Taking 20 Podcast - Ep 156 - Holidays in Your World

Episode Date: December 25, 2022

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas! If your game world has any history at all and any culture, whether it's a single-minded autonomous collective or a rich melting pot of cultures blended together and living in close proximity, there will likely be holidays of some sort.  Why do holidays exist?  What do you need to create holidays in your world?  Tune in this week to find out!   #DnD #DungeonsandDragons #Pathfinder #Paizo #Holidays Resources: Resigned: How to Know When It's Time to Go

This week on the Taking20 Podcast. The Elven New Year may begin on the days of the first budding flower in a certain forest, perhaps offsetting it from the Dwarven calendar that's built around the natural processes of the planet's core. So, when you're designing holidays for your world, remember, universal celebrations should be the exception rather than the rule. rather than the rule. Thank you for listening to the Taking20 Podcast, episode 156. More of a world-building episode,

this time all about how you can use holidays in your world. This week's episode is sponsored by the print and e-book, Resigned, How to Know When It's Time to Go, available on Amazon. There are a ton of tips in the book, but my favorite part is the collection of stories, people who quit their job, why they did it, and their good and bad experiences when they did. Resigned, How to Know When It's Time to Go. Pick it up today. I also want to thank our other sponsor, Decorations.

Be careful when you're using those little thin strips of shiny metal foil for the holiday. If you use too much, your house will develop tensillitis. If you like this podcast, please consider liking and rating it wherever you found it. It can help others find the podcast, and I would be very grateful if you took a few minutes to do so. First of all, I want to say happy holidays to my listeners one and all, no matter what you celebrate. Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Christmas, or none of the above. I hope this week and next are full of joy, love, and maybe, you know, sneak in a game or two. Secondly, I've decided that the podcast will be on hiatus next week to close out 2022 and get episodes ready for 23.

Plus, it's the holidays. And other than one week immediately post-second brain surgery, I haven't taken a break in almost three years. Please accept my apologies that there'll be no new content on January 1st, but episodes will resume on January 8th when we'll talk about an episode idea submitted by a long-time listener who wants to discuss special materials for weapons and armor. I cannot wait to start writing that episode because I've got some ideas. Okay, before I start rambling about holidays, I want to give an important caveat. I happen to be an old, white, American cis male, and I grew up in a small town in the U.S. where diversity wasn't nearly as prevalent as it is now.

I say this because I might be about to mention something about holidays that you grew up with and embrace as part of your culture. I am going to do my best to maintain accuracy about topics from Earth, do a little research, and I talk to a lot of friends, but there is a non-zero chance that I will oversimplify or maybe even get something dead wrong about a holiday. If you want to give me a piece of your mind, please let this be my formal and humble apology for screwing up anything about your celebrations, history, people, religion, or culture. I would strongly encourage you to email me at feedback at taking20podcast.com and let me know if I got something wrong. I am always looking to learn something new, and my getting

something wrong is an opportunity for me to learn something from you. So why should I have an episode about holidays? I mean, you certainly don't have to have holidays in your world, right? You could say your holidays are all universal and not worry about the details. I mean, we DMs have enough shit to design in our worlds already. Countries, governments, religions, towns, NPCs, monsters, encounters, quests, names, weird accents, descriptions. Why the heck should we worry about something as inconsequential as celebrations? Well, I'm glad you asked because I believe there are quite a few reasons and I'm

going to give you three off the top of my head. One, holidays, if you include them in your world, it makes your world feel more real. If you've listened to this podcast, you know I am a huge fan of realism in your campaign worlds. Think about Earth. There are a ton of major holidays we celebrate throughout the year. Besides the big ones like, I don't know, Halloween, Thanksgiving, St. Patrick's Day, there are niche holidays like Umbrella Day, Lost Sock Memorial Day, or October 8th, which is Pierogi Day. Wait, wait, wait, hang on. There's a Pierogi Day? Why am I just learning about this? Why am I not celebrating this day? We should print up t-shirts and hats. God, I love pierogis and now I'm hungry. I wonder what we're making for dinner.

Two, holidays are opportunities to expose your characters to a different culture than the one they grew up with. A lot of us, myself included, tend to think about medieval European culture when designing our worlds. I am so guilty of this sometimes. I'm working on it though. I'm exposing myself to different cultures as I learn. But, sorry, clarify. By exposing myself, I mean, not like exposing myself wearing a trench coat or something. Shit, let me back up. I'm learning more about cultures that are different than the ones that I grew up around, and the more I learn about other cultures, the harder I work to include details about them in my world. Three, these holidays perhaps allow you to share some

of your hard-written backstory and lore that might not otherwise make it to the gaming table. Think about maybe part of the lore of your world, especially for groups that are underrepresented in your game currently, and use a holiday to call the character's attention to it. Same thing with history, lore, tradition, etc. Now to determine what holidays should exist in your world, first you need to understand why holidays exist in a culture or for a particular area. At the heart of most holidays are stories, and holidays are opportunities to retell those stories. Some holidays can be days of remembrance about noteworthy events of the past. Wars, battles, founding events like cities and nations, or maybe even founding events of companies.

