Bloom Festival: Debauchery and Perdition in the City of Scales

By Dame Thérèse Lavoisier, Translated from Orenzian by [TBD]
Note from the Translator: The reader will certainly notice the original author's prejudices transpire in this work. I would note that the original Orenzian version was just as pronounced and even included expressions of contempt that have no equivalent in our language. The human Orenzian naturalist travelled to Anguihebi, with her husband, to study the migratory practices of the Low Land Lamia. The educated reader can surmise the events that led to their rather public separation upon their return.
In the spring of every fourth year, young, and not so young, males from across the Eastern Plateau and beyond arrive to Anguihebi in droves. Artists, farmers, fishemen, bakers, scholars and craftsmen of all trades come to showcase their skills and talent in what is arguably the most elaborate display of male hubris and lust in all of Acarn: the Bloom Festival. While Cineralis and Raymora are also host to similar carnivals of debassements, neither are as elaborate as the one in the City of Scales.
The depraved mob is driven by the desire to mate with one or more of the ten of thousands of Lamias that migrate to the Plateaus in search for interspecies coupling. This practice dates back several millennia. By some perverse joke of nature, the nearly all female race can mate with males from other humanoid species and still give birth to Lamia offspring. In the Low Lands, the only other races are the Greenskins which, thankfully, lack genitalia. Thus, the sultry temptresses migrate to our cliffs every four years to ensnare our males into unnatural carnal debasement.
By the time they have reached the city, an entire temporary city has sprouted outside the gates, where the misguided suitors greet the scally harlots with food, drinks and gifts: craftsmen will offer to sculpt, carve, paint for them, artists will write songs, music and poetry, farmers will treat them to their best crops, merchants will shower them with gold and everyone is inebriated by alcohol, herbs and other drugs.
The Festival’s climax is the parade that occurs on the evening of the first full moon after the spring equinox. Tens of thousands of humanoids dance, sing and play music as they go down Bloom avenue, either on foot or on carriages. The Bloom parade is quite a sight to behold and tourists with higher moral standards travel to Anguihebi just to glimpse at this marvelous spectacle. I will spare the reader the details of how the parade ends. Needless to say, polite tourist should return to their lodging before the midnight bell.
Since the late 28th century, the event has attracted an increasingly diverse crowd. Foremost, other Liminal strumpets, such as the Harpies and Nixas, also travel great distances to participate, though in much smaller numbers. Even Syrens, somehow manage to get there despite that lack of a canal from Lake Orenz. Furthermore, disturbingly large numbers of non-Liminal females also travel to Anguihebi for the event. As such, the Bloom Festival earned a different name, the Carnival of Fornification.
Anguihebi’s government, itself constituted of Lamias, has always encouraged and protected the Festival and the migratory tradition that supports it. The lustful buffoons bring and spend considerable amount of wealth during and around the festival: merchants sell staggering amounts of alcohol, herbs, drugs, jewellery and food, residents rent rooms or their entire house and offer translation services the few who wish to understand what the object of their infatuation has to say. Indeed, few of the slimy snakes speak Orenzian or Thamassan, and few of the horny perverts speak Herpetalan. The libertine lizards do not come empty handed either, in addition to their own gold, they bring plants and animal materials that cannot be obtained on the plateaus. They also bring exotic beasts from the Low Lands. Some are meant to be tests of courage, strength or speed, others simply as curiosity. All of the lecherous creatures bring one or several flower necklaces, nicknamed bloom favors by festival attendees. They are given to suitors as a sign of acceptance of their advances. The practice was introduced early on to accommodate the fact that most paring did not share a common language.