Masks and Night Terror Festivals

The Festival of Masks is the daytime counterpart to the Night Terror Festival. These are a pair of festivals dedicated to Farobia, the Green Goddess as she is the deity of both fear and courage.

Origin

The twin festivals were originally a Forest Elven tradition with ties to the Faceless Fae as the main protection from a Faceless' wrath is to wear a mask. This eventually spread to other Faerie of the forests who enjoy playing games or causing changes, such as the Bone Fae or the Breath Fae.

Primary Related Location

Tormyra

Related Ethnicities

• Forest Elves
• Tormians
• Unmasked Forest Elves

Festival of Masks

Most Tormians wear masks in the Festival of Masks. As with the Night Terror, the wearing of masks is to trick or fool ill fortune or monsters to look elsewhere for the regular target. Unlike the Night Terror, this is more for fun and is often a time to address one's fears in the daylight.

Costumes

Most masks and costumes are based on what gives the wearer courage to face their fears in preparation for the night, where they are dressed as that which others may fear. Several youths dress up as heroic figures or in outfits that spark confidence.

Very few are bold enough to dress as a Goddess Champion out of respect for Champions in the past, and due to ill fortune hitting someone who the Goddesses may perceive as disrespecting their Champions, past or present.

"Did you hear? Poor Alfine was struck down with waking nightmares."
"Well what was he expecting, dressing up as a Champion of Farobia and then insulting the very ones he was dressed as?"

Forest Elves

Forest Elves, who traditionally are always wearing a mask, celebrate the Festival by wearing more ornate masks than their everyday ones. Individuals who are close to each other may trade masks for the day.

Unmasked Forest Elves

Forest Elves who have chosen to not wear their masks sometimes still wear masks for the Festival, though this is more common among the older Unmasked and the young children.

Who am I?

A popular game among individuals is guessing who is behind the mask without naming the wearer, as revealing who is behind the mask would, according to folklore, allow any beings hoping to cause a specific individual hardships to find that individual again.

Players would take turns asking each other question, narrowing down the pool of individuals the answerer could be until one player is certain enough to guess the first letter in the answerer's name. If the letter is correct, the answerer indicates so, and the guesser who was correct becomes the new answerer.

Some local variations include a limit of questions, where if no one guesses the letter correctly within twenty questions, the answerer "won" and changes with another player.

I Fear No

Another popular game is to declare that the individual has no fear of something that may scare others. They are then challenged to face their declared not-fear as a test of courage.

"I fear no ... spiders!"
"Oh yeah, boo!"

Night Terror

A night where the people of Tormyra and the Tormian faiths dress up in costume to confuse the entities they fear, there are great festival events about facing one's fears and overcoming them, as well as a tradition of planning on facing another fear in the next year.

Bone Fae Songs

A common activity for the Night Terror Festival is for children to sing songs that had, according to legend, been taught initially by Bone Fae to the children. As Bone Fae are fond of pranks and jokes, they're most fond of children than of adults because adults generally have lost their childlike innocence.

Many of the songs sung are used to "lure" mischief to target a group or area for a prank, while the targetted group in turn sings to convince mischief to look elsewhere.

Over the years, verses have been added and lost as children create or forget verses for the year.

Song lyrics here

Street Haunting

Groups individuals gather together to walk the streets, accepting any who may not have originally started with them, and will stop at houses to challenge the bravest inhabitant to face their scariest group member. These are usually "duels" of riddle games where if the house champion wins, they may stay at home, but if they lost, the house must pay the winner and the champion travels with the group.

Current traditional payment to the victor is some kind of sweet or baked good.

Accepting any wandering person into the group is usually a way to be polite in case the newcomer is one of the Fae or a being who would otherwise intend some other form of mischief. Sometimes the newcomer is the best "scariest" challenger.