History & Lore
The Vice Music Festival is a three-day festival that takes place either at an undisclosed location on the edge of Drow Elf territory or on one of the many Drowned Isles in Sea Elf territory. The tradition has widely remained uncodified and there is still a great deal of discussion surrounding who organizes, pays for, and decides the host location for the event. While the Drow and Sea Elves consider it an Elvish holiday, the Wood Elves and High Elves of the Elven Union consider the entire festival to be a blight on the culture.
Believed to be a creation of the Viceroy family, a family with deep ties in both the Drow and High Elf societies making them effectively outcasts in both. The three remaining members of the Viceroy family have gone on record as having nothing to do with the festival. The Viceroy's, a family of bards, poets, and archivists have written a number of plays and songs that canonized a number of battles, treaties, and historical instances in Elven Culture. Their most lauded work is "Requiem of a Drow", which details the days of turmoil prior to
the signing of the Drow Elf Compact.
The festival features a number of live performances from elven bards and musicians, renditions of famous works, reenactments of historical battles, and a variety of other performances. Performer skill ranges from amateur to professional, and despite the performances being volunteer-only, the attraction draws a number of highly skilled and well-recognized instrumentalists.
Cultural Relevance
The Elvish Union has issued a number of warnings to "decent and upstanding" members of elvish society that the Vice Music Festival was considered to be a widely controversial event that rises just short of all-out condemnation. When interviewed by the Kobold Dispatch, a member of the Ashen Elders referred to the festival as "a hedonistic and disgraceful showing of secular music and hyper intimacy that itself is an affront to the Elvish form." Despite this description, Elves from across Espen flock to the festival each year, many doing so in secret. The festival has also drawn a large number of humans with a specific penchant for the Elvish form.
Observances
Held on the first Asheday of Shenzen the celebration is regularly built up to be the event of the summer.
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