Important events that help shape your world for good or for ill. Sometimes the events that happen on these holidays are ways to build bonds with others. Get-togethers with families, friends, acquaintances, whether small like in people's houses or large like an entire town or village getting together celebrating in the common square. Now what happens on holidays and how they're celebrated can vary widely. Some holidays are days of remembrance and you celebrate them. They're full of music and dancing and fancy foods and other opportunities for everyone to be happy. A victory day celebrating repelling the orbital invasion of the Mechatons, where large balloons

are suspended in the atmosphere and fireworks are shot at them until the last one is burst. It could be a loud and raucous party. But not all celebrations are like that. Not all holidays are celebratory. Some of them are somber and memorial, like honoring those who were lost, left, or suffered in the past. Maybe your centaurs have a day of silence where they put thick wax on their hooves to reenact their surprise victory over the hill giant army. Or maybe the salvation of unlife given by Altzmir to an entirely undead nation as a way to survive a spreading plague. It could be a somber gathering where

people talk to each other in hushed whispers or maybe even not at all. They just collect in a location, hug and comfort in silence in memory of the silent slayer, the disease that wiped out 90% of the citizens of the town of Comlanton, choking them to death while they slept. This respectful gathering ends with a reading of the names of the eight leaders who helped to rebuild the town and save the people, breaking the otherwise silence. Another thing about holidays is that they can be opportunities to rest and recharge. Unless your world has evolved past the need to work for wages or your share of goods produced in an area,

chances are the vast majority of people will be working more often than they're not. Whether it's a four-, five-, six, or seven day work week, non-working holidays can be opportunities for people to recover during the celebrations. Heck, even raucous party-like celebrations sometimes include times of rest. If you go to New Orleans in the U.S. for Mardi Gras, things even during that party are fairly quiet during daylight hours. Once the sun goes down, though, it does get pretty rowdy. Even though the day is known for wild partying, many people choose to spend the daytime resting and preparing for the evening's hedonism. And oh, by the way, please do not construe my use of the word hedonism as if I'm morally condemning what's going on in Moreland. I've been and I will not go into any details, thank you very much,

about how I got a couple of sets of beads hanging up over here. That secret's going with me to my grave. I will just say it was a lot of fun, and I do not now look like I did then. Holidays can also celebrate culture and tradition. Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Oktoberfest jump to mind here. Not everyone celebrates them. Primarily those that do are from a particular culture, but there are opportunities to demonstrate their culture, educate those around them who are different, and help them recognize and accept differences between the cultures. Holidays can have a nefarious use as well. They can be used

by large organizations to control and distract others. Think of ancient Rome and their bread and circuses. Sometimes when unrest or distrust or disapproval of the government would be high, they would throw the games. Reenactments of a historical battle, slaves fighting each other and wild animals, and people would be distracted from what's going on in the government, the corruption and unfair conditions of the time. Maybe, for example, the orc leaders enact Reckoning Day, where differences can be resolved with combat, feats of athleticism, strength,

or agility. The day promotes unity among the group by focusing major feuds and differences to this particular day, and encouraging all the members of the group to put off all of the animosity until then. When it comes to holidays, by the way, universal holidays should be pretty rare. Most holidays are only celebrated by a certain, say, state or country or religion or culture or group of people. Not all cultures on earth even agree when the calendar year starts. Think New Year's Day and Eve for the western world versus the Chinese New Year celebration which is later on in January. In your fantasy world, the citizens of the nation of Uprane may celebrate the birthday of the current monarch, but other countries would not really be inclined to

celebrate that day because they're not their king. The Elven New Year may begin on the days of the first budding flower in a certain forest, perhaps offsetting it from the Dwarven calendar that's built around the natural processes of the planet's core. So, when you're designing holidays for your world, remember, universal celebrations should be the exception rather than the rule. While I'm at it it though, universal holidays are likely tied to the physics of your world. For example, winter solstice here on earth is when the tilt and precession of the earth causes the appropriate pole to be farthest from the sun. In the northern hemisphere, it's around December 21st, while the southern hemisphere, it's about

June 21st. In the northern hemisphere, December 21st is usually referred to as midwinter, and it's usually the shortest day of the year. The whole reason it even exists is because the physics of the Earth's rotation, revolution, and its 23.5 degree tilt angle. Cultures all around the Northern Hemisphere have celebrations around that day, but the way they celebrate varies widely. Parts of Scandinavia have the Feast of Yule, J-U-U-L. It's a pre-Christian festival where a yule log is burned on the hearth, does that sound familiar by the way, in honor of the god Thor. Other parts of Scandinavia have St. Lucia's Day, where girls dress in white gowns with red sashes and wreaths of candles on their heads to honor the saint. It's also sometimes called the Festival of Lights, does that sound familiar? As fires are lit to ward off evil spirits.

