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Happy Holidays from the Flaming Crab!
In honor of the winter solstice (which, I know, happened yesterday) I thought I'd give everyone a taste of Flaming Crab's latest book, Letters from the Flaming Crab: Wheel of the Year.
In Wheel of the Year we look at traditional pagan holidays, explore their meanings, festivals, and the effects those special days have on magic. Each holiday even gets their own spell/ritual ranging from "making gifts" to "healing wells" to "special time in the forest for couples".
The end result? Holidays you can easily transplant into your own campaign world for flavor and fun. Keep them as is or alter them as needed. Sure, your world might not have a Beltane but chances are it might have a "spring life affirmation" holiday by another name.
So, without further ado, here's a glimpse of what Yule looks like.
Taking place on the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, Yule is a festival celebrating the changing of the seasons. Technically, Yule is only the first day of the holiday. A longer celebration, known as Yuletide starts at the solstice and lasts for twelve days in total. Symbolizing rebirth, holly and evergreen boughs are brought into homes to decorate.
The occasion begins with religious ceremonies, leading up to the sacrifice of a white bull. After the sacrifice, there are three traditional toasts to the deities. First, a toast is offered to the father god; next, to the patron deity of the community; and finally, to a mother goddess. After the collective toasts, the children of the settlement go from house to house, carrying evergreen or holly and wheat stalks to represent eternal life and the harvest respectively.
At each home they collect gifts of clove-spiked fruits. After making the rounds, celebrants revel through the night, dancing, singing, and drinking spiced wine around massive bonfires.
The largest fire in the community is centered on a massive log called the Yule Log which burns all night and is left to smolder for the remaining days of Yuletide. The coming of the sun after the festival is said to drive out the evil spirits from the world, bringing longer days, peace, and good tidings to the celebrants.
Deities
Yule (and Yuletide) are sacred to father gods, and to gods and goddesses of ancestors, fertility (especially male fertility), kingship, nobility, and wisdom.
Mystic Resonance
Yule creates a mystic resonance that lasts through the end of Yuletide.
Though Yule begins on the longest night of the year, it is a celebration of hope for the future and the return of the sun. Once per day during Yuletide, a caster can apply a single metamagic feat to any spell with the fire or light descriptor without increasing the spell’s level for prepared casters, even if they do not possess the feat. The caster need not possess the metamagic feat to apply it to the spell.
In addition, after casting a spell with the fire or light descriptor, the caster can roll a 1d12. If the number rolled matches the current day of Yuletide the spell is not expended with this casting. For prepared casters, this means the spell is available for use again. For spontaneous casters, the slot is available for any qualifying spell.
During this time period, when casting a necromancy spell, the caster must succeed at a concentration check or the spell fails and is wasted. The DC of the concentration check is equal to 10 + the number of days of Yuletide that have passed.
Ritual
THE YULE TREE
School conjuration (summoning); Level bard 3, cleric 4, druid 3, shaman 3, sorcerer/wizard 4, witch 4
Casting Time 1 hour
Components V, S, M (sacrificed bull or ram)
Target 1 evergreen tree
Duration 12 days (items summoned are permanent)
Saving Throw none; Spell Resistance yes
On the day of Yule, an evergreen chopped down under the moon the night before can be transformed into a Yule tree. The initial ritual lasts 1 hour, requiring the sacrifice of a bull or ram. The blood of the animal is sprinkled across the greenery of the tree, pooling in small pin pricks that appear to glow with twinkling light, making the tree shine in red and green.
Once complete the tree has a magical capacity to summon an item that the user desires. Those who ask for a boon must first be sprinkled with drops of blood from the sacrifice using a branch from the tree. After the petitioner visualizes their desire the item materializes beneath the tree. This can be used to summon any item worth up to 5
gp cost per person. An individual may only benefit from this ritual once per year.
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And that's Yule! The other holidays that can be found in Wheel of the Year are: full moon, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Midsummer, Lughnasadh, Mabon, and Samhain. Nine holidays in all.
Letters from the Flaming Crab: Wheel of the Year is available here on the Paizo store, over at DriveThruRPG and RPGNow, and on the Open Gaming Store.
Props to JJ Jordan, Nate Love, and Lucus Palossari for writing the book and to Allen Morris, who did the incredible art for the book.
This book was a lot of fun to help write, and while I did do a bit more research "at the time" it also let me apply some fun knowledge from other parts of my life and friends and even other gaming experience (World of Darkness :D) and port-over some Pathfinder mechanics!