels of fasting in religious praxis.

• Some fasts are merely abstaining from some class of foods for the duration. EG: Eastern Catholic & Orthodox Lent & St. Phillips' Fast (advent) - where the tradition is nothing that crawls upon the earth nor flies through the sky, and in some jurisdictions, nothing with a vertebral column.
• In others, it's a restriction on how much one may eat. EG: Roman Catholic Lent & Advent - 2 meals per day, rather than three, and of smaller size.
• In others still, it's a ban on spices and exotic foods. (Again, RC Lent, Orthodox and EC lent.)
• And others still, it is a ban on meals during some particular time frame: EG: Islam's Ramadan - nothing but water during the day. For a month. Some pagan faiths also have similar fasts as preparation for investiture into their particular praxis
• And, rarely, total abstinence from food. EG: EC, RC, Orthodox - Holy Saturday traditional fast. The day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Often mitigated to "nothing but boiled veggies and water." As often ignored in modern praxis.
  Also, traditional for the Knight's Vigil - three days prior to knighting, a feast, then 2 days and three nights spent kneeling in prayer, sustained only by reception of communion. Observed more in literature than reality, but documented occasionally.

Most of the time, the fasts are not the holy day, but a sacrifice prior to a holy day. The more severe, the shorter the fasting. But some holy days, like the RC Holy Saturday, are a particular "black fast" during a 3 day "festival"... the Tiduum.

As an observation of the extremes, both the Coptic Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic Orthodox have over 180 days of restricted food choices, and 2 days of total fast, per year, and about 55 days per year where food is delayed until after services. Not to mention that both groups basically observe halal as a baseline due to the cultures around them.