Festival Edicts

Back to Issue Edicts

Festival Edicts

A Festival Edict is a special edict distinct from the broader Holiday Edict. Whereas a Holiday Edict declares days to celebrate on the calendar across the length and breadth of your kingdom, a Festival Edict is a specific, one-time event (though it could be repeated later) focused in a particular place at a particular time for a particular purpose. A Festival may be called for any reason or for no reason at all and include tournaments, games, music, dancing, feasting, drinking, parades, fireworks or magical displays, and similar entertainments of all kinds, but every one undertaken with special magnificence.

Festival Edicts bring great crowds of people together to celebrate and are normally held in the same hex as a settlement, to facilitate easy access for crowds to reach the festival grounds. Festivals can, however, be hosted at any Landmark special terrain. Festivals may be either civic or religious in nature.

Cost

Festivals require a great deal of resources to pull off. A festival costs 1d2 BP if held at a Landmark in the countryside, 1d4 BP if held in a village, 1d8 BP if held in a town, and 2d6 BP per city district if held in a city.

Landmark Benefit

A festival celebrated at a Landmark in the countryside increases the Landmark’s bonus to Loyalty by +1 for 1 year.

Festivals celebrated in cities, towns, and villages have the following effects.

Civic Festival

A civic festival celebrates local traditions, events, heroes, or culture, including athletic and artistic competitions.

Requires Tavern (village), Theater (town), Arena (city), or Landmark (located in the same hex as the settlement).
Effect For one month, your kingdom gains a +2 bonus to Crime and Society, and the civic festival increases the effects (see below) of Arenas, Black Markets, Bordellos, Dance Halls, Gambling Dens, Inns, Luxury Shops, Markets, Monuments, Palaces, Parks, Shops, and Taverns in that settlement.

Religious Festival

A religious festival produces an outpouring of piety and pilgrimage, sometimes marked with great solemnity and other times with great rejoicing.

Requires Shrine (village), Temple (town), Cathedral (city), or Landmark (located in the same hex as the settlement).
Effect For one month, your kingdom gains a +2 bonus to Law and Society, and the religious festival increases the effects of Cathedrals, Graveyards, Inns, Luxury Shops, Markets, Monuments, Parks, Shops, Shrines, and Temples in that settlement (see Risks).

Determining Success

When you issue a Festival Edict, make Economy, Loyalty, and Stability checks.

If all three succeed, the Festival is a resounding success, doubling the effects of the buildings listed above.
If two checks succeed, the Festival is a modest success, increasing the effects of the listed buildings by 50% for one month. Total the bonuses for all listed buildings in the settlement together before applying the 50% increase, rounding down; do not apply the 50% increase separately to each building.
When buildings effects are increased (whether doubled or by 50%), this increase includes not only kingdom and settlement attribute modifiers like Economy and Lore; it also includes a doubling of Settlement Base Value during that month. This increase allows a settlement to exceed the normal maximum Base Value for a settlement of its size (either doubling or increasing it by 50%, as appropriate) for that month.
If only one check or no checks succeed, see Risks below.

Risks

Regardless of the overall success of the festival, the great influx of human(oid) and mercantile traffic involved creates the potential for enemy infiltration in the guise of pilgrims and festival-goers, or discord and strife between foreigners and locals or different groups coming together in one place, or just general drunkenness and mayhem should celebrants get out of control and overwhelm the ability of the settlement or the kingdom’s ability to handle so many people in such a small space.

During any month when a Festival Edict is issued, the entire kingdom takes a -2 Stability penalty, and any Stability checks required for the settlement or hex where the Festival is held take a -4 penalty (this does not apply to the Stability check to determine the success of the festival, but it does apply to any kingdom events triggered by the festival).

Unsuccessful Festivals

If only one check succeeds, the Festival is unsuccessful and grants no benefits; in addition, there is a chance that disgruntled citizens issue a Building Demand blaming the lack of success on the absence (or presence, if they demand demolition) of that building.

If all three checks fail, the Festival is a disaster, providing no benefits. The kingdom loses 1 point of Fame and gains 1d4-1 points of Unrest, and disaffected locals bankrupted by the festival and lingering troublemakers in the wake of the festival can become Squatters and/or Vandals, triggering kingdom events of the appropriate type.

Natural 1

A natural 1 is always a failure on any kingdom roll, and each time you roll a natural 1 on any of the three kingdom checks to determine the success of the Festival Edict there is a 25% non-cumulative chance of triggering a dangerous settlement event. This event may be of any type, but only one such event can be triggered, even if you roll more than one natural 1.