Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms Holidays To Incorporate In A Campaign

Dungeons & Dragons: Forgotten Realms Holidays To Incorporate In A Campaign

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Holidays aren’t just a thing in the real world, as the Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons setting has its own calendar and holidays to explore.

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Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms Holidays To Incorporate In A Campaign

The holiday season is wrapping up, but the festivities can always keep going in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, if nowhere else. There are plenty of holiday-themed campaigns to check out when that time of year comes around, but what about holidays that already exist inside the game’s canon lore? Any DM can easily set up an extravagant holiday celebration for their players; all they need is a list of the official holidays.

The Forgotten Realms–D&D’s most popular campaign setting–have been around for a long time, and over those years a full calendar evolved: a 365-day year split into 12 months lasting 30 days (or 3 tendays) each. It’s called the Calendar of Harptos, and there are five major holidays laid out within that calendar.

The calendar’s months are as follows: Hammer (January), Alturiak (February), Ches (March), Tarsakh (April), Mirtul (May), Kythorn (June), Flamerule (July), Eleasis (August), Eleint (September), Marpenoth (October), Uktar (November), and Nightal (December). Five extra days falling in between certain months bring the Harptos calendar to a total of 365 days, and those five days each come with a special meaning and set of long-celebrated traditions for players of any D&D edition, including the current 5th edition, to partake in.

Midwinter

There isn’t quite a “Christmas” or “New Years’ Eve” equivalent in the Calendar of Harptos, but Midwinter is probably the closest thing that players will find. It technically takes place a month after the new year begins, on a day that falls after Hammer 30 and before Alturiak 1. The “New Year” component comes in because, for monarchies and nobility, it’s traditionally a day to renew alliances and make plans for the next year. For the common folk, however, Midwinter is largely an acknowledgment of the cold days to come before spring’s thaw.

While every religion and civilization has its own practices for Midwinter, it shouldn’t be too hard for DMs to cobble together a Midwinter celebration of their own by picking a few of their favorite traditions. For instance, many good and neutral-aligned religious groups throw a festival on Midwinter, often culminating in a special Midwinter’s Night event: a great feast, ice-dancing, or even a time of solemn contemplation.

Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms Holidays To Incorporate In A Campaign

Greengrass

In the real world, there really isn’t a day especially marked to welcome the springtime, but that’s exactly what Greengrass is in the Forgotten Realms. It’s a festival, thrown on the first day of spring, the extra day that falls between Tarsakh 30 and Mirtul 1, and it’s generally quite the cheerful celebration. Once again, wealthier people have their own traditions; traditionally, they bring out flowers to give to the less fortunate, either to wear them or spread them across the ground as a prayer for deities to quickly deliver summer.

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Beyond that, Greengrass is another perfect time to set up a grand festival, one that normally offers lots of feasting, dancing, and singing. It’s a day to spend entirely outdoors, celebrating the coming changes, and Greengrass festivals generally get a little more lively than those in freezing Midwinter.

Midsummer

Exactly halfway through the year, there’s Midsummer; Midwinter’s warm counterpart that falls between Flamerule 30 and Eleasis 1. Midsummer is a festival that celebrates love and music, and it’s also a day when people believe that the gods themselves intervene to ensure good weather (so, if there’s bad weather on Midsummer Night, that’s considered an extremely bad omen). Midsummer is an interesting combination of Valentine’s Day and the Fourth of July; it’s romantic and jovial, lighthearted all around.

During Midsummer, there’s feasting, dancing, performances of both music and theater. Revelers play games, even pulling pranks or going off on romantic trysts in recognition of the day. There are also some location-specific celebrations: players who head to the city of Silverymoon will see its inhabitants throwing the Feast of Love on Midsummer Night. Any players who are a member of the Emerald Enclave, a widespread faction that navigates the wilderness, protecting it and helping others to survive it, might also celebrate the faction’s birth on this day; the Emerald Enclave was formed on Midsummer Night in 374 DR, on the island of Ilighôn.

Shieldmeet

This holiday actually isn’t one of the five annual in-between days referenced above: it’s the February 29th of Faerun. The Calendar of Harptos also has leap years every four years, and its leap day falls the day after Midsummer, also between Flamerule and Eleasis. In a lot of ways, the holiday aspect of Shieldmeet is like a continuation of Midsummer: it’s traditionally celebrated with fairs, bazaars, musical and theatrical performances, and tournaments of skill and magical ability.

Shieldmeet also has a secondary meaning for the elves of Faerun; Shieldmeet is also known as Cinnaelos’Cor, or “the Day of Corellon’s Peace” in elvish. Every four years on the elven calendar is an aeloulaev, and this day is both the end of the old and beginning of the new for the elven people. Across the continent, Shieldmeet celebrations can range from calm and reflective to extravagant and festive–it’s the DM’s prerogative which type of celebration they’d like to throw.

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Highharvestide

Highharvestide is Faerun’s version of a harvest festival, pulling elements from Oktoberfest and Thanksgiving. This holiday falls on an extra day between 30 Eleint and 1 Marpenoth, and it’s traditionally reserved to celebrate the harvest and the abundance of food. However, Highharvestide can also be a day to celebrate and give farewells to those setting off on their travels before winter sets in.

Food is the emphasis for this holiday, more so even than the other festivals that commonly involve a feast. Preparations for the Highharvestide feast can start as early as a full tenday before the festival, alongside people preparing to preserve food for the duration of the winter months. An average Highharvestide festival includes food-related contests (i.e., a drinking or pie-eating contest), along with races and challenges of skill. Local religious groups can also give out homemade sweets, and priests will often go around blessing larders, wine cellars, grain bins, and other food preserves.

Feast of the Moon

It’s Halloween at the end of November! Although in actuality, while the Feast of the Moon has a few parallels to Halloween, it more closely resembles Mexico’s Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead. The Feast of the Moon falls in the extra between 30 Uktar and 1 Nightal, and it’s the last great festival of the calendar year.

The Feast of the Moon is a more contemplative holiday than the former three, in which it traditionally marks both the onset of winter and a day for people to celebrate their ancestors, and other respected dead. Families bless their ancestors’ graves with the Ritual of Remembrance and gather to tell stories of their ancestors all through the night, alongside stories of great heroes, lost cities, and long-immortalized adventures. Priests following a few different deities do throw festivals on the Feast of the Moon, but it’s not as common a practice as the rest of the day’s traditions. For the most part, the Festival of the Moon is about remembering the dead.

No matter what season the campaign is currently in (if the DM is keeping track of seasons), there’s a holiday to look forward to. Sometimes, party members just need a break–after all, saving the world and facing down legendary monsters is fun, but doing it without end must be exhausting. So, any campaigns in need of some levity and fun can take a look at the Harptos calendar for that missing ingredient. Plus, these Dungeons & Dragons holidays could be a perfect background for the next adventure; who says festivals can’t come with a little intrigue too?

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