The Initiate Feast is the last and final segment of the Dwarven Coming of Age Ceremony. Initiates are welcomed into the clan as full-fledged adults, having demonstrated personal and communical strength through the previous two segments. Initiates complete the tracing, are presented before the clan, and declare their apprenticeship. The event is celebrated with food and mead.
Decorations and Layout
The Initiate Feast is one of the largest communal gatherings in Dwarven culture. Every clan member is expected to join in the celebrations and contribute to the preparations. Large tables are set up around the community bonfire, with a special area designated for successful initiates on one side of the stage and another set of tables for the clan elders. Tables and carts filled with food line the area. Common dishes include; hungi casseroles filled with fish and chicken, and root vegetables, marbled fudge delights, hot rock candies, and sea moss drinks.
Family Member Responsibilities
In the days before the Initiate Feast, initiates hunt wild boar, deer, and other common wildlife from the area. While initiates are responsible for roughly skinning their kills, family members work together to do a more detailed preparation. This process of butchering and smoking takes several hours and is usually done in shifts. At the end of the night, family members present a keg of mead bottled the same year their initiate was born. A family is seen as particularly prosperous if they have enough mead stored to share with the entire clan.
Side Events
Aspiring initiates spend their day testing each other and their forged weapons in sparring battles. They test out the weapons they are forging for the their own initiate rituals and working out strategies. The youth of the community participate in mock-tracking hunts. The adults in the community not working on the food preparations commonly complete in a Kafa Sacar match.
In most Dwarven communities, the night concludes with a mead competition. A judging panel always selected, but more often than not is too drunk to do anything official or impartial. Beer and meed bottled during the initiates birth years are common contenders.
The Tracing
Around noon the initiates and their parents go to the temple and have their family crest etched into their left forearm. The blood released during this etching is smeared onto the end of the initiate's melee weapon of choice. Each initiate then trace the sacred etchings along the awning with the edge of their weapon while their sponsors, usually parents, placed their hands on the initiate's back.
The etching serves as a reminder to fight with courage and work with honor. The chain between initiate and sponsors symbolizes the strength the warrior can draw upon from their ancestors.
Presentation of the Initiates
At sunset, the parade to the God of the War and Hunt begins. Floats and streamers celebrating the God of the War and Hunt announce the arrival of the returning initiates throughout the town. Initiates are dressed in traditional outfits and are accompanied by town priests. The parade ends at the feasting area. The high priest gives a speech commemorating the initiates and their individual strength and cooperation. Each initiate is accompanied by their parents as their Pedigree of Honor is read to the town. The initiate announces their intended apprenticeship and walks from their parents side to their waiting guild master on the other end of the stage.
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