The Festival of Maiden and Tree

Khasrana's harvest festival celebrates the gifts given by Melusine and Irminsul.
An early folk tale recounts the period after Khasrana and Naught's children came into their own. The realm was primal and dangerous, but most of the Twelve were more than capable of fending for themselves in the wilderness. The youngest of the Twelve, Melusine, was weaker than her siblings and became paralyzed by fear. Each of her siblings tried to assuage her fears in their own ways, yet it was the quiet patience of her oldest brother Irminsul that comforted her the most.
In time her gifts manifested just as they had for her siblings, and the tranquil meadow that was her home soon began to bloom with life. Her gift quickly grew beyond her control, and wild beasts began to emerge from her garden and threaten the rest of the world. Horrified at what she had done, she again secluded herself, and for a time no new life came to the realm. But the beasts that had already been released continued their rampage, and the fiercest of them, a great dragon, blazed a trail right toward Melusine's garden. Irminsul shielded his sister from its flames, and the rest of the Twelve fended it off. Together, Melusine and Irminsul used their gifts to guide new life into the realm in a lush but ordered manner.
The story of Melusine and Irminsul has lent itself to being the basis of a harvest festival, when the people of western Khasrana celebrate the bounteous life of the region that sustains them. The festival was first observed about 900 years before the Age of the Twelve, and had almost faded into obscurity by 400 years pre-AT. The manifestation of Melusine and Irminsul in the southern Windwood, along with the associated blooms of life that followed, renewed interest in the tradition, and the Festival of Maiden and Tree has been observed annually ever since.
The festival is observed in small celebrations across the region, but the town of Broken Root is by far the largest destination for travelers interested in the festivities. Located just outside the Windwood in the southwestern plains, the farming village was almost nonexistent fifty years ago. Its proximity to the temples of Irminsul and Melusine, as well as its convenient location on the Twelvesroad, led to a boom period fifty years ago. New and old traditions are both observed during Broken Root's festival, including farmer's markets, regional food competitions, aven sky jousting, and a storytelling game that dates back to the earliest celebrations of the festival.
The storytelling game is enjoyed by all ages. Players are given three sets of three cards at random: a set of character cards, a set of event cards, and a set of location cards. They then must craft a short tale integrating as many of the elements on their cards as they can, and a judge determines the winner. Knowing the judge's taste is almost as important as using all of one's cards - some judges prefer comedic tales, while others like to see allusions to arcane folktales.
The food most emblematic of the festival is a braided pastry with a sweet filling. Both the pastry and the filling are flavored with sap from the windwood tree, but the pastry uses the aromatic and spicy sap of a mature tree where the filling uses the sweet sap from a young tree. The blending of young and old is meant to suggest the ephemeral and cyclic nature of life, while the shape of the pastry suggests the moment from the story when Irminsul shielded Melusine by summoning a great windwood tree to grow around her.