Rot Festival

The Rot Festivals are ancient, sacred rites observed across parts of the Wildlands, particularly within the Withered Wilds and by the Withered Elves, decay druids, and other rot-reverent cultures. These festivals honor the eternal truth of the Cycle of Decay and Rebirth, where all things must wither to nourish what comes next.

Though unsettling to outsiders, the Rot Festivals are vibrant, transformative, and deeply spiritual, marked by wild beauty, solemn rites, and communal offerings to the land.

Execution

1. The Offering of Flesh
   Sacrifices of organic matter—fallen animals, harvested corpses, food past its prime, bones, and bark—are placed in communal Rot Altars or Fungal Mounds. These offerings are seen as gifts to the land, to feed the Rot Spirits and fungal deities.
2. The Dance of Spores
   Dancers garbed in fungus-dyed veils, bone charms, and lichen-woven cloaks perform in spirals around rotting effigies. Spores are scattered into the wind during these dances, a symbolic seeding of rebirth.
3. The Bonefire
   At dusk, large bone-laced bonfires are lit—not to burn away rot, but to celebrate it. These fires are often kindled with oils drawn from corpse-flowers or resin from the Mawroot Vine, and they release thick, aromatic smoke that drifts across the land like a blessing.
4. Whispering of the Ancestors
   Participants wear hollowed bark masks or fungal helms, symbolizing their openness to ancestral voices. Mycelial priests lead guided trances, where attendees seek visions or whispers from the dead.

Participants

Regional Variants

• Withered Elves create living, glowing mycelial effigies that bloom with bioluminescence as the offerings decay.
• Swamp Dwellers of the Western Wetlands float their offerings into fetid waters, believing the Rot Spirits dwell below.
• Decaybinders and Spore Druids view the festival as a sacred convergence, often trading secrets, spores, and lore during these gatherings.

Observance

The Rot Festivals occur during transitional seasons:

• The Great Fall – Held during autumn’s peak, when leaves are most brilliant and decay begins in earnest.
• The Dampwake – Celebrated in early spring, just as rot-thawed soil begins to feed new growth.

Each festival marks a passage between death and life, where decay is not feared but revered.

Symbols and Decorations

• Fungal Totems: Grown or crafted in the weeks leading up to the festival, these are often carved from Hollow Elder wood or cultivated from Lichbloom clusters.
• Corpse Garlands: Wreaths of decayed vines, dried flowers, bone fragments, and mosses, worn around the neck to signify surrender to the Cycle.
• Mud and Ash Paint: Participants paint spirals or skeletal motifs on their skin using Ashwood Ash and fermented swamp clay.

Communal and Cultural Importance

• Blessings for Crops and Hunting: The more generous the offerings, the more bountiful the coming year is believed to be. Many plant rare herbs like Stormvine or Corpse Blossoms during the festivals.
• Courtship and Binding Rites: It is traditional for couples to exchange fungal charms or bone rings during the Rot Festivals, pledging to decay together and be reborn in future lives.
• Cleansing through Decay: Outcasts, oathbreakers, or mourners may undergo symbolic rot—being covered in moss, buried in leaves, or left in silence for hours—as penance or purification.

Primary Related Location

Withered Wilds

Important Locations

• Withered Wilds

Related Organizations

• Hollow Choir
• Rot-Speakers
• Sporebound Sentinels