Tales of the Table: Madness in Mire-March

Greetings, travellers.  Welcome to yet another Tales of the Table. These past few days have been good on the old idea-machine thanks to the creative stimulation powers of absorbing content from contest entries, YouTubers, and blogs which are much better designed than my own.  In particular, I've been itching to bust out a one-page dungeon, with the added challenge of seeing how little time it would take me from start to finish.  This is no new challenge, as it's something that I periodically saddle myself with just for fun.  The dungeon from my first Tales of the Table, Palace of the Pincered Prince, actually started out as one such endeavor to fit an entire dungeon on a 3x5 index card.

Of course, today's dungeon started out as a one-page dungeon, but I wasn't exactly successful.  While it only took me about an hour of work to come up with the core concepts and map it out (on one small notebook page), I did end up going off of just that page with the room descriptions, mostly just so as not to subject you to more of my awful handwriting than absolutely necessary.  This dungeon also, as the bulk of the inspiration came straight out of Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes (what a wonderful fantasy name, Mordenkainen), will be the first of mine to be designed specifically with 5th edition D&D in mind.  For you GMs out there it shouldn't be too hard to make work in whatever system you so choose, but the (somewhat limited) stats provided are based in 5e.

So, with all that talking out of the way, here we go with the adventure, a tale of classic-styled D&D adventuring, ideal for a party of 3-5 characters of 3rd to 5th level, with a bit of a Lovecraftian twist.  It is a tale known as...

Madness in Mire-March

Background: South of Hollow-vale, North of the Murky Rills, there lies the tiny border region of Miremarch.  Barely a barony, one can ride its entire breadth in about half a day, yet for some reason or another, most caravans tend to languish among its misty moors, fog-cloaked hummocks, and stinking bogs for weeks or more.  Most locals who choose to remain in Miremarch's small handful of villages, whether through loyalty to their homeland or merely being too poor to leave, claim that visitors are often beset with what they call the "marsh madness."  It all started, they say, when the Marchioness went mad...

Marchioness Myrsenna "Marnie" Tervie used to be the very image of loveliness.  Though always slightly reclusive, she was a generous ruler, opening her own granaries to the public in times of need, and distilling a special variety of schnapps on her castle's grounds which were beloved by all.  She was the last to bear the name of her branch of House Tervie, the descendants of Dunstan, who slew the Dragon known as Aldenric's Bane back in the days of the Second Kingdom.  It was Marchioness Marnie's charge to keep the Wolfstone Sword, with which that noble deed was done.

The change that came over her was slow, at first barely noticeable as she spent most of her time in her tower room anyway.  As the months went by though, her transformation became more and more apparent.  The locals all said she was cursed, her hair had gone white and was falling out in clumps, her smile, once radiant, was now toothless and crooked, almost pained, as if she knew some horrible truth.  She grew bitter and spiteful, often banishing entire families of those farmers who came to her for alms when crop yields were low.  The last straw came when children started disappearing from the villages.  It didn't take long for her own footmen to leak the information to the masses.  She had been kidnapping children, murdering them, and bathing in their blood.  "It was the only way to stave off the curse," she said, "and now shall you all be damned to the deepest pits of Drondh..."

In her ravings, the townsfolk couldn't help but hear a faint glimmer of what she had been, now trapped within a shell of still-worsening madness.  After much careful deliberation, it was decided that they still loved their once-noble lady, and that she should not be executed, but rather imprisoned so that she could never again bring them or their children harm.

So it was that she came to be immured in her tower, a tiny hole in the brick-work barring her door the only link between her and the outside world.  What became of her after that few know for sure.  Most agree that her madness drove her to suicide, and that she suffered to the end.  Some, however, say that instead she conquered the curse, refusing food until she starved and allowing what possessed her to perish with her.  Still others claim that she is somehow still alive and still up there, though it has been nearly eighty years since any have set foot in that old castle.  Whatever the truth of the matter, you have been contracted by the local constabulary to go up there and search the place.  The Wolfstone Sword has been called for by the King himself, and it is up to you to find it if indeed it can still be found...

The Whole Truth:  Marchioness Marnie Tervie was tormented for years by a strange humming sound that only she could hear.  Eventually, it possessed her to begin excavating beneath the castle.  What she found was something she never expected.  A fragment of "The Spark" that created all magic in the world, was lying in a pit beneath her estate.  Merely viewing the object was enough to drive her temporarily insane and render her blind and paralyzed for several days.  Despite this, an overwhelming sense of curiosity came over her, causing her to visit it again and again, until eventually the maddening effects of communing with a field of energy beyond the scope of Human understanding proved too much for her, and the madness became permanent.  After she was immured, her madness did indeed drive her to suicide, but even as she rent her clothing, plunged the blade of her family's sword into her belly, and turned it upward to pierce her heart, the madness continued.  It prevented her from truly expiring even as her life-blood bathed the floor.  Instead, she rose as an Allip, a being of pure, tormented madness, an ethereal, nebulous form somehow suspending a sword within its vaguely-humanoid shaped mass.  Since that day, the thing that once was the Marchioness has escaped and has returned to the pit beneath her castle, where it whines and shudders, blabbering in maddening incoherence, longing only to expose others to the horrors of what one might see if one peers over the edge of one of the great boundless chasms of reality beyond what one can safely comprehend.  It is from here that she has steadily released yet more horrors unto the world, causing the diffusion of her madness, slowly allowing it to steep its way into the very soil of the Miremarch moors, just waiting for someone to wander close enough to the castle as to be compelled to investigate what lay within, and to find it.  The constable was the first, will your adventurers be next?

