Starfall Festival

At the beginning of each summer The World Behind celebrates Starfall , its magic, its heroes, and remembers those who fell in its aftermath. The festival begins when the first Inferia flowers blossom, a signal that the summer heat has fully arrived, which means the festival occurs as a wave across the continents from south to north, such that some bards follow it, performing at each new festival stop as it reaches its peak. The festival lasts for four days and four nights, the time it is said it took the land to cease its shaking and changing after the Starfall impact, and during this all non-festival related businesses close. The days are a mixture of games, competitions, and rest, while the evenings and nights are full of street food, songs, and stories. The final day and night specifically are dedicated to costumery and live reenactments of heroes of the Starfall era, with kids dressing as their favorite character from the stories and being addressed by the festival attendees appropriately.

Competitions

While many towns have more typical small festival games (which may or may not be rigged), a few of the cities have larger scale events. Toronen may usually be a calm agricultural town, but when the festival comes around hundreds if not thousands travel to it for the Heroes Games that take place on the second and third days of the celebration. Thanks to its close proximity to both Soirenta's middle-plains, Paragon Canyon, and Paragon lake, Toronen can host a number of competitions based on the different geographies, emphasizing different physical skills. Strength, dexterity, and endurance are tested in varying ways across the two days in manners which all (or at least most) Saurian races can be included in, with the exception of flying specific races for Dromeus . The games on the second day are typically more amateur level, where those who are aspiring to enter the serious leagues the next year will participate, while day three is those who have proven their adeptness at their physical craft. Many of the competitions are named or themed after heroes/stories from the Starfall era, emphasizing the carry through of abilities since the time of heroes. One of the biggest events is the long-leg race, where the competitors have from the break of dawn on the third day until the sun sets to traverse a segment of the canyon to the western side of the lake, cross the lake, and finally ends in a dead run across the plains to the finish line. The winner is judged not just on speed but overall performance, with this being considered one of the true tests of who could hold up to the heroes of lore.

Promenade also hosts a city wide competition during the festival, but theirs is focused on the arts, not physical capability. Artists from all over Soirenta and parts of Kayenta gather in Promenade to show off their works (and actively work on new pieces/songs/dances/stories) during the festival, each trying to represent the history of The World Behind in some new and profound way, or at least in some way that evokes the honoring of Starfall. While there are competitions based on art form, so judging best painting, best embroidery, etc, the real competition is reputation and word of mouth. How successful the artist or bard will be for the rest of the year can be decided by their performance at the Starfall festival, with the most popular individuals finding themselves highly in demand across the continents.

Other

On Kayenta, Koroussa has a unique way of celebrating. Potentially due to their original location at the base of the mountains that dates back to the original impact, Koroussa of all cities has a heavy focus on those lost. Starfall there is less a festival and more a memorial, a city wide mourning. There is respect for the heroes and magic that the rest of the country celebrates, but the honor goes to those who died to allow that world to come to fruition. For three and a half days the city transforms into a sea of white and dark red, the colors of death, which transforms into brilliant greens and browns on the final night to announce the continuation of life in the wake of that loss.