The Oan Calendar and Holidays

Most of the sentient surface races on Oa inherited the High Elven lunar calendar, thought to date back to the Spring Age. It is divided into eight months of 28 days each, and in the Elven tradition respects natural cycles and transitions. The months reflect the four seasons as well as the stages of transition between them. For example, Springfall denotes the changing period from the first melts to the first green shoots – the transition from Winter to Spring – whereas Spring denotes the period of new growth, budding and the awakening of hibernating animals. Spring is followed by Summerfall, Summer, Autumnfall (yes, “Autumnfall”), Autumn, Winterfall and Winter.
While there are numerous culturally specific holidays and observances throughout each year, the inherited calendar, shared proto-culture and the evocative nature of the lunar cycles tend to promote convergances. The days when the volcanically unstable Furiam is burning violently alone in the night sky tends unsurprisingly to have negative superstitious connotations; the days when all three of it, Regni and Oko are crowding the sky and maintaining daylike levels of ambient light tend to encourage nocturnal celebrations, lengthy feasting and the subversion of social structures. The Orcs are, of course, the famous exception to these general principles as they find both major moons to be bad omens, and (the gnomes would argue, quite properly) dismiss Oko as a moon entirely, dismissing it in their language as the "sky rock" and making no room for it in their mythology. What few legends they have on the subject merely suggest that a mortal proven worthy of demigodhood could probably become strong enough to hurl another one up there if he were so inclined!
Some celebrations are universal. Others have gradually grown into culturally specific observances on the same date or have been co-opted by local religion, and others have been more recently invented or have only been preserved by civilizations with vast cultural memory.
The solar and lunar calendars on Oa are in close synchronicity. The lunar period occurs almost identically twice in the course of an orbit around the sun, complicated only by Oko’s appearance on the summer solstice (whereas it is absent along with the other two moons on the winter solstice, or New Year’s Eve and Furiam’s own rotation and tectonics revealing its more volcanically active side in the winter compared to its more steady summer glow.
In addition to those two complications, there is also a very slight solar orbital shortfall compared to the lunar cycles. As a result, two leap days were observed by the Yishanim over the course of the Autumn Age to correct for the acceleration that threatened to delay the dawn of the new year until the second day of Springfall. The gnomes would have it that we are about 50 years overdue for another such correction, as the “first light” of the New Year is getting pretttttty faint.
The most universal celebrations, and the ones most culturally relevant to The Ladies' Hiking Club are collected below:
New Year’s Day: 1st Springfall • Cultures across Oa mark the dawning of the new year with celebrations, though the nature of those celebrations vary. In most cultures, however, the date is marked with a festival of light since New Year's Eve is the darkest evening of the year, with all three moons eclipsed in shadow.

Homecoming (Shorefolk): ~26th Springfall • Typically around this date every year the silver cod school back to the shores of the Shorefolk, ending the hungry season and returning the seasons of plenty as their predators also awaken from hibernation and return to the rocks. The child who first spots the silver-crested wave is crowned Queen or King of the Rock for the next three days of festivities, marked by the sharing of new stories and the using-up of the remaining preserved goods and alcohol from the hard winter.
Tiger Moon: 29th Spring – 2nd Summerfall • Once a year at the earliest twist of summer, both Furiam and Regni are in full light and for a span of a few days the evening is as bright as day. Cultures vary greatly in how this occasion is marked, with several Portavian clans simply declaring it a nuisance whereas the Aildean State considers it an uncharacteristic period of merriment and the celebration of fertility through the flouting of sexual norms.
Exodus: 18th Summerfall • An annual holiday marking Sylvanas' cleansing of the world of war and the sinful Elves, and freeing the subraces from their bondage. Most cultures, and particularly Dwarves, celebrate this as a holy day of emancipation; whereas for Wood Elves and Half-Elves the open xenophobia of the occasion can be alarming.
Day of the Dead (Kindly Ones): 1st Autumnfall • On this day, in celebration of Kelemvor ascension to godhood and his inheritance of the Black Throne, the Gates of Hell are thrown open to the priestly caste of the Ladies and the Gentlemen and they are welcomed past the Incunabulum to the Atrium of the Potentates of Hell. The Potentates themselves do not attend.
This is not a celebration for the Kindly Ones, however. The Clerks of the Incunabulum are given this night to enjoy themselves and feast upon the plenty of the Potentates, and to ask any questions of the living that they wish. Every few years, one may even ask a favour.
Thanksgiving (Tenthun): 1st Autumn • A Tenth day of feasting and giving thanks to Lathander for all good and beautiful things.
Feast of Yondalla (Halfling) / The Harvest (Corran Empire): 11th Autumn • Festival of the Harvest. The holiest day of the Halfling year, most notable for being the primary excuse for breaking out "the good bottle", and an excuse for gluttony in the Corran calendar.
Salvation Day: 13th Autumn • A day commemorating the defeat of the Tarrasque, the victory over Naraoch and the ascension of Eldath. Universally a solemn and holy occasion, in many cultures associated with memorials to the fallen, guided self-reflection, gratitude for blessings bestowed, and themes of anti-industrialism and pacifism. Salvation Day is the only known holiday celebrated annually across all sentient cultures.
Crane Moon: 28th Autumn – 1st Winterfall • Once a year, at the twist of winter, for a few days Regni and Furiam are in full light and the nights are as bright as day. Some cultures celebrate both evening light festivals equally, such as the Corrans (with 24/7 games and street food courtesy of the Emperor) and the Nordic Portavian Millimen (who black out their windows and curse both horrible moons equally for disrupting their sleep). The Tenths consider the Crane Moon an occasion for repentance and introspection as opposed to the excess and flaunting of norms in the Tiger Moon; whereas Gwynabian Halflings actually consider the Crane Moon, rather than the Tiger Moon, the debauched pub-crawling blowout of the year.
Stille'en: 25th Winterfall • The Festival of the Hearth. Set in a long, long pitch-dark night in a pitch-dark month in the chill of coldest winter, non-equatorial cultures across Oa seem to celebrate this occasion in the same way, donning warm clothes and gathering with family and friends to celebrate togetherness around a warm fire: an ember in the dark.

Devil Moon: 11th Winter • Old superstition holds that when Furiam is in full volcanic light and Regni is washed in shadow, the evil things of the world take license over the lands of Oa. It only occurs once a year, in the dead of winter. In Halfling culture, this is an occasion for terrifying costumes, creepy songs and cleansing smoke rituals. In Tenthun, residents stay up all night in collective prayer. Every culture seems to have a different coping mechanism for the instinctive fear of the burning sky.
New Year’s Eve: 28th Winter • Almost universally a day off (though expectations for the use of that time vary drastically) New Year’s Eve is the day the lights go out. Without a moon in the sky – even without Oko, which tends to tumble through with some irregular flashes of illumination when the other two moons are eclipsed elsewhere in the lunar year – and without any stars to provide even the faintest point of reference, New Year’s Eve is absolutely, positively black. The rising of the sun the following day and the sliver of Furiam visible the following evening are welcomed in the spirit of renewal and rebirth after a time of uncertainty and hardship.