The Manor

First Floor:

1-1:  First to catch the eye upon entering the main hall is the old banquet table.  Once a masterpiece of well-weathered oak, polished smooth, inlaid with shell, and sitting proudly atop carved Dragon's feet, it now sits broken and rotting.  The only banquets it now serves are to wood-worms.  (Reward any high rolls on checks to look around the room, especially at the ceiling, with a brief description of the hole above, mentioned in entry 2-1).

1-2:  The great hearth, now long-cold, is flanked by statues of knights in old-styled greathelms and liveried tabards bearing the arms of house Tervie, a golden griffon holding a torch upon a blue field, as well as the arms of this particular cadet branch to which the Marchioness once belonged, two black torches on a silver fess upon a field of forest green.  There is a strange seam in the stones at the back...

1-3: An old throne of granite masoned to the wall against which it sits.  The faint residual remnants of what were once fine silk and linen cushions cling to the stone in a few places.  It was once richly adorned with cloth and paint in vibrant shades of green, white, and black, and likely liveried with House Tervie heraldry.  Upon it, beneath a small pile of cobweb-clad cloth, lies a small socketed sphere of copper-trimmed steel, set with a number of knobs.  It seems like it could be the head of a small mace or the pommel of a sword perhaps... (this is part of the Anti-Magic Axe detailed in 2-3)

1-4:  The old kitchens are empty and cold.  On the table are a few cracked horn mugs and splintered wooden plates that weren't pilfered by looters.  All the silver has been long-since stolen, the grain ark ransacked and left askew, and no fire has burned in the cooking hearth for a generation or more.  Nevertheless, there is a rusty iron pot hanging above the cold white ash.  Inside appears to be some strange, black residue.  Did it just move?...

Second Floor:

2-1:  A grand rug, elaborately embroidered with strange patterns and glyphs that seem magical in nature.  It is startlingly well preserved for being so old... (Any adventurer stepping on the rug will have to save versus falling, as there is a hole in the floor 20ft. below)

2-2:  An old hearth, smaller than that on the first floor, though still capable of holding a sizable fire.  The corners are sculpted with motifs of Fey creatures dancing.  Leaning against the wall next to it is what seems to be an old walking stick consisting of a wooden haft encased in bronze tubing. (This is part of the Anti-Magic Axe detailed in 2-3)

2-3:  A small study, separated from the dancing hall by a low archway.  Upon the table is a single book, bound in a strange type of leather, and written in some completely incomprehensible script that surely cannot be an actual language, yet seems too regular to be purely scribbles.  Next to it lies what appears to be an axe head of copper-trimmed steel, aged yet still sharp. (This is the head of the Anti-Magic Axe detailed below)

Anti-Magic Axe

Magic +1 Battleaxe, Rare (requires attunement)

-Attacks and damage with this gain a +1 bonus, which increases to +2 against ethereal foes

-This axe allows the user to cast counterspell once per long rest

"This Dwarven-styled axe of gleaming, copper-trimmed steel does not seem to have tarnished at all despite clearly being very old.  In the light, the metal seems to take on an almost purple hue, and it is engraved with various Dwarven designs, including archaic runes which were replaced sometime in the previous millennium by the modern Dwarven runic script.  It hisses with energy in the presence of magical effects, as some unknowable arcane dweomer within roils with force against it..."  

2-4:  A garderobe built into one corner of the tower which overlooks the marshy ground beneath.  Within the central hole of the old wooden "throne," there sits a small, blue pebble, seemingly suspended in a void of boundless darkness. (Closer inspection reveals this to be a sphere of lapis lazuli, but touching it will provoke an attack from the creatures generating the force.  A strange, invisible form of hanging fungus with lashing tendrils will attempt to end the fight as quickly as possible by grappling the adventurers and dragging them into the privy, where a symbiotic fungus sits as a web of hyphae which project an area of magical darkness.)

Third Floor (Tower Room):

3-1: In each corner of the room stands a truly horrid statue.  Perhaps they were originally of guardian spirits, placed there by her captors as an act of mercy and a last, futile attempt to try to cure the Marchioness of her dreadful affliction.  Whatever the case, it seems in the years she spent languishing in the darkness, the eldritch driving force of whatever controlled her has forced her to claw and chew at them as a rabid rat would at wooden cage bars.  Whatever humanoid form they once took, they all now have been gruesomely whittled into new, grotesque forms.  Each one holds a small font which may once have been filled with holy water, but now only contains the remnants of long-dried vomit or feces.  The statues themselves are heavily caked with dried blood from the Marchioness' attempts to modify them while her human form yet lived...

3-2:  In the center of the room lies a pile of bones, old cloth, wood shavings, and whatever other cast-off trash remains from when the imprisoned Marchioness once made her bed here.  Any attempts to sift through the junk will reveal that neither she, nor her bodily remains, are to be found, however the last vestiges of her darkest human emotions still linger in this place, and have collected a pile of cloth rags, wood scraps, and the bones of birds, mice, and any other small creatures unfortunate enough to be able to climb in through the window, and animated it into a being of concentrated madness and sorrow.  If it can be defeated, some minor treasures or salvageable remnants of the Marchioness' personal effects may be found among the piles of moldering material (one roll per party member on the table below).  Additionally, any searching will also uncover an old brass key, which opens the secret door behind the first-floor fireplace.

All credit for this creature's mechanics and inspiration goes to the fine folks at Paizo Publishing, upon whose "Attic Whisperer" is is based, and YouTuber Dungeon Dad, whose 5th edition stat conversion I used as a template.

