Question: In your games, have you ever done research on a culture's holidays or days of special events and run them in your game? Like Samhain, Spring Festivals and others that are similar.
Sure have! Holy days and festivals are always important to the gods that they honor, if for no more than a sweet ego boost, and when your players are those gods' children, they tend to be inclined to foster their worship and even participate themselves (especially if they have Piety). The most elaborate such case in our recent games was in the Eastern Promises chronicle, when the players were in mid-India during the time of the Ganesha Chaturthi, the birthday celebration of the reborn elephantine god. They had an absolute blast putting their mission briefly on hold to create and find elaborate gifts for Ganesha and each other, enjoy fancy festival foods and play games and participate in rituals, with our Scion of Ganesha, Cassara, at the forefront loving every minute of it. They finally moved on the requisite several days later, a little behind on their timetable but happily rotund and pleased with themselves. For their devotion, Ganesha bestowed some small magical favors on them, which didn't hurt the deal in the slightest, either.
We'll do a big religious festival event like that once in a while, but more often it's the players themselves who instigate it. As children of gods, if they're not mad at their pantheons they tend to be very aware of the best times to honor and hang out with them, and those who are interested in it usually keep track of when those periods come around so they can perform their ceremonies as necessary. In particular, Eztli is highly sensitive to the patron gods of the Aztec sacred calendars xiuhpohualli and tonalpohualli, varying whom she dedicates the most sacrifices to by who's in charge of that particular time period, and she's completely halted all game progress more than a few times to make sure that Huitzilopochtli's festival of Panquetzaliztli is properly celebrated (pro tip: having a husband that is a chef is very useful when bread-making is an important part of the festivities!) or that everybody gets under cover and doesn't make any wrong moves during the nemontemi, the dead days at the end of the calendrical cycle. Personal holidays count, too; Jioni knew there would be a major bash for her father's birthday, but she unfortunately missed it for three years running due to being stuck in fairy courts and Titanrealms and so on, and thereafter lived in fear of his angry cane of retribution for a while before it got straightened out.
Players tend to incorporate holidays and festivals into their backstories or characters as well; they often choose to set their date of birth during a festival dedicated to their divine parent (or nine months after one!). And, of course, once they hit upper Demigodhood, they start to found festivals and holy days in their own honor, like the vigil for the dead that Sowiljr's people hold for him once a year before they celebrate his resurrection in the spring.
How about you guys - any cool ways you've used religious calendars and celebrations in your games?
No comments:
Post a Comment