Yearsend Wreath

For old times past...

The Yearsend wreath is a hand-wrought wreath of branches, leaves, and dried flowers worn on the head as a crown-like adornment. It is an ephemeral thing in tradition, crafted in the last days of the current year and ceremonially cast into a bonfire to celebrate the dawn of the new year.

Wreath, Awaiting by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

Though today many cultures have adopted Yearsend wreathes into their annual tradition in many different forms, the original wreathes were born in central Valathe in antiquity, and are generally attributed to the region that is now the Vostene Republic and its surrounds.
Magical variants of yearsend wreaths, including some that renew themselves each year akin to a phoenix reborn in fire, are available as rare and incredibly precious magical items. The most famous of these are the four seasonal crowns: Spring's Bloom, Summer's Light, Autumn's Bounty, and Winter's Kiss.
These wreaths appear semi-randomly across Valathe in each of their titular seasons, always in the hands of someone who has participated in a previous Yearsend celebration.
It is said that these four wreaths belong to four fey lords or ladies, and are given out to mortals that attract their favour over the year as the seasons pass.

Each one of these magical wreaths is elaborately created from plants utterly foreign to the Material Plane, and decorated in magical representations of the season - such as ice for winter, moving petals for spring, flame for summer, and falling leaves for autumn.

Weaving a Yearsend Wreath

I heard Innesfen considers rowan unlucky if you use it in a yearsend wreath. Weird! Our way is better: rowan means you're going to have a blessed year.

— townswoman in the Republic

Constructing the wreath itself is a relatively simple task, at base. The celebrants must venture into the forests nearby and find branches with some flexibility to them, which can sometimes be challenging in the depths of winter when all is frozen. If nothing with enough flexibility is available, then there are a number of techniques to bend wood - steaming it or soaking it are the two most common. When enough of these have been gathered, the weaving can begin.

It always begins by creating a circle, usually by wrapping a gathered branch or vine around the celebrant's head and making a knot at its ends by weaving it through itself. From that circle, more branches can be woven in, always entwined around the existing loop to ensure it remains one singular wreath. When a solid base wreath has been formed, the celebrant can begin adding leaves, flowers, and other gathered goods into the wreath.
Berries are a frequent addition as well, serving as a nice pop of colour, but only those that bloom in winter. Flowers are often dried earlier in the year specifically to be saved for yearsend wreaths, and families often keep entire books of dried flowers to select the ones they would like to add in.
The actual flowers, berries, grasses, branches, and the like used differ greatly depending on what area of the continent the tradition is being undertaken in, as it heavily relies on local flora, but some things are universal - like snowdrops, violets, hellebore, and ever-lucky heathers.

Family Bonding by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

These are all particularly common winter flowers, and thus are dominant in the imagery of the celebration. Holly, as a very attractive plant with beautiful berries, is also often used, but must be used with care due to the prickly nature of its leaves.
It is considered bad luck to add manufactured items into a yearsend wreath, especially as it will be burned. The only exception is for paper or parchment, which should have been produced locally if possible. Starting in the mid-5400s because of a particularly romantic couple, some towns began to write messages to be tucked into the wreaths as secret well-wishes (or curses) that only the gods would ever know. This isn't the most common tradition, but has been gradually catching on in more areas of the continent as the tradition travels and evolves.

Welcoming the Year

Let flame take the old, and bring ash anew!

— reveller

Dawnfire! by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

The pyres that the wreaths burn on are known as the dawnfires in Yearsend tradition, and are constructed from loose wood fallen through winter or leftover firewood in each town. Wood that has been carved or shaped by mortal hands is deliberately excluded from these pyres - they must be created by nature's gifts alone. They are lit, too, without magic.
There are a number of techniques and traditions around lighting the fire, such as one town's intriguing tradition of using shaped glasses to light the fire with sunlight alone, but the most common method is to throw a lit torch into the bonfire while singing songs of celebration and welcome.
The wreaths are usually cast into flame as part of a procession, with each celebrant cheering joyfully as they bid farewell to their craft and greet the new year as it arrives. Some traditions involve specific songs or chants, and some communities add religious aspects into the ceremony by invoking prayers as the wreaths burn. This is, naturally, controversial.

The majority of towns celebrating with yearsend wreaths consider religious involvement to be bad luck: it's an agnostic ceremony, and should remain that way. Involving the gods is seen as risking any unincluded god's jealous ire.

History

And they'll take advantage of your kindness yet...

— warning to children

When they first appear in historybooks, yearsend wreaths seem to dawn in multiple cultures across Valathe at the same time, with the Vostene Republic claiming its dubious title as the original location for their rise only because historical record there is dated earlier. This would usually denote that the wreaths were popularised by a leader in those times by intent, or that there was some other concerted effort resulting in their sudden prominence in Valathean culture.