Discarded Treasures (1d12):

1	A small handful of local coins, as well as a few unrecognizable foreign ones.  All are badly dented and bent as if chewed on (10gp)
2	The pieces of a small comb made of imported ivory and inlaid with shell.  It broke long ago, and is half-buried in a pile of what look to be hardened feces, but a craftsman might be willing to pay for the pieces to use as materials in fine works of art. (25gp)
3	A finely worked tin handle for what was once an eating knife.  The blade seems to have broken off and rusted away to crumbling scale long ago, but the the patterns in the tin can still be seen under the grime.  They are of a group of women dancing the traditional spring dance among a copse of pine trees. (25gp)
4	A copper chalice with niello scrollwork resembling vines.  In its present state it is filled with dried blood and mouse droppings. (25gp)
5	A half palm-sized, irregular piece of polished sardonyx, wrapped in oily, foul-smelling rags. (75gp)
6	The fragmentary remnants of old earrings, scraps of silver and brass, several broken agate pieces, and a loose garnet, within the cloth-scrap remains of the Child of Bones and Sorrows. (100gp)
7	A silvered tin torch-shaped brooch with spiral-patterned niello and cabochoned with malachite. (250gp)
8	A pair of heavily patinated silver earrings.  Each one contains an emerald briolette and two teardrop-shaped freshwater pearls arranged to resemble an ermine spot when hanging from the wearer’s ear. (300gp)
9	A tiny pendant of apparent Dwarven make.  It is hidden inside the cranial cavity of a fox skull, and missing its chain, but it is made of an exceptionally solid, tarnish-resistant alloy (osmiridium), and is wrought in the shape of a simple hammer. (450gp)
10	A simple bronze circlet with three points spaced at equal distances from each other. Each one is cast to resemble the face of a Treant, Dryad, or other being of the forest.  All are smiling. This must have once been the Marchioness’ crown of authority. If all the dirt can be cleaned off and the bronze polished it may again be quite valuable. It is magically enchanted and contains one casting per day of the friends spell. (500gp)
11	A necklace with a golden chain.  The Pendant itself is engraved with arms of the main branch of House Tervie, a golden Griffon clutching a Torch.  It is set with topaz and sapphires. At the moment it is covered with so much dried blood that the entire thing appears a dull, rust brown color. (500gp)
12	The Marchioness’ signet ring, which she once used to seal documents.  It is made of silver and set with an onyx intaglio of her personal arms which functioned as the seal, as well as a pair of small pear-cut emeralds to either side of it.  It is magically enchanted and will grant an attuned wearer advantage on intelligence (history) checks that deal with local nobility, heraldry, and ancestry. (1000gp)

Secret Undercroft:

S-1:  A grand glyph, apparently some circle of summoning or binding, is scrawled upon the floor here in a ferric dust that may well be dried, powdered blood.  It hums with a faint energy, though does not seem to exert any obvious effect.  If the Anti-Magic Axe from areas 1-3, 2-2, and 2-3 is brought into close proximity of the glyph, there will be a violent reaction as the unstable magical forces of the glyph explode, dealing 4d10 force damage to any adventurers within 10ft. (DC 15 constitution save to halve).

S-2:  The Marchioness, or what's left of her, stands before you in front of a yawning void.  Her remains are ethereal and wraith-like, yet seem to be clutching a sword close to her chest.  Is this the Wolfstone Sword for which you have come here?  Before there is any time to consider this, the thing's eyes and mouth shoot open, and a maddening babble begins to fill the room to the point where your ears ring with the horrifying sound.  As this happens, so to the sword seems to animate, and suddenly flies toward you, blade-first...

If the Marchioness and the animated sword are both defeated, the only remains they will leave behind is that of the sword, which will fall to the ground and can be recovered after 10 minutes once thr remainder of the fell energies that once possessed it have dissipated.  It is detailed below.

The "Wolfstone" Sword

Sword of the Sacred Font

Magic +1 Longsword, Rare (requires attunement)

-All attacks and damage rolls with this weapon are made with a +1 bonus

-This weapon contains a pool of energy which can heal up to 30 hit points.  The bearer may use an action to touch the engravings on the blade and release this energy.  All creatures that end their turn within 10 feet of this sword will feel a wave of calming, healing energy wash over them.  This energy heals 5 hit points per round.  Spent points may be recovered by taking a long rest, which replenishes 1d6 hit points of the pool.

"This is truly an exquisite marvel of craftsmanship.  It is an expertly made longsword of the popular current style, which is strange for an object supposedly so old..."

"This is, in fact, not the real Wolfstone Sword as born by the the first-of-his-name Dunstan Tervie back in King Aldenric's day.  It is, however, magically enchanted, and was no doubt born with honor and pride by its original possessor, whoever that may have been."

S-3:  Ahead lies a great void, a pit of seemingly infinite depth, yet you can see that deep within lies a massive, glowing object.  Some ancient scholarly accounts suggest that this is what a fragment of "The Spark," the object responsible for all magic in the world, looks like.  At any rate, the longer you stare at it, the stronger and stronger is your desire to spend more time here and learn its secrets.  For every hour an adventurer spends in the presence of this object, they must succeed on a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw or lose track of time for an additional hour. Each hour, the saving throw must be repeated, and the third successive failure will result in the adventurer going insane until cured by unique magical means.


So, there you have it, the conclusion to the goings-on in the manor, and the source of the Madness in Mire-March.  How did your adventurers fare?  Either way I hope you enjoyed this fun little one-shot adventure with stats for 5th edition D&D.  I'll definitely go back to mostly system-agnostic content from here on, but if any of you enjoyed this one and want to see more with 5e stats, I'll definitely do at least one other one this way soon.

May your road lead you ever onward to adventure,

-Armstrong

Tales of the Table: Party Time

December be upon us, 2018, though it seemed as though it had only just arrived on a torrential rain-laden stormy wind, languishes as a fatted golden auroch ready to be slaughtered for the feasting hall of the upcoming festivities of the Yule and 2019's upcoming birth from the icy womb of winter which will soon become the only weather anyone can remember having (unless you're in the lower Mid-Atlantic states of the US like I am, in which case it'll probably be a bunch of random unseasonable 70 degree rainy days alternating with blizzards).