China celebrates Dongzhi, the end of harvest and the arrival of winter, where the family get together and feast. Poland has Godi, the tradition of showing forgiveness and sharing food. Kaomos, St. Thomas Day, the Sun God Festival, there's all sorts of holidays from around the world. They're all celebrated differently, but they all exist because of the way our planet works and how our calendar days happen to fall. Sometimes a holiday celebration will evolve over time. I mean, nations change, religions change, cultures change over time.

These changes could make some of the reasons for holidays evaporate or become unnecessary, so the method of celebration may change over time. I mean, Halloween used to be Samhain, which was when animals were brought in from pasture in Britain and Ireland. It's said that that night the spirits of those departed that year returned to visit the families. Then it became All Hallows' Eve, the holy evening occurring before All Saints' Day when saints are honored by the church. Now, it's mostly a secular holiday involving pranks, candy, and carved pumpkin. The running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, had its origins in the old practice

of transporting bulls from the fields outside the city where they were bred to the bull ring where they would be killed in the evening. These days, that transport really isn't necessary, but it remains in modern times as an opportunity to display your bravery by running in front of bulls with the big sharp horns. Easter began as an ancient pagan celebration of the spring equinox, which was when day and night were equal durations, celebrating a return to balance of the world, leaving the winter snows behind for warmer weather. It was a celebration in anticipation of new life as spring came and plants emerged from the ground once again. Some think it was named for Ostara or Eostre, the goddess of spring or renewal, but later Easter was dedicated by Christians as the day of resurrection for Jesus Christ and moved to always occur on a Sunday.

Now, for some reason, it involves painted eggs and bunnies. I'm not going to speculate on that, but the point is, celebrations have evolved for holidays to be very different throughout the years. Columbus Day used to be a holiday throughout the United States, but as our understanding of different cultures and atrocities committed by Columbus and his men have come to light, you know, things like rape and slavery and cutting off hands and stealing people's valuables and so forth, but many states have replaced it with Indigenous Peoples Day, celebrating the original peoples of the Americas and commemorating their histories.

Imagine the dwarves of ancient times would celebrate the Day of Bulwark with endurance contests, standing in boiling or freezing temperatures until only one remained conscious. But as dwarven culture has evolved, they realized that killing a bunch of their own kind every year is kind of counterproductive, so it became endurance trials instead of lethal contests of will. Or maybe wizards of old would duel every midsummer on the Forsworn Mesa, but quite a few of those wizards would die from fireballs and falls. Now those duels happen in a specifically designed anti-magic room where senior wizards can judge the success or failure of a spell by the accuracy of the casting, even if the room never actually erupts in arcs of lightning or combat between summoned demons and archons. Back to holidays.

Holidays don't have to make sense on Earth or whatever is modern in your game world. Sometimes holidays are created and celebrations make sense at the time, but as your game world changes and evolves, well, those holidays may go away. Romans used to celebrate the Ides of March as the day when you should begin planting your spring and summer grains. People ate and drank and had all kinds of fun, both clothed and unclothed. They may also have stabbed a Caesar on that day, but as far as I can remember, I think that was just the one. Meanwhile, where I went to college, there was a group who celebrated Ides of March as an opportunity to drink and get together. The celebration didn't make much sense anymore because, well, none of us were Roman, and as far as I know, we didn't stab anyone, much less any sort of major national leader, but then again,

things could have gotten out of hand, and we never heard about it. It's the Ides of March, time to go stab that math professor. Now, 16 minutes in, I finally get to my core point. Holidays can create great adventuring and role-playing moments. Imagine a holiday with a public celebration. So your world has some holiday that has this giant public celebration for, I don't know, a nation, a region,

maybe just a single town. The square of the town is packed with people and food wagons. Music and laughter fill the air as friends embrace and families reunite, and it's a generally party-like atmosphere, and it's reigning supreme over the entire town. What adventures could spawn from that? At the simplest, pickpockets could be roaming the crowd, cutting coin purses and stealing jewelry. There's an opportunity for a nice chase scene. Perhaps someone sabotaged the giant apple built in the town square

