The Festival of the Crow

A local tradition and celebration with a rather somber tone, practiced in the small northern city of Mortenhold. The Festival of the Crows spans five days, and practically everyone in the city partakes. The festival is led by the students of the Necron Academy, who help tend to the expansive catacombs beneath the city. The first three days are used to clean out and care for the remains in the catacombs, while many others decorate the city with silver and white streamers and banners and sing old dirges passed down from their ancestors.


On the fourth day, everyone fasts and the students of the academy help anyone who wishes, to reach out to their ancestors to find peace or help them find peace. The evening of the fourth day everyone lights a candle on their front step, as well as burn some sage and lavender in their windows. This is said to keep the angry, evil spirits at bay, while enticing the peaceful ones to join you. At midnight, there is a giant pyre that is lit in the middle of the city, and a feast is brought out for the whole city to join in. Music can be heard from a mile away, whether it be a mournful psaltery solo, or a peppy violin jig accompanied by clapping and hollering voices.


It is said that on the dawn of the fifth day, one can see the spirits in attendance, right before they fade away to pass on to the afterlife.


This festival had begun as an offering to the Lady of Crows, Vesta, who is said to be the goddess of death. Her followers believe in the sacredness of the transition from life and death, and that it is our duty as the living, to help our ancestors pass peacefully.