The actual cause of their mass appearance, as determined by scholars over the past century, was another aspect of the wreaths. Long-forgotten by mortals, yearsend wreaths have always held another meaning to the fey. As fey are creatures of the woods and often feared by mortals, the donning of a yearsend wreath was once considered somewhat of an olive branch from mortals to fey.
Anyone crafting one would meet no harm when finding branches and leaves for their wreaths, so long as they did not seek to seriously damage the forests. Anyone wearing one would meet no harm from the fey, so long as it was not worn for too long, as to don it for overly long would be considered taking advantage of fey hospitality.
In turn for the fey's hospitality, mortals turned a blind eye to fey taking part in their celebrations, or actively welcomed them in. They would leave food and treats in obscure places for the fey to dine on, and lay out decorations for them to wear.

Fey Visitors by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

Though it isn't certain who or how this state of affairs begun, it does directly precede a period of time in Valathean history known as the Feyblank, which seems to have caused an extreme lack of documentation on any events across a century in the mid-2000s.
Given the power of some feyfolk and the propensity of fey to interfere with mortals, it is highly likely that the century was lost to an extreme fey invasion of some sort, and the wreaths came about as a measure of peace.

Lingering Impact

History fades, but its stain remains with us... hidden in the ashes, year after year.

— historian

While the faerie history of the wreaths has been unfortunately lost, the traditions have remained. Yearsend celebrations are known to be accepting of any and all, no matter their face or manner, and it is quite common for Yearsend tradition to include masks or other mysterious guises for celebrants.

Dawn of the New Year by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

This way, the fey are still welcomed in - and doubtless they laugh at the mortals not realising what pact they have become part of!
Though treats are not deliberately left out these days, they have instead become part of the celebration's decorations, and the fey must thusly consider the offer extended. If you have ever had your Yearsend treats vanish - you can now assume who was behind it!
Yearsend wreaths have only become more important since their initial creation. The bonfires have gotten larger, the celebrations more ostentatious, and the wreaths themselves have gone through many a change. Yet the bones of the tradition remain the same, no matter what: at the end of the year, townsfolk craft wreaths from what they can and celebrate the new year's arrival. And that is what is most important, is it not?
Year after year, winter after winter, people of all kinds gather and spend time with one another.

They make wreaths together regardless of social status, they share drinks, and they watch the flames. Even as war erupts across the continent, there is always peace enough for a yearsend wreath. Time marches on, but people, at their hearts, remain people - as wonderfully flawed as ever, all gathered around the flames. It is a comforting thought, though they rarely think it: they share this moment with countless from the past.

Yearsend Wreath by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

Item type

Clothing / Accessory

Creation Date

The final week of the current year

Destruction Date

The first dawn of the new year

Gathering for the Wreaths by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

I wrote a wish in my wreath once. My wife, she'd been struggling... we wanted a child, but never were are attempts successful. The weight of it was far heavier on her...
I do not know who granted our wish, but she fell pregnant two weeks later. My son greets the new year with us, this time.

— celebrant

Alternative Wreaths

As the tradition of yearsend wreaths spreads, it has reached areas that find its requirements of vegetation and flame to be challenging.
Communities that live in the depths of the Underdark have little vegetation available to burn aside from that which is deliberately cultivated, and flame may be challenging to ventilate.
Likewise, high-altitude communities exist largely above the tree line and contend with large amounts of snow and ice that can make fetching plantlife a serious challenge. Fire is easier, as they typically have solutions for cooking fires, at least.
Underwater communities find it easy to gather items for the wreath, with seaweed being plentiful, but naturally run into issues with burning the wreath once the new year arrives.
In place of the ability to follow the basic steps, celebrants in plantless areas craft wreaths from whatever they know they may be able to destroy.
Underdark celebrants thread fungi and cave mosses onto thin rings of glass, and shatter them into pits of acid when the year arrives. High-altitude celebrants adopt wreaths of snow and ice, and watch them melt in the new year's sun.
Underwater communities release their wreaths into rip tides and areas of high currents so that the wreaths will be shredded by the water and taken far away.
The tradition ever lives on.

Snowdrop Wreath by Hanhula (via Midjourney)

Even at war, we honour the tradition. There's always a ceasefire sometime in those days. Time enough to make them, and then as the new year starts, time enough to set a fire.
It's harder on the battlefield. Can't let the enemy see your fire unless it's on the front lines, and that's risky. But we manage, every year. And we'll keep managing. We're not fighting demons.

— Aletheian soldier prior to the start of the War of Empires

Happy new year!

— the author