The Caelester Festival is a midsummer celebration of the founding of
Caelester. Once a solemn rememberance of the fallen, it has come to be a celebration of the founding and the city's many accomplishments over the years.
History
Originally, the festival was held a few days before midsummer, on the anniversary of the sealing of
Kalshazzak Aesymnetes, the last Emperor of the
Asurian empire. It held a dual purpose: to remember the many heroes who fought and died in that battle, and to remind the people of the city's sacred duty to watch over the seal and ensure that the immortal emperor could never be freed from his prison.
Over time, it came to be conflated with the midsummer feast a few days later - planning two important festivals back to back was a consistent logistical hurdle, and, around a century after the passing of
Rhille the Swift, founder of the city and last known hero from that ancient battle, the two events were merged, with memorial events about the battle being held in the afternoon, followed by the midsummer feast in the evening. Over the years, the festivities of the midsummer feast grew more and more elaborate and interest in the memorial dwindled.
Modern Festivities
In its current form, the Caelester Festival is an all day celebration, typically starting with a breakfast feast, followed by a long string of competitions of skills as varied as archery, cooking, and woodcarving (with some competitions allowing people to bring whatever they wished to prepare in advance, while others being a demonstration of skill with raw materials provided), exhibitions of artistic endeavour and wonders brought from in from far off realms, and playful reenactments of dramatic moments of Caelester's history. What's left of the original rememberance ceremony is one of these reenactments, often performed by children wielding wooden swords.
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