Kraghor
Baron
The dwarven kingdom of Grainland did not celebrate the change of seasons in winter - everyone was busy smithing and doing other things in huge underground cities. Neither did dwarves celebrate the coming of spring - everyone was working the fields. Summer was a more relaxed time when they went to war against a lich who made the unfortunate choice of burying his phylactery somewhere in the area. There was still some work to do in the fields after that, so dwarves had little time for festivities. It was the first week of autumn when the holiday spirit could be felt in the air. For that's when the whole kingdom partook in the Festival of Harvest.
During that week, every dwarf family carried out the food they've prepared for this year and put it on the table. The incredibly long and wide table which was put in the middle of a village or town just for the occasion. At its core, the Festival's purpose was purely pragmatic - get rid of the old food. Because dwarves tended to hoard not just gold. However, food tended to spoil if left to lie for too long and just throwing it away felt like sacrilege. With fresh grain and vegetables ready to be canned and preserved for winter, jars of properly marinated goods were removed from basements and shared with the neighbours.
From a dwarf's point of view, the Festival was a peak of camaraderie when everyone came together to have a good time. Grudges got settled, news - exchanged and rivers of beer were consumed in the process. Even non-humanoids were looking forward to it. Dogs, cats, birds and other animals - both domesticated and wild - enjoyed the opportunity to nab something from the table with no risk of getting scolded. Of course, for some animals the event was different. Chickens, for example, referred to that time as the Week of Doom. Tourists, meanwhile, could not refer to anything due to being blackout drunk. Those were curious individuals - most of them could not remember how they spent the Festival. A tourist's most common memory tended to be an apocalyptic picture of a ravaged settlement full of passed out bodies with those few standing upright looking like zombies. And the eerie silence that coated the area served to highlight the ringing in their hungover heads. Yet, they came again and again, year after year. A side effect of such visitors were the rumours that Grainland got overrun with undead every autumn. The habit of dwarves to sit the winters out in cozy and warm underground polises only reinforced those false claims.
While a week-long feast described the event perfectly, food and alcohol were not the only attractions. A spanner-throwing contest was held along with it. This activity, considered by some to be the most important driving force of innovation, involved disabling various machines by throwing regular spanners at them. Whoever managed to disable most machines using the least amount of throws was awarded with a golden spanner. The machines were then inspected, repaired and altered during winter, allowing dwarves to constantly improve their technology. While most people did this purely for fun, some took the contest seriously. The most notorious cases of that involved engineers consciously putting fatal, yet hidden design flaws in their inventions which could then be exploited with a single well-placed spanner. Such a move has been dubbed "exhaust port gambit" and was generally frowned upon. Eventually, to counter such behavior, a golden cog award was established - it was given to engineers whose machines proved to be the most resilient in that particular year. Thus, more competitive minds were given a good reason to play fair and push the limits of technology in the right direction.
Once the Festival was over, the dwarves cleaned up the mess and prepared to transport the harvested food underground. You may be wondering - if they spent that whole week in a blur, when did the harvest happen? The answer is simple - golems. Towering amalgamations of technology and magic, harvesting golems constantly monitored the state of plants, soil and weather, waiting for a perfect moment to extract the edible riches from the ground. Before the invention of golems, autumn was a fairly nervous time since the dwarves were afraid to start the harvest too late or too early. When golems were first introduced, most dwarves eyed them suspiciously and continued to measure, inspect and calculate. Just in case the golem got something wrong. Eventually, golems proved themselves to be reliable and the dwarves - still nervous on a subconscious level - found they had absolutely nothing to do for a few weeks now that the harvest was automated. So they started getting together and drinking to help each other relax. Rivers of bub required some grub, so canned food got extracted from the basements. Such pastime proved to be quite entertaining in addition to serving its purpose and eventually became an officially recognised kingdom-wide tradition.