Either way, holidays are coming up, and it seems only fitting that we talk for a minute about festivals.  Undoubtedly important in RPGs as they were in the history upon which many of them draw heavy inspiration, a festival can be a great backdrop to, or element in any of your tabletop adventures.  I could go into a fair amount of detail here about some historical festivals, what they meant and why they were practiced, and why that matters to the authenticity and believability of your own settings, but this post is largely a result of the idea being planted in my head by the currently-ongoing creativity competition over at the Veris Design Roleplay Discord server to create material for festivals. I'd definitely encourage you to do your own research into the various indigenous/pagan origins of your favorite modern holidays, and especially to try to stick as close as possible to the historical sources rather than modern Wicca/Neopaganism etc., not to disparage anyone's beliefs, but just to get closest to the root of the concepts and beliefs of people in the past, which I always find useful for creating believable fantasy that feels logical, but just alien enough to our modern sensibilities as to be immersive.  If you're in search of more concrete "tips"on how to think about and design things like this, or being a GM in general, I'd suggest Matt Colville's excellent "Running the Game" series.  For now thought, I'll aim to show these concepts and knowledge and action in the material below.

A Festive Tide be Upon the Land

To town you have come, locals and far-faring travelers alike.  No matter whether you hail from the other side of the hill, or some exotic locale, one thing is certain.  This is a time for the locals to celebrate something.  Many will lay down their daily labors and indulge themselves in pleasures from which they refrain, while others in certain occupations (such as vendors, bakers, brewers, or cooks for instance), may well see a level of business and therefore frantic hustle that they spend the entire year preparing for.  No matter what your station in life, your standard or ulterior motives, it's party time.  Keep your guard up and find yourself your favorite drink.

Raison D'être

First things first, let's figure out why this festival is happening, what it's meant to celebrate, commemorate, or even just why the local rulers or religions first declared "today is the day that we drink until sloppy, and then drink some more."

Consider what makes sense for your setting and the established culture of the land in which it takes place.  A harvest festival makes a whole lot more sense for a barley-cultivating culture that dwells in rolling hills than it does for the fishing, fruit, and root-dependent coral-island dwelling foragers that served as the "starting village" for my adventure "Palace of the Pincered Prince."  A table of some possible examples to stimulate your own creativity is below.

To use this table, choose, or randomly determine the nature of the festival in question, whether it is religious in nature, due to a natural event, or based on a local folk custom.  Then roll a d12.  The table also includes a little bit about each one to get the ball rolling on fleshing out the festival's details.

Table 1-1: Causes for Celebration (1d12)

