A Comprehensive Guide to the Noctees: Holidays · 8:25pm Mar 9th, 2015
Every Nightmancer family and all of their Covens have two specific festivities. One that happens every year in honor of the goddess, and one every two in honor of their particular patron or saint. In these occasions it's common for Noctees to hold a feast which includes the entire Coven, followed by a series of chants and dancing that very often last the entire night. The next day is used entirely for resting (and very possibly dealing with hangovers).
There is a night, though, when the festival of Naqesis and that of the Coven's saint come to pass together, which is hold once every hundred and twenty years or so. This religious festivity is called the Allmother's Eve and is the largest of them all. It represents the end of a Night Cycle and the start of a new Noctees year.
There may be many ways to hold the celebration, due to the particular nature of a patron's followers, but by all reckoning this festivity is always portrayed as a massive party where all the Coven's inhabitants are involved, and when any Nightmancer from other families can come as well, even if their postures can be considered as opposites, to be received in a warmth and friendly ambient without such thing as otherwise soured grudges.
By pony terms it wold be like a Noctees version of Hearth's Warming Eve and the Grand Galloping Gala put together, but because of the proliferation of Covens and saints, and the long term view of the Nightmancers, this time of celebration extents an entire year, every different Coven having its particular night to celebrate. To such a special occasion countless supplies stocks that have being saved through the century, most commonly inherited by the elderly, are finally taken out of storage and shared with neighbors as a tradition between Thestrals, and many gifts are given and received amongst Nightmancers, being them from the same families or not (though, if there's a visiting family it's accustomed that the exchange should happen between the two of them, and not amidst). This time has a political weight as well, for it is known that Allfathers have come to suspend ongoing conflicts or negotiate truces of the entire year of celebration just to reassume them the next.
During this nights the gates of the Covens are open for any visitor to enter and join the generalized party, and not only Noctees, but any race member can join the gift exchanges, and partake in feasts that can feed an entire family for a week if he or she wants to. Moreover, this time of the year anyone who wishes to learn the Noctees ways is able to try and win the Nightmancers' approval in order for him to become a pupil under their tutelage. Their entire family is taken as well, and the next years will be spent in teaching the candidate and his or her firstborn about the Noctees methods.
This time used to be about celebrating unity and prosper, but even though these times used to be about celebrating the spirit of the night, and sharing with the other non-Noctees, sadly, due to recent events, the attendance to these kind of parties used to be closed to the general public, as well as almost everything else about Noctees's culture for the last thousand years. Although there were always persistent rumors that the music could be heard from inside the mountains, and that many mysterious baskets with supplies and other stranger items could be found abandoned in river marshes near their foothills by this season.
