What real world Holidays have made it into you game?

[Knightfall]

Okay, Halloween is tomorrow and I'm just wondering who has imported that Holiday into their campaigns, as well as other holidays such as Christmas, Easter, New Year's Eve, Thanksgiving, etc.

And I'm talking the more traditional versions of the holidays. Not the commercialized verisons that we have now. Halloween is the most apporpriate for a fantasy game, IMO, and I have a "holiday" called the Scarecrow Festival, for World of Kulan, which is a combination of Halloween and Thanksgiving.

My PCs recently attended an event in one city, known as the Scarecrow Ball, which is where nobles celebrate the above holiday by gathering for a fancy party where everyone wears masks. No one is supposed to reveal who they are until the end of the evening and special gifts are given to those who can correctly guess who their friends are. (That bit incorporates a bit of Christmas too.)

Anyway, what real world holidays have similar, doppelganger holidays in your campaigns?

Cheers!

KF72

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I will use the version of Halloween from the Pumpkin Patch PDF when my campaign actually gets that far through the calendar. They're still in the equivalent of April, last I looked.

 

[Agamon]

The only way RL holidays influence my game, is that we never get to play during them, as everyone is busy.

 

[haakon1]

Druids and others worship the solstices and equinoxes. And at the end of the year, there's Yule. There's also something like Octoberfest, but it has an in-world origin (as in an official author did it, not my fault!).

I suppose Boxing Day also exists . . .

 

[w_earle_wheeler]

I always run a game with Halloween themes around Halloween, but I've never mentioned the holiday by name.

I would love to run a Christmas-themed game with a Narnia-styled Santa Claus.

 

[Cor Azer]

While I try to have in-game holidays and festivals, I haven't explicitly planned any as analogs to real world holidays. I have one player though whose character routinely gives out neat gifts to the other characters around what would be Yule/Christmas (ie, shortly after beginning of winter), so I guess that counts even though I didn't initiate it.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Halloween, Christmas, New Years Eve, and Thanksgiving are the only ones that come to mind. I don't remember ever incorporating all of them into one game, but they've all made appearances now and then, generally under different names or with slightly different practices.

E.g., my first 3E campaign I started in a small village with the characters all snowbound at the inn at "Yuletide". They were given an excuse to work together when they were "volunteered" by the woman who owned the inn to run some errands, whereupon I started throwing a few encounters at them.

One of the events was being given specific gifts by a mysterious, oddly-dressed fat guy. I'd planned to have this encounter recur each game year while the campaign lasted with the gifts getting more valuable each time and always something the character wanted or needed. This was to be a phenomenon specific to the characters but investigation of the "Jolly Old Elf" would begin to turn up legends connecting the NPC and the holiday and eventually lead to a full-blown adventure one fine year.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I would love to run a Christmas-themed game with a Narnia-styled Santa Claus.

I'd like to see a nice and fluffy write-up of such a Santa. I hate the Coca-Cola incarnation, which seems to be the only one gamers ever write up.

 

[Meloncov]

Its never actually come up in game, but IMC there is a night in October where undead are supposedly especially common. People stay inside their houses, while clerics roam the street warding off undead. It is traditional to leave a small offering for said clerics in front of the house.

 

[Woas]

My birthday.


...it's a holiday to me! I use it as a mid-summer/mid-year type festival.


I've also used:
Thanksgiving as Harvest Festival sort of thing.
A Independence Day themed holidays for a free city state/Republic.
A Veterans Day themed holiday based around a famous victory that was part of a kingdoms history.