	Religious	Weather-related	Folk Customs
1	This is the day of the yearly visit of the local religion’s supreme cleric.  This festival is one of several such celebrations that take place as the pontiff makes an annual pilgrimage throughout the land to spread the blessings of their faith to the masses.	This festival is the yearly celebration of the Winter solstice, and is replete with each and every building in town being bedecked with candles and lamps, often covered with colorful glass or paper shrouds to enhance the appearance of the light.  Shades of blue, red, and green are especially popular.	This is the anniversary of a great battle in which the army of the city’s founders was ambushed.  The near-legendary figure who lead the army was slain, and the survivors that the leader’s sacrifice allowed to escape founded the town.  This day is thus honored with an array of combat-themed activities.
2	The largest temple in the city was built on this day 500 years ago, and every year a new tile is added to an incomplete mosaic on one of its walls.  This event is surrounded by enough holy pomp and fanfare that it is a permanent fixture of the local calendar.	This yearly festival celebrates the summer solstice, and features athletic contests, dances, and all manner of activities that last from sunrise until sunset on the longest day of the year.	On this day, ten thousand years ago, this island upon which the town sits first rose from the ocean.  Every year on this day, the townsfolk march in procession to the volcano where the all-powerful being responsible lives, in order to make it an offering of one-tenth of the wealth collected by the whole town for the year.
3	This is the day on which one of the local religion’s saints was martyred, and while ostensibly a somber occasion, it has recently become known for the competitive baking of commemorative pastries.	This festival is the yearly celebration of the vernal equinox, which the local meteorological calendar considers to be the beginning of a new year.  It is seen as a time to remake onesself, and thus many oaths are sworn on this day, as such oaths are seen as especially meaningful.	To commemorate the foundation of this Barony by a generous lord, the current Baron opens his castle’s food stores on this one day a year to provide a prepared feast to the common folk as a thanks for performing their socially obligated duties.
4	This festival is the yearly holy day which commemorated the deification of a demigod in the local religion.  Red cloth is hung from windows in town to symbolize the sunset during which the ascension to godhood took place.	This festival is the yearly celebration of the autumnal equinox, wherein great quantities of carefully-stockpiled libations are consumed, as local superstition holds that evil spirits cannot invade the bodies of the drunk.	This festival is held before every time that the town’s soldiers would be called up to go to war.  It is thought that by having this feast, during which Knights are made and oaths are sworn by a pair of imported swans, the army will always be victorious.
5	This festival celebrates the naming of a new high pontiff.  Supreme clerics in the local religion are appointed not for life, but rather for ten-year periods, with a council of cardinals being convened at the end of each to reinstate the pontiff or name a new one if the current one has become too old or infirm.  One of such has just taken place, and crowds gather to see the new holy figure parade through the streets atop a white horse crowned with burdock blossoms.	This is the yearly festival to celebrate the melting of the winter snows, when fields can once again be ploughed, and the weather is warm enough to comfortably spend more than a small portion of the day outdoors.	This is one of four, week-long festival months held throughout the year at the solstices and equinoces.  It is held to commemorate the settling of the area by the people whom the locals are primarily descended from to this day, and is celebrated by processing through the forests, singing and planting trees.
6	This festival is held upon the death of the town’s head priest.  The local religion professes that the death of a holy figure after a life well-lived is a passage into paradise, which should be celebrated while the deceased watches from above, through the “eyes” of daisies which are hung by twine from the rafters of the dancing pavilions erected for the occasion.	This is the festival that celebrates the yearly migrations of salmon and trout upriver.  This village, on its rocky ground, is not capable of growing cereal grains, and this is the one time of year when the townsfolk have plentiful food other than the meager quantities of millet, olives, and turnips they can grow locally without having to import anything.	When the stars align in a certain pattern, legend has it that the forces of connection between this world and the land of fairies are especially strong.  This town, built on a leyline, throws a grand feast with many small tables set to welcome any fey creatures which may cross over.
7	This is the festival to celebrate the birth of the world, which the local religion believes happens once a year.  Babies born on this day are considered especially holy, and often end up finding work in the priesthood.	This is the festival that is held every time town’s fishermen manage to successfully hunt a whale.  The mighty fallen beast is crowned with flowers and anointed with oils as the circle of local Druids thank the creature for its life and the necessary sustenance its meat will provide.  The townsfolk then all assist in the butchery and dividing of portions, as well as the sharing of stories about their own departed relatives, whom they believe now dwell with the whales in the cosmic firmament.	This is one of four, week-long festival months held throughout the year at the solstices and equinoces.  It is held to commemorate the settling of the area by the people whom the locals are primarily descended from to this day, and is celebrated by the selection and cutting of certain trees from the forest, as well as the drinking of ale flavored with twigs from those trees.
8	This austere celebration is the commemoration of a time of hardship the locals once faced, which the divine entities of the local religion were said to have saved them from. It is held once a year, and primarily consists of parades of priests clad in undyed woolen robes walking through the town, singing and gathering similarly-clad volunteers to join in, until the parade culminates at the temple steps.	The end of the yearly barley harvest is a time of great celebration, where all can lay down their ploughs, hoes, and scythes until the next spring.  A special kind of ale is brewed for this occasion, flavored with a rare golden mountain flower that is said to bring prophetic visions to some. It is drunk in great quantities during this time, and is unavailable the rest of the year to all but the small monastic order who produce it.	This festival, traditionally held the day after the booze-laden Winter solstice celebration, is celebrated by spending most of the day in a sauna, with breaks taken only to bathe in cool waters, drink modest amounts of ale, and eat pickled vegetables as a way of physically and spiritually atoning for the previous night’s excesses.
9	This festival is a week-long holy New Year celebration, and features a procession of naked worshippers to a nearby mineral spring, where all the sins and misdeeds of the previous year are symbolically washed away.  At the end of the week, a great bonfire is held outside the temple to burn offerings to the local deities, and the religious calendar begins anew.	The one month of the year that this extreme southerly town sees sunlight is treated as a time to rejoice.  People come out of their houses and stand in the light, singing for hours on end while a great stew is made from ingredients only available during this time.  At the end, an infant is chosen by lottery and offered to the subterranean entity that allows them to feed on its milk for the rest of the pitch-black year.	This is one of four, week-long festival months held throughout the year at the solstices and equinoces.  It is held to commemorate the settling of the area by the people whom the locals are primarily descended from to this day, and is celebrated by the firing of the great kilns used to dry lumber, then the roasting of game-birds on the embers after the wood is prepared.
10	This festival is the religious ceremony component of the coronation of a monarch.  The masses gather outside the royal palace to watch the supreme cleric recite the melodic and hours-long oath ritual that must be performed to ensure the new monarch’s reign will be free of undue strife.	The magical fog that surrounds the valley in which this town is located, and confuses all those who don’t navigate the one road in and out by the light of magical lanterns, is lifted for a day a year.  This day is the grandest of market days, when mass quantities of foreign goods can come into town to be traded for the rare gems mined in caves on the northern side of town.	This is the purported birthday of a legendary Giant who is seen as the protector of the local populace.  The legend states that his favorite food was the variety of kale grown locally, and thus this day is celebrated with three feasts, a breakfast of leek and kale soup, a luncheon of of kale, chicory, and pine nut pastries, and a dinner of roast pheasants and planked pike, all stuffed and crusted with bread crumbs and chopped kale.
11	This festival is held weekly to thank the sun god for daily light and productive crops.  It is small in scale, but features evening prayers and a free meal being provided to all by the local temple and the town’s taverns and alehouses.	The land around this town can occasionally experience a “fifth season” between Winter and Spring, where an ancient magical curse creates weather that is highly unpredictable.  This can wreak havoc on local crops and businesses, so a pair of festivals is held at the end of each Winter and the start of each Spring to pray for the prevention of, or thank the gods for sparing the townsfolk from, this time of troubles.	Farmers, craftsmen, artisans, and others directly employed by the lord of this County are traditionally paid on the first one a month.  By the end of the month, money has run low, and thus the common folk and nobility alike all band together to make dumplings filled with mashed turnips, apples, or leeks, and a meat sauce in which to serve them.
12	This festival is the yearly gathering dedicated to the god who is responsible for keeping the world, moon(s), and stars from being swallowed by a great beast of night, as has happened five times before.  Crowds gather on this day to watch priests perform animal and human sacrifices atop pyramidal stone temples to provide the life force that will sustain the protector god for another year.	This festival is held on the day before a blood moon, as the coming of the enlarged, reddish appearance of the nearer of the two moons is said to bless the grape harvest.  A special vintage of wine is only made upon these days, and trials of competitive toast-making and poetry composition are held while drinking and comparing the flavors of other production years.	This is one of four, week-long festival months held throughout the year at the solstices and equinoces.  It is held to commemorate the settling of the area by the people whom the locals are primarily descended from to this day, and is celebrated by the building and ritual launching of a ship.

