Festival of Danaa’d
Time: Annual, 13th to 15th days of Resplendent Water.
Location: Realm-wide
Host: Immaculate Order
Invitations: Public
Theme and Activity: This festival is a celebration of the Immaculate Dragon of Water, Danaa'd. The inhabitants of the Realm, from Dynast to peasant, wear clothes (or, in the case of the poor, scraps of cloth tied in hair or as armbands) displaying shades of black or dark blue and sometimes maritime imagery.
The first day of the Festival is traditionally a day of mass prayers (not only to the Elemental Dragon of Water, but to numerous other deities scheduled to receive their due on this day according to the Prayer Calendar) and reflection on how one might emulate the Water Immaculate and refrain from approximating the Unmanly Babbler, taking place at all Immaculate temples and shrines regardless of individual leaning. Monks will walk the streets to gather crowds for prayer and read tales of the Water Dragon from the Immaculate Texts.
The second day (14 Resplendent Water, the season’s ‘Apex’) is traditionally a day of parades and open celebration, where aspects of Water are encouraged to flare their animas in public. At dawn, a parade of Immaculate monks leaves each temple, carrying wave-pattern lanterns and placards displaying relevant quotes from the Immaculate texts. These monks chant the hymns of Danaa’d as they walk through the streets of their towns and cities. As they travel, they scatter water upon the streets and passers-by from wooden barrels on their backs, to cleanse their surroundings of ill thoughts.
The Festival of Danaa’d is a time to bury secrets and vices. Traditionally on the final day of the Festival, people across Creation gather up small symbols of their vices, those thing that distract them from perfecting their own Essence. These they wrap tightly in cloth or lock in boxes, and cast into the sea or bury... a greedy merchant might bury the gemstones he has hoarded, a lustful young man might drown his wood-block pornography, a soldier might honour a retirement promise to his wife by burying his sword. The ritual is said to be symbolic of the Jade Prison in which the Anathema were bound, and it has been said for centuries that things buried on the festival day of Danaa’d would never resurface (a thing seen as so inauspicious even looters and criminals on the Isle oft refrained from digging them up) but in the past few years many have begun to quietly doubt the veracity of such beliefs as the Anathema, sealed by the Immaculate of Water herself, seem to be appearing in greater numbers than ever before.
Once these packages are disposed of, the rest of the day (and, in principle, the rest of one’s life, though few Dynasts in the Imperial City persevere beyond the season).
