Night of Candles
Celebrated annually in Laesnum and the surrounding countryside, the Night of Candles stands as the city's most important festival. While encompassing games, dance, and communal revelry the event harkens back to its many centuries-old roots as a quaint event honored in farming villages across Fennao, yet in Laesnum it mixes with the clattering, frenetic, drunken hooliganism characteristic of a city home to two and a half million people. On no other night is the wonder and debauchery of the largest city in the world put on such clear display.
The Festivities
Celebrating Candle Night is a raucous and sometimes violent affair, often fueled by alcohol, traditionally Mauro. It started with humble rituals that have grown wildly as the technology, population, and economic power in Laesnum has exploded. Street performers, theater troupes, and musicians are common fixtures across the city, as well as vendors for food and drink, carved Myma Masks and other traditional costumes, and curios from beyond Fennao or the empire entirely. These troupes often congregate into mobs or gangs, which sometimes clash with the city forces and usually only fully disperse the following morning.
Corrupted History
The Night of Candles, or Candle Night, is an ancient celebration drawing on basic roots. It began over a millennia ago, in the misty pre-Nadallic Fennao and like many traditions of that era, it was co-opted by Ascendist culture. The ages old tradition of burning candles through the nights was adopted as a core Ascendists symbol, along with the bronze chimes of Fennant cities—shaken from their original contex as devotions to the Maker—and spread across Omwela and Asena with the Ascendants' armies.
Despite this change of focus, time has little altered the festival except expanded its scope. It began as a party running through the night, with communal games and storytelling aided by free-flowing alcohol—a rarer commodity then—and this description remains largely true over a thousand years later. Though, perhaps, it has ramped up in terms of its violence and use as a cultural pressure release.
Lights and Fires
The event takes its name from the candles and lanterns all revelers are obliged to leave burning to honor the Ascendants. Previously, revelers traditionally made the old-style candles from animal tallow, keeping with the holiday's farming community roots, however, modern adherents generally purchase mass produced flares from the colossal Candlesworks, where chandlers make and stockpile them for months leading up to the festival. This also serves as a religious tithe and governmental tax of sorts, as the priesthoods own and manage the major Candleworks.
There are consequences to this display of faith, as minor fires are know to sometimes occur--so much so that the day following the Night of Candles is commonly known as the Day of Ashes. However, the city forces generally keep matters tamped down and significant fires have become more uncommon. The only notable fire started from Candlenight, was in the 360s, when the city was hugely depopulated during the first Orilon War and a large swath of the southeastern quadrant was burned, not to be restored until Laesnum rebounded in the late 400s.
"[Laesnum] is never brighter and never darker than during Candle Night. [It is a] warren of shadows. I haven't felt more awake than through that night ... Praise Nadall for this!"
Related Locations
Laesnum
Occurrence
Candle Night happens annually on 22nd, Kaesh Eo Unes, the middle date of the year which symbolizes its zenith.
Antecedence
The Brilliant Chronicle directly attests to the Night of Candles being celebrated at least 1200 years ago, in pre-Nadallic Fennao. However, the oldest oral histories claim it, along with veneration of the Maker, the primary Fennao deity before the Ascendants, have been celebrated for significantly longer. This leaves its true history largely lost, like so many other pre-Nadallic customs.
Laesnum
Occurrence
Candle Night happens annually on 22nd, Kaesh Eo Unes, the middle date of the year which symbolizes its zenith.
Antecedence
The Brilliant Chronicle directly attests to the Night of Candles being celebrated at least 1200 years ago, in pre-Nadallic Fennao. However, the oldest oral histories claim it, along with veneration of the Maker, the primary Fennao deity before the Ascendants, have been celebrated for significantly longer. This leaves its true history largely lost, like so many other pre-Nadallic customs.
Midnight View
Besides the chimes typical of many empire cities, the night lights and fires are part of what make Laesnum a unique sight. The massive sea of glinting lights are reflected in the Tysoiki Mirrors and create a doubled effect, a city above and below, which has become a widely recounted vista for travelers and pilgrims.
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