Now, onward to a bit more about the festival.  By now, you should have a general concept in mind for why the festival is happening and a couple of details.  The tables below should help provide usable content, or at least ideas, for some of the day's events.

Firstly, a trip to the vendors' section...

Table 2-1: Shops and Stalls (1d10)

1	An old, run-down ox-cart from the back of which an old man sells meat pies.  What kind of meat is in them only he knows, but whenever he is asked, he merely laughs and briefly whistles the sound made a different type of bird, fish, bovine, cervine, or porcine creature.
2	A local jeweler, Jéros “Rantin’-an’-ravin’’ Arturon, has attached tents to his shop which double the size.  Inside, he says, is a veritable cave of wonders. Anyone that can brave what he calls “The Treacherous Trove of Tevinar” will be allowed to keep any of the riches found within in exchange for the mere price of admission.  The “trove” within the tents is an artificial “cave” painted to look like the inside of a long-forgotten Dwarven mine, and run by several of the younger members of the town guard and the local inn’s staff, who are dressed as “orrugs, dread wraiths, and bogeymen” to “attack” the would-be explorers, as well as “damsels” to be “rescued,” and more importantly to sell the entrants honeyed wine “healing daughts” for a small surcharge.  At the end of each run of the “caverns,” Jéros himself sits in an incense-filled room dressed as an “oracle of great wisdom” who will reward the guests with a single bauble per customer from among his clearance stock.
3	A row of temporary alehouses erected just for the festival.  Each serves a different variety of ale in a different type of container, pairs it with a different variety of cheap, salty food, and a different piece of a poem.  Anyone who can successfully make their way along “Hop Alley” and then recite the poem in its entirety to the master of ceremonies can take a trip down the “Golden Mile” of temporarily erected privies just beyond.  All others who need to make such a journey will have to pay a small fee...
4	A row of carts laden with cauldrons.  They are drawn by powerful steppe horses, and each one promises that their goat stew is both the absolute spiciest and the absolute best.  Rice to go with it is free, but ale or fermented mare’s milk cost extra.
5	A red velvet tent containing an octet of different flamboyantly-dressed women.  For a small price, one can have the “fate and fortune of their lay of love” read by one of the eight “seeresses.”  Any monkey business will see a customer escorted to the nearest heap of donkey dung by a trio of burly guards.
6	A cart structured in a manner resembling a large cloak-rack.  On each “branch” are the ingredients and preparation paraphernalia for a different ingredient of a popular complex and exotic foreign dessert food.  Customers can pay a contortionist by placing a coin into her mouth, which she will then grab with her toes and place into a golden pot, the weight of which will ring a bell.  At that signal, eleven other acrobats will all go about elaborately performing the steps required to make the confection, finally handing it to a belly dancer, who will slide it to the customer on the flat of the blade of an elaborately jeweled scimitar.
7	An entire platoon of a mercenary company, who have set up an industrial-strength tent kitchen, from which they prepare a simple, nutritious, no-nonsense meal of flatbreads, lentils, stewed vegetables, and locally-sourced fruit chutney.  Any and all are welcome to sit for a while and enjoy the food for free. Small donations are encouraged in order to purchase watered-wine to wash it all down.
8	A ramshackle castle of a structure, apparently situated upon clockwork spider-legs, which arrives at the festival grounds fashionably late and drops a gilded ladder.  Within is a nigh-impossible to navigate maze of corridors and rooms. The main ones open to guests are a small tea house where guests can be served dumplings and tea by a pair of mute sextuplets, and a shop known as “Madame Tsuo’s Legitimate Magical Emporium.”  Many guests leave the place cash-poor, but with some new item that is the cause of great wonder to any who see it. Perhaps the most puzzling of all, however, is the use of the word “Legitimate.” It sounds almost insincere, yet nearly all of the items sold are actually magical in some way or another...
9	A traveling ensemble have set up a mighty tent in the shape of a mountain, which they say contains the “Tomb of Doom,” a “Dreadful Dungeon and home to a Deadly Dragon.” Guests are furnished with wooden weapons and can “fight” their way through five levels of party tricks and costumed carnies to try to “slay” the massive puppeteered “Dragon” at the end.  Successful guests are rewarded with a painted trophy that resembles a Dragon’s egg, and contains a set of nesting Dragon dolls. Each time this festival is held, the proprietor of the “Tomb,” a travelling merchant named Turijin, insists that, in fact, he did not steal his idea from Jéros the Jeweler, but rather that things are the other way around...
10	A cart the size of a small house pulled by a team of nineteen mighty golden mountain yaks.  Within, an Armored Giant and his retinue of Dwarves sell some of the finest weaponry and armor that can be found in all the land.  Many of them are even smiths, cutlers, tailors, and armorers themselves. They even have an enchanter who can augment one’s existing gear.  Truly, this golden-painted, travelling hall is a one-stop shop for any aspiring adventurer or veteran wanderer alike. It is one of the festival’s worst-kept secrets that the “Armored Giant” is actually just three Dwarves together in a large, articulated suit of armor with built-in stilts.

Next, a stroll down the main thoroughfare, and perhaps a peek down a few of the alleyways and side-streets that form among the temporary tent town...

