Worldbuilding festivals! 5 ways they can make amazing stories, novels and DnD campaigns

[@dogefanno1012]

This womans voice is like the best explanation voice ever. Its awesome.

[@WorldAnvil]

Janet is an opera singer, so her voice is amazing! Glad you enjoyed the video 😍

[@Adam-cq2yo]

I'm already ahead on the challenge. My D&D campaign will begin the day before the party arrives in a city. The next three days will be a festival-type holiday that celebrates the nature god for saving the continent from a catastrophic corruption that was spreading. The party will have to find a contact during that festival. Hoping that it'll be fun!

[@avarumlands9385]

This probably was the vid that I clicked the fastest to watch. This is so so so so important for my soft worldbuilding campaigns and stories. Having things happening and changing in my world to create variation and interest is like my main core "mechanic" to provide fun/entertainment. Festivals are almost always my go-to plan to implement that. Loveee it. Also gonna read the blog content to go more in-depth/absorb it better :)

[@e.christopherclark7367]

These are super well-timed for me. They come out each Friday about an hour before I am scheduled to teach myself, so they're definitely inspiring in that regard. PLUS, as a writer, they make me want to start writing right away.

[@Serukis]

Great video, Janet! :D I love festivals but hadn't thought about all the different ways that they could be used to interact with and spark off a story/adventure! :D

[@maybestewart2773]

As always, another super helpful video from Janet, and just in time for me to delve into rewrites on the festival in my novel. I particularly enjoyed the section on using festivals for pantheon exposition. Well done!

[@SableAradia1]

Great video, as always, Janet! I used a harvest festival as an opportunity for the bad guys to do an act of deep evil in my Wyrd West novels (with all kinds of those lovely complications for the protagonists you're talking about,) and I used a festival of love and spring to kick-jump our streamed campaign on Twitch :D Always a good storytelling device.

[@ProjectEchoshadow]

It’s ignite week a full week of celebration in memorial to the legendary rainbow Phoenix.

[@danthiel8623]

Festivals are in months divided from 1000 years each each year has 364 days and then 13 months for each section celebrating anything ranging from magical to quite mundane or small

[@b_g_c3281]

This is absolutely excellent!!

[@gragsbeadle5701]

Has always been a big story hook, means of exposition for me after running Rise of the Runelords, back in the day it was a Paizo product for 3.5, pre-Pathfinder. Also nice shout out to Ashton, just 10 miles from where I was brought up in Lowick, near Thrapston

[@supergaminggeek5546]

Why are the videos referring to what has happened to my session prior to the upload ;-; Let's see how far this goes. Let me share the festival. Reliance Festival, test your faith to your deity or see which closest connects with you by drinking a blue liquid that makes you hallucinate. There are also blessings relating to the gods. The last thing to do is have a feast before him(Him been the God of worship). The festival uses bread plates which are given to the party afterwards(the members that loved medieval culture loved it). Hope you enjoyed this.

[@amywintersvoss]

Thank you for posting this - you gave me several ideas to pop into my next novel! (And thanks for the Hotaru Park Soba Day feature!

[@kaleidechse]

Great video with lots of great suggestions! My world's calendars really need more holidays to spice them up, so this will be very useful. I already have a few historical events and seasonal turning points in mind. Not sure how many of these I will actually use in the story later, but either way this will be really helpful for gaining a better understanding of my cultures!

[@mollof7893]

One of the things few every culture experience in my world is the Red Months. It's an event that accure every 650th year or so and it is catastrohpic with more extreme weather. It accure due to the red dwarf align with the planet which causes additional gravitational pul. I imagine in the years leading up to this event people may host festivals where they just live life, because they all might die soon.

[@camiloguadalupetorres2442]

Great ideas!! Thanks!!

[@wellard32]

Grim dark music festival, Woodstock meets.....

[@ruthb7557]

More videos please .. miss you guys talking!

[@wafflingmean4477]

I might take advantage of festivals then lol. Also is there a way to turn off autosave on World Anvil? I think it may be causing a lot of lag on my bigger documents.

[@SirToaster9330]

All these videos are helpful, it only I wasn't so damn lazy!

[@TheDcraft]

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire does this with the Quidditch World Cup. Rowling shows us a bit of the world outside of Hogwarts and even the UK. New characters and important characters are introduced or foreshadowed as is the Triwizard Tournament.

[@WorldAnvil]

That's a good example! It's a fun sequence for the reader and very useful for the plot and the worldbuilding. 😄

[@Lilas.Duveteux]

I have a plot idea for this, but this is not world building, mostly historical fiction. So, just imagine a family of executioners all centering in Paris despite the absolute insanity, to teach kids how to sell human fat to students of particularly violent schools. However, they way they go about it, is like they only take the oldest kids (12 and above), the rest stay with mom and grandma. But because of all their clashing personalities, it becomes quite funny.

[@WorldAnvil]

clashing personalities add odd-ball pairings are sch a great way to approach this!

[@Lilas.Duveteux]

@@WorldAnvil Thanks !