The Festival of Light
The Festival of Light is a ten day long event that is honoring Quan He, Enlightened Scholar. The event takes plae in each capital city of each province and any city that has a significant followers and worshippers of Quan He. During the event there are activities going on all day long. It starts on the the 1st of Liu Yue and goes until the 10th of the same month. On the 1st the event kicks off with a opening ceremony and then continues 24 hours a day until the 10th when there is a closing ceremony that ends precisely at midnight.
Because Quan He was a bard in life not only knowledge presenations are accepted. In fact more often than not we see art of all different types presented, sold, and taught about. Along with that creativity of all levels is welcomed and encouraged. In fact on that note many bards use this event to test material, gain a following, or continue to grow in their experience and clout. It becomes a festival of creativty and a huge moment where the sharing of culture, knowledge, and experience beetween races of all shapes of sizes. In this way the people of Zhen Gho honor Quan He and what he stood for during the Age of Heroes and in his godhood as well.
History
The Festival of Light was started very soon after Quan He obtained godhood. It was at first to do in his honor and continue his practices of learning and experiencing everything you can. Originally it was open to anyone who wanted to participate. You could come in and basically teach, show, do, etc anything you wanted for the crowds. The only real prerequisite was that it was something that could help people to further their knowledge. In fact if the crowd didn't agree that it was honoring of Quan He, especially those who were his followers, they would boo them away and throw food at them.
As the festival grew so did the organization. You would have to go through a process in order to gain a spot to show what you wanted to. Then the followers of Quan He began to get overwhelmed with the amount of people who wanted to participate. They had to go even further and organize presenters into categories and time slots. It was eventually decided that they needed all the hours of each day throughout the event to get the most time possible.
Soon after that they welcomed the other large part of the festival. At each festival in each city is a portion called Knowledge Row. Here is where merchants selling all sorts of things you could possibly imagine are sold. Each merchant has to go through the organizers of the Festival for approval of their wares. Besides the Grand Market in Ryma these Knowledge Rows are the best places for magic items, potions, scrolls, artifacts of all sorts, and nearly anything you can possibly imagine. After this addition the Festival has not changed much in format for the past 600 years.
Components and tools
Participants
Nearly everyone in the nation will attend a portion of the Festival of Light somewhere in the nation. There is a select few, outside organizers, that will attend the entire event for the duration. Governors attending, nobles, high ranking individuals are highlights for those in the Festival. It is actually a huge time for people to petition to these high ranking individuals. The other major portion of people that attend that your attendees are excited about are masters of their fields known throughout the region, and even sometimes the nation.
The other side of things is those that organize and manage the festival. Most of them are members of schools both magical and mundane. These are where the most followers of Quan He reside within Zhen Gho. Along with that teachers of these schools are usually expected to do a presentation during the festival. Same of the Headmasters or leaders of the schools. Beside any large celerity these are the most attended presentations. While lesser in numbers, clerics and paladins of Quan He, are also present for the event. Some will do presentations, some will be guards and security, and others are quite happy to simply help manage the event.
I read this article as part of my summer came reading challenge! One of the best parts of summer camp reading homework is getting to read things based in cultures that I'm not familiar with. I love the look and feel of this article and it all flows really well. The progression and additions to the festival also seemed to flow organically and make a lot of sense.
Thanks so much! It was a rather fun article to write and one I had actually been waiting to do. The Summer Camp brought it to the forefront and I was able to outline exactly what happened in the festival. I appreciate the feedback quite a bit!