Table 2-2: Sights and Sounds (1d10)

1	An argument between a man in fanciful spellcaster’s robes and what appears to be a talking owl.  The bird is in the middle of scolding the man for some wrongdoing, and the man can only feebly “hoot” in response.
2	Two veiled women apparently haggling over the price of an ornate jade statuette of an elaborately-plumed bird with a human face, all only done by gesticulation, never speaking or moving the veils that hide all but their bright green-within-green eyes.
3	A cart-vendor juggling apples.  Every time someone places a coin into a conical felt hat on the ground, he gently hucks one at them, adding one for every few minutes without a customer.  A few minutes ago he was up to thirteen of them, but now he’s down to only six.
4	A bard who the local innhouse refused to let sing in their establishment, scornfully shouting an angry song about the many varieties of vermin and painful diseases which infest the owner’s nether-regions.
5	A child, crying because he has lost his mother, wandering around, accepting sweets offered to him and surreptitiously picking pockets.  He sure does have an awful lot of five o’clock shadow for a five year-old...
6	A troupe of dancing girls who move so intricately and quickly that they seem to be a single blur.  You are told that one is naked, and that you will win a cash prize for guessing the kind of stone set in her navel-ring.  When they stop, however, you realize that they were apparently nothing but nine, life-sized bronze statues of women in active poses.  An old crone with floor-length white braids that sparkle with cloth-of-gold ribbons happily rasps “thank you, thank you” any time her eyes are met with a puzzled glance.
7	A duel taking place between two foreign sword-dancers.  Their costumes are adorned with ostrich feathers, and every time one is cut, the fight is broken up and the winnings of wagers paid out.
8	A half-giant woman who appears to have eight arms, sitting on an ornate rug and painting the portraits of eight customers at once.  It is the festival’s second-worst kept secret that beneath the costume are eight halflings operating mechanical puppet arms...
9	Nine robed monks from some unknown land, standing in a circle beneath a cloth-of-gold pavilion, throat-singing an endless drone, night and day.  The longer their ceaseless singing continues, the clearer and clearer becomes the spectral image of an intricate mandala, seemingly formed of colored clouds in the sky about a hundred feet above their heads.
10	A bard wanders up and down the main thoroughfare, strumming a cittern while bells on his feet jingle, a great drum on his back is beaten by a rope-pulled mallet, a small mechanical lizard’s tail plays a jaw harp in his mouth, a wide array of small brazen gongs play an elaborate tune as they are struck by tiny, spring-loaded hammers, and a bevy of bronze chimes clang from their positions in the waving fronds of his flowing beard.  The tune he plays is at once both staggeringly obnoxious and irresistibly catchy...

And then a review of the days entertainments...

Table 2-3: Stuff to Do (1d12)

1	A porridge-eating contest where competitors are served from a great vat until one of them eventually finds a gilded almond.  The one who does wins the pot of collected admission fees, minus a small amount for the proprietor of course
2	The throwing of lawn darts at a target on the other side of a small field.  A bullseye wins their entire admission cost back, plus a bottle of the legendary Blood Moon Wine.  Funny, the darts’ owner’s son seems to win a lot...
3	A cart selling Kvass is offering a golden stein to the person who can finish more mugs in a minute than the Half-Giant named Ánd, who stands next to it.  There is no secret here, Ánd really is a Half-Giant, and he’s had nothing but dry bread and salty burnt ends of pot-roast to eat all day.
4	A grand downhill race that markets itself as “Toki Gylvasson’s One and Only Dry-land Dragon-ship Regatta” in which northern-styled ships are rolled down the hill on logs with entire teams of oft-inebriated customers signed up to hold wooden poles with which to steer the things.  Surely there’s no way that could go wrong...
5	A duo of joke-tellers whose tent is shaped like a garish Demon’s gaping maw, twisted in grotesque laughter .  One look at the clientele suggests that such a structure, terrifying as it is to those who are too young to appreciate the pair’s raunchy humor, is very effective at its purpose.
6	A tent woven of what look to be the hides of some monstrous creatures bears a sign that reads “Into the Odd, a strange and terrifying journey by Captain Munrab Yelpir.”  Within lies a fairly standard “freak show” of non-magical and slightly magical oddities on display. The most impressive of them all, so the signs say, is the wondrous creature known as the “Premature Egress.”  For some reason, a lot of customers seem to leave through the side exit before completing the walkthrough. Some even go back in, paying admission a second time only to repeat this behavior...
7	The loveliest-scented tent in the entire festival is a sweet respite for the senses after some of the less savory-smelling attractions, or just the sheer overload of the festival.  Within is a pie-baking contest, which guests are encouraged to judge, secretly giving each a score on a ten-point scale by telling such information to a smartly-dressed woman who claims to be the Lord’s own aunt, on the mother’s side.  This year, nearly every grandmother in town, as well as several of the Lord’s personal kitchen staff, and a few barely-visible-above-the-table bakers from the town’s Halfling or Goblin district have all entered.
8	A grand, gilded balance stands atop a simple farm carriage.  On one side is a truly massive turnip. The one who can guess its weight in grains of barley wins it as a prize.
9	An archery contest that any can enter.  The task is to hit a series of ten targets of increasing distance, then put an arrow into an eleventh target after having passed it through the rings atop twelve ornate bronze axes on the way.  The day’s results will be announced at sundown.
10	A “battle of the bards” appears to be happening on a small stage at one end of the festival ground.  Entrants are still being accepted for the time being, and the winner allegedly gets to perform at the Queen’s birthday jubilee.  The quintet on stage now are unapologetically awful, yet the girl holding the sign-up sheet seems to suggest that they are the front-runners.
11	A wrestling tourney between a field of of fancifully-dressed competitors with even more flamboyant moves.  Some of them even look impossible. You haven’t heard of any of the competitors before, but several spectators are wearing tunics emblazoned with the same heraldry as some of them.  One patron in the back of the crowd looks particularly smug as he mutters, “you know it’s fake, right?” to passersby.
12	A melee that any and call of fighting age can enter.  The prize is a suit of armor made by the King’s own armorers, and fit for a man-at-arms in the King’s own army.  It does seem like lots of the winners do end up in the King’s army….