The Festival of Harvest is still celebrated to this day. Born from pure pragmatism, the event soon became one of the most important parts of dwarven culture. Even those away from home try to organise a little feast for their neighbours. Of course, the spanner-throwing contest remains exclusive to Grainland itself. But anyone living near a dwarf has a chance to experience getting blackout drunk and waking up in a ruined flat. The consequences of that might take the rest of the autumn to deal with too and could even involve spanners. Thus, the Festival of Harvest can be considered one of the few truly worldwide holidays. Regardless of whether the world likes it or not.
During that week, every dwarf family carried out the food they've prepared for this year and put it on the table. The incredibly long and wide table which was put in the middle of a village or town just for the occasion. At its core, the Festival's purpose was purely pragmatic - get rid of the old food. Because dwarves tended to hoard not just gold. However, food tended to spoil if left to lie for too long and just throwing it away felt like sacrilege. With fresh grain and vegetables ready to be canned and preserved for winter, jars of properly marinated goods were removed from basements and shared with the neighbours.
From a dwarf's point of view, the Festival was a peak of camaraderie when everyone came together to have a good time. Grudges got settled, news - exchanged and rivers of beer were consumed in the process. Even non-humanoids were looking forward to it. Dogs, cats, birds and other animals - both domesticated and wild - enjoyed the opportunity to nab something from the table with no risk of getting scolded. Of course, for some animals the event was different. Chickens, for example, referred to that time as the Week of Doom. Tourists, meanwhile, could not refer to anything due to being blackout drunk. Those were curious individuals - most of them could not remember how they spent the Festival. A tourist's most common memory tended to be an apocalyptic picture of a ravaged settlement full of passed out bodies with those few standing upright looking like zombies. And the eerie silence that coated the area served to highlight the ringing in their hungover heads. Yet, they came again and again, year after year. A side effect of such visitors were the rumours that Grainland got overrun with undead every autumn. The habit of dwarves to sit the winters out in cozy and warm underground polises only reinforced those false claims.
While a week-long feast described the event perfectly, food and alcohol were not the only attractions. A spanner-throwing contest was held along with it. This activity, considered by some to be the most important driving force of innovation, involved disabling various machines by throwing regular spanners at them. Whoever managed to disable most machines using the least amount of throws was awarded with a golden spanner. The machines were then inspected, repaired and altered during winter, allowing dwarves to constantly improve their technology. While most people did this purely for fun, some took the contest seriously. The most notorious cases of that involved engineers consciously putting fatal, yet hidden design flaws in their inventions which could then be exploited with a single well-placed spanner. Such a move has been dubbed "exhaust port gambit" and was generally frowned upon. Eventually, to counter such behavior, a golden cog award was established - it was given to engineers whose machines proved to be the most resilient in that particular year. Thus, more competitive minds were given a good reason to play fair and push the limits of technology in the right direction.
Once the Festival was over, the dwarves cleaned up the mess and prepared to transport the harvested food underground. You may be wondering - if they spent that whole week in a blur, when did the harvest happen? The answer is simple - golems. Towering amalgamations of technology and magic, harvesting golems constantly monitored the state of plants, soil and weather, waiting for a perfect moment to extract the edible riches from the ground. Before the invention of golems, autumn was a fairly nervous time since the dwarves were afraid to start the harvest too late or too early. When golems were first introduced, most dwarves eyed them suspiciously and continued to measure, inspect and calculate. Just in case the golem got something wrong. Eventually, golems proved themselves to be reliable and the dwarves - still nervous on a subconscious level - found they had absolutely nothing to do for a few weeks now that the harvest was automated. So they started getting together and drinking to help each other relax. Rivers of bub required some grub, so canned food got extracted from the basements. Such pastime proved to be quite entertaining in addition to serving its purpose and eventually became an officially recognised kingdom-wide tradition.
The Festival of Harvest is still celebrated to this day. Born from pure pragmatism, the event soon became one of the most important parts of dwarven culture. Even those away from home try to organise a little feast for their neighbours. Of course, the spanner-throwing contest remains exclusive to Grainland itself. But anyone living near a dwarf has a chance to experience getting blackout drunk and waking up in a ruined flat. The consequences of that might take the rest of the autumn to deal with too and could even involve spanners. Thus, the Festival of Harvest can be considered one of the few truly worldwide holidays. Regardless of whether the world likes it or not.