Feast of Withering

The Feast of Withering is one of the most solemn and revered traditions in the Thornshroud Dominion, a ritualized celebration held annually deep within the Withered Wilds, where the boundary between life and death is not feared, but celebrated as a sacred metamorphosis. This event marks the voluntary offering of the weak, the old, and the infirm—those no longer strong enough to serve in life—so they may find purpose in death and continue to serve the Dominion in new, necrotic forms.

It is not considered a funeral. It is a rebirth, a gift, and a moment of collective transcendence.

History

Purpose:

• To honor the cycle of decay and reinforce the cultural tenet that life is temporary, but service is eternal.
• To allow those near the end of their mortal lives to choose transformation, becoming part of the land, its armies, or its sacred constructs.
• To feed the land, both physically and spiritually, renewing its vitality through sacrifice and binding.

Execution

1. The Procession of Ashen Garlands – The chosen participants, known as the Withering Ones, don shrouds of bone-threaded vines and ashen flower crowns. They walk through the streets or forest paths accompanied by family, kin, or cults, as the people sing low dirges and offer fungal incense.
2. The Banquet of Returning – A ceremonial meal where the Withering Ones dine with their loved ones. The food consists of necrotic harvests—rot-grains, marrowfruit, corpse blossoms—and fungal wines believed to thin the veil between worlds.
3. The Binding and Blooming – At the ritual site, often a bone-covered altar in a hollowed-out tree or flesh-carved stone, each participant is given a choice:
4. Be planted in the Bonebloom Fields, where they nourish corpse-fed flora.
5. Be bound into necrotic servitude, reanimated as tireless laborers, soldiers, or spiritual guardians.
6. Merge with the living thorns of the forest and become sentient parts of the land, their minds echoing through bark and vine.
7. The Singing of Thorns – As each sacrifice is made, those present chant an ancient hymn known as the "Bloom of Dusk", a song said to guide the soul into its next form of service.

Participants

To be chosen—or to volunteer—for the Feast is considered a great honor, not a tragedy. Families speak of their ancestors' post-life service with pride, and the names of notable Withering Ones are etched into Hollow Elder bark and thornbone memorials throughout the Dominion.

Children are taught that to live without serving is a worse fate than death, and many aspire to one day offer themselves at the Feast when their usefulness wanes.

Observance

• Some who partake in the Feast return as mournwood revenants, beings of death and forest who serve as guardians of the Thornveil.
• In rare cases, the souls of the Withering Ones are said to merge with the Hollow Council, whispering eternal counsel to the Dominion’s leaders.
• During particularly bountiful years, a "Withered Crown" may be chosen—a soul deemed so potent in death that it is woven into the root-spine of the Thornshroud itself.

Primary Related Location

Withered Wilds

Related Organizations

• Thornshroud Dominion