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GameMastery Guide / Creating a World / Time

Celebrating Time

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 162
Holidays, festivals, and other calendar-based events provide easy world flavor and adventure hooks.

Holy days are connected to religious events, often signifying anniversaries of important events. This might be the birth of a religious leader, the foundation of the religion itself, a period of abstinence, or a day of miracles and portents. If your world has many gods, then almost every day might have some religious significance. Don’t go overboard, however, or you’ll lose that sense of drama that comes with the observation and its associations. Holy days also make great deadlines, such as the heroes needing to return a missing magic artifact to its temple before the holy day arrives.

Festivals usually take place over several days. Anything can be used as an explanation for a festival, from the celebration of the new harvest to an annual coming-of-age rite for the town’s youth. Because they can extend over more than a single day, they’re an excellent backdrop for an intrigue or a lengthy episodic adventure.

Don’t forget the extraordinary events that the heroes themselves have a role to play in, either. If the player characters liberate a town from years of domination, then that’s cause for a new celebration!

Archives of Nethys

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Celebrating Time