And finally, the day, week, or festival-month comes to a close, but not before one final great blowout of spectacular action that perfectly encapsulates what the entire festival is about, or at the very least serves as an epic last call for revelers to load up on their favorite festive foodstuffs and celebratory sippables before the beginning of the long, dark, doldrums until these grounds once again teem with those special, exotic life-forms that are festival-goers...

In the name of the Guardian Giant, may your daily values of monounsaturated fats, omega-3 oils, and biotin be ever met...

Table 1-5: Main Events (1d12)

1	The dedication, and subsequent ignition of a three-storey statue of a Demon.  The burning of the effigy is said to cleanse the land of invasions by evil outsiders, and to be the ultimate outlet of creativity and a symbol that everything is fleeting.
2	The great feast at the Lord’s own hall, where the contents of noble larders are opened to all the common folk.  It begins at sundown on the penultimate day and the last guests don’t filter out until the sun has risen, set, and risen again.  Don’t get caught sleeping on the floor of the hall after that, it’s just bad etiquette and a general party foul...
3	The swearing-in of the new high pontiff.  It begins with the cleric’s ride through town on a white horse bedecked with burdock blossoms and ends with the actual event itself, followed by a repast which involves the rapid emptying of scores or even hundreds of casks of sacramental wine down the throats of all in attendance.
4	The Sacred Ceremony of the world’s rebirth.  This somber procession through the streets is lightened by singing, but all the festivities are done by this point, and both law and local custom dictate that this event remain a solemn and serious religious observance.
5	A grand tourney held at the behest, and on the dime of, the ruling Lord.  It lasts for the entirety of the final day and sees the region of the festival grounds closest to the castle filled with nearly the entire attendance of the whole festival.  The tourney starts off with a series of duels between some of the land’s most renowned mercenaries, with the winners taking home substantial cash prizes. Next comes the melee, with many of the common soldiery and nobles alike trying to gain the attention of Lordly eyes and the glory and renown sure to come from gaining such notice.  Finally, the grand finale of the entire event is the series of single-elimination jousts that sees the greatest Lords and Knights of the land all compete to see who can best break a lance on one-another. Everyone’s eyes are on this contest, whether they are those of a gambler seeking to win a bet, a political instigator or foreign spy seeking to incite a riot if the local Lord is unhorsed, or merely a hooligan seeking to engage in looting if the aforementioned occurs.
6	The ceremonial “telling of great tales.”  Skalds from near and far all gather to sing their songs while scribes and scrimshanders scratch these sagas into spars of whale-bone.  The event features the lighting of many candles, the quaffing of great quantities of mead, and all culminates with the leader of the festival singing alone of the great deeds of their ancestors, who know ride with the whales upon the celestial seas, before they hand-select a crew to lead the symbolic first fishing ship of the next expedition as it launches.
7	“The salvation of the land.” In the center of the feasting hall, knights clad in scaled armor and fur surcoats with helms wrought in the shape of boars’ and pikes’ heads all engage in mock battle with a rival “army” dressed to look like one that invaded centuries ago.  The heroic defenders deflect the dreadful enemy’s blows upon their shields painted to resemble leaves of kale, deal devastating damage with swords whose guards are decoratively embossed with olive motifs, and whose blades dance fiercely beneath green helmet-plumes shaped as though sprigs of dill.
8	The largest and greatest of the sacrifices to be made that day is that of a priest from a rival city, captured in battle and sent to the highest of heavens along with a retinue of over a hundred warriors and a team of players of the sacred ball game.
9	The Feast of the Swans.  On the last day before the army is to march, they are all invited to dine in the Lord’s hall, with a pair of Swans being brought forth at the end, by which every last soldier swears an oath of fealty and conquest, after which all the army’s commanders, even down to the level of ten-man squads, are all knighted by the Lord one-by-one.
10	The great feast of bread and ale.  The final meals of a week of feasting is a simple repast of bread and ale, all flavored with the golden mountain flower, and presented to the revelers by the monastic order who are the only ones to grow and process it.  This is a time of mirth, but also one of reflection of what one is thankful for in this world.
11	A parade of all the animals.  The festival is ended by the opening of the gilded gates to the Lord’s menagerie, and a procession issuing forth from them.  In this cavalcade there can be found everything from a cockatrice to a cat-camel, and everything in between. The animals are all led by specially-trained handlers on royal appointment, and finishes with the return of the animals to the menagerie, followed by a fireworks display across the nearby lake.
12	Offering of the child.  The formless, nameless entitify below the ground which sustains the town on its nourishing nectar throughout the dark months of the year requires its due.  It is to this end that a newly-born infant is selected by lottery to be offered to the creature to become its child. The child’s mother, though saddened, is proud that her offspring could serve such a higher purpose, and gives the child over to its new mother with nary more than a single tear.  The ceremony is then ended with the lifting of a chalice of the first nectar of the new dark season, which the mother drinks in silence before the whole crowd rejoices and toasts to a new year to come, and to the coming of the light once again.

This, uhh, more "official" looking version of the arms of the Kale Knight above is brought to you by the fine folks at Inkwell Ideas

And there you have it, some tables of idea-fodder for the key parts of a nice festival in your RPG setting.  Of course if you're looking to run your own festival, you'll probably want to come up with shop inventories, a few more NPC names, and such, but hopefully they contain enough history, lore, hooks, and necessary weirdness to keep the Apocalypse Worldhackers, OSR Enthusiasts, Dungeon Crawlers, and Writers coming up with creative ways to roll these into their worlds, or ideas of their own.

And with that, as always,

May your road lead you ever onward to adventure, 

-Armstrong