Applebark Festival

The Applebark Festival is celebrated by harvesting fall stonefruits, such as apples, and trimming the tree's branches in preparation for winter. Trimmed branches are wrapped in scripture and ritualistically burned, oftentimes being used to cook celebratory foods over. As a harvest festival, the event is popular with aspiring cooks and chefs to test their skills and impress their peers, making elaborate dishes to serve their communities. Even those who are not followers of the death god will often attend local festivals, bringing a wider array of ingredients to be cooked into community meals such as gratins, rice puddings, oatmeals, and stews. Typically, the festival will focus on in season fall dishes including pumpkins, wheat, corns, and other grains into hearty meals.   A popular tradition for the festival is pie contents, wherein bakers will make elaborately woven pies decorated with crusts depicting scenes from myths, legends, or folklore. Pies are judged on their beauty, construction skill, and of course their taste and recipe with a heavy favoring to recipes created by the bakers themselves. Other such contests are also popular, such as those for breads, desserts, and more savory meals such as chilis and smoked meats. Mushroom foraging contests are also a quite popular event, particularly with those raising pigs.   Despite strongly being a food focused holiday, the festival is a more somber event and generally used to mourn those that did not survive until the festival, and to pray for the easy passing of those who will not survive until the next. Preparation for the harsh winters is commonly done during the festival, such as preserving foods for throughout winter, repairs to livestock and grain storage areas, and restoration of grave sites. Temples and shrines to the death god will commonly stock up on goods to be given out to the community during the festival, and give them to those in need following it.   Commonly, Shia's Cult will also use the festival as a time to prepare new Death Masks for those who need a replacement or to repair damaged ones.