out of wood and paper mache, and at a crucial moment, the entire fruit and support structure erupts in flames. The local constabulary hires the PCs to find out who did it. Or, smaller scale, maybe the party's asked by a friend to work this year's festival as security, performers, or maybe spies in the audience, learning more about a potential enemy. Also, any public celebration where NPCs gather and the PCs are present are opportunities for events in your game world and good role-playing moments. Imagine a different holiday where travel is expected. Maybe people are expected to travel a certain distance as part of

the celebration. Everyone has to return to their hometown for a census. A religious holiday where people must travel to a holy site or shrine and pay respects and homage to one or more gods. People are expected to travel to the graves of their ancestors who fought in the 20 years war. During times of travel in your world, there will be more pilgrims on the roads, so you'll have more humanoid encounters. During these times of travel, rooms at the ends and taverns will be very, very hard to come by, and they'll be more expensive if they're even available at all. Because of this, a lot of travelers may choose to stay on the roadside. They'll set up campfires close to the road, and more campfires means more

opportunities for creatures and predators to have encounters with those travelers. What if you have a holiday where gifts are exchanged? Here's where roleplay can really step up to the forefront. Imagine there's an NPC who works in the PC's fort, sees them every time they're home, and maybe he's taken a shine to one of the PCs. They finally use the gift-giving holiday to give the character something they've wanted, a weapon, a consumable, something that will help them while they adventure, or maybe just something very special to them that they want the character to have. Roleplayed properly, this could result in

awkward conversations, maybe realization of feelings, possibly a budding romance, or maybe even a broken heart. And if the NPC is embarrassingly rejected, maybe an opportunity for the big bad to get someone on the inside of the PC's lair to provide them information. Another situation that popped up. Imagine the PCs are asked to help secure a particularly rare gift for someone. It could be a monster body part, a magic item, or any of a thousand other things. A basilisk stomach, the berries from the oldest bushes in the Sesta Forest, the lost dentures of Hamal Selim. It doesn't matter what it is. It's just a MacGuffin at this point to start the adventure. Lord Schmuckety Schmuck wants to give it as a gift to their spouse, or it's an

ingredient in something special. So suppose you've decided to have holidays in your world. What sort of information do you need to come up with about that holiday? Honestly, whatever you feel like is relevant. The name of the holiday, maybe a summary of it, the significance, the mood of the holiday, who celebrates it, maybe what traditions exist. That's just ideas off the top of my head. You could even go into things like what outfits people are expected to wear, whether it's a working or non-working holiday, what decorations maybe people put up, local backstory, and maybe the true backstory if it's actually a little different.

I've thrown out some ideas about holidays, but here's one final tip. If you don't have any ideas for holidays, you can't think of anything, and you want to make one, take one that you celebrate and tweak it a little bit. Like maybe it's Krampus, but it's a powerful fey creature. All the kids are asked to leave out sugar and mead on the doorstep because that means that the Crimson Lady will pass you by, keeping you safe. Or maybe it's Armistice Day, but from the Great Giant War. Think Flanders Fields, but it's magical flora of some sort, where the flowers grow in the shape of war medals from a prominent nation that fought there. Holidays are opportunities to bring PCs and NPCs together in celebration or

remembrance, in large groups or small. These gatherings can make for great roleplay moments or act as a catalyst for the next stage of the adventure. Think about making a holiday or two for your world, even if it's only celebrated by a small group of people. Put the characters in the mix and I'll bet you and your players will have fun doing it. Here is usually where I ask you to like or rate the podcast or something similar, but I have a slightly different ask this week. Reach out to someone, family member, gaming buddy, old friend, or co-worker. Tell them that you think about them, and they're on your mind, that you love them, and you're glad that they're in your life. The holidays can be a hard time for some people, and sometimes just a conversation, a lunch, or even a kind word can make the difference for those you love. I once again want to thank this week's sponsor, the book Resigned, How to

Know When It's Time to Go. As someone who's changed jobs my share of times, if your work is driving you crazy and you're considering leaving for greener pastures, this book can help you along your journey. Resigned, How to Know When It's Time to Go, available on Amazon.com. I also want to thank our other sponsor, Decorations. If you're looking for the best place to buy holiday decorations, head to Hollywood, California. After all, it is called Tinseltown. This episode closes out 2022 for me, and as a reminder, there will be no new episode on January 1st. Next one's coming January 8th, though. I want to wish you and yours the happiest of holidays

and most prosperous and happy 2023. And as always, I hope that your next game is your best game. The Taking 20 Podcast is a Publishing Cube Media Production. Copyright 2022. References to game system content are copyrighted is your best game.