The Worldbuilder Diaries: Holidays and Festivals

Since we’re headed into the real world’s holiday season, I figured now was a good time to share some of the fictional holidays and festivals you might encounter in my book worlds. I don’t have many featured in my books yet, but I hope you enjoy a few extra details about the handful that occur.

Choosing Day (as seen in The Ballad of Alchemy and Steel)

The Murkor peoples’ Choosing Day is a major event in their culture. It falls on the shortest night of the year (the summer solstice), and celebrates both family and coming-of-age for the younger generation. Since the Murkor are nocturnal, I decided to make their biggest holiday on the shortest night of the year, just as many real world (diurnal) holidays fall on the shortest day of the year.

No one works on Choosing Day. Instead, families gather and share meals, then travel to the cavern outside the Matriarch’s abode to watch as the various castes select their newest members. Seventeen-year-olds are expected to go through the Choosing each year, and while most know where their placement will be, for others, there is still some uncertainty. Murkor children begin training with or testing into castes at around ten years of age; those like Jal’den, who have only one interest to pursue, know where they’ll be placed when their Choosing Day finally arrives. Those who follow multiple interests don’t often know which caste will select them until the moment their names are called.

After the Choosing ceremonies, families gather again to celebrate. And some young Murkor, like the pair featured in The Ballad of Alchemy and Steel, also pledge their lives to one another. To honor both caste placement and partnerships, the Murkor are inked with new tattoos to commemorate the events (tattoos are an integral part of Murkor culture.)

The Spring Festival (as seen in Exile)

The main point of this particular festival is the onset of Spring, and I created it in my book world only because I like Spring. For me, Spring means warmer weather is coming and everything is starting to turn green (I don’t like the cold, and where I live, the winters are very dry. Everything turns brown sometime around October and stays that way until March. The green is always a welcome change.)

In Exile, this festival celebrates the new growth of the season. The Capitol of Novania is bedecked in flowers of every color and shape, and it’s generally a time of happiness. It made a nice backdrop for the wedding that occurs in the first half of the book. It’s one of those events that don’t have a deeper meaning; I added it to the world only because I like that time of year and wanted to share my enjoyment with readers.

The Vernal Equinox Celebration (from Magic in the Deeps, a forthcoming title in The Mage War Chronicles series)

Since this series is still in the draft stage, I may update the name of this holiday before publication. I haven’t decided on that piece yet.

Unlike the Spring Festival, the Vernal Equinox Celebration is a strictly Sevanni holiday. The Sevanni are an aquatic, humanoid species with strict societal gender roles. The women run pretty much everything; they’re physically larger and stronger than the men, who are “kept safe” in the Tower for purposes of reproduction alone. (The exception is the Sevanni of Far Colony, but that’s a topic for a different post.) Sevanni men are requested by women based on their attributes, and the women are granted access to them on a schedule.

The Equinox is considered a time of renewal within the sea, and the Sevanni celebrate it with music, dancing, and more scheduled “bedroom activities” than on any other night of the year. The main character in Magic of the Deeps isn’t particularly fond of the Equinox and all it brings. As a man who also bears the Mage’s Mark (though he’s never been allowed to learn how to use his magic), he’s understandably bitter. Just like real world people, not all of my characters enjoy their peoples’ holidays…

Anyway, thanks for reading yet another somewhat rambling installment of The Worldbuilder Diaries.