Ghostmare's Eve

With a calendar year of three-hundred-sixty-five days, fifty-two weeks in a year and seven days in those weeks, there are bound to be countless birthdays and celebrations on behalf of the people of both the Human race - and all others - on the day of their birth every single year.

And akin to this, there are four known major holidays that take place throughout the year in celebration of various traditions passed down through history from the world's founders and ancestors. One of these four holiday's is celebrated at the end of the month of Redfall - October - and Snowmoot - November - and is one of the most well known holidays and has the second-longest known history due to it's ancient origins within the Histian Empire and is believed to have been passed down from an unknown group even longer before that. 

This holiday is known as Ghostmare's Eve.

Beginning on the last day of October and ending on the first day of November, this two day, two night festival is one of the longest-celebrated holidays in Rethium, but lags just behind Boblenicken, the holiday celebrated on the twenty-fifth of December, which is also known as Fellnight, in terms of it's long-recorded history and origins which are believed to be a nightly festival held in the Pantheonic Age for some at the time unknown religious purpose. 

There are many things about Ghostmare's Eve which cement it's importance to the world, but one reason in particular stands out the most to historians. On these particular nights, the spirits of the dead are allowed to visit their former home in order to speak and to entertain with their loved ones and descendants before being called upon to pass into the afterlife by the gods and their angelic hosts residing within the heavenly realm which rests above the mortal realm. 

These spirits are not vengeful, and in fact return most of the time due to an unfinished piece of business or that of some other nature, and can be found wandering aimlessly through the city while the largest known congregations take place within the main grounds of the holiday and it's festivities. Often gathering in the hundreds or more, they can speak openly to the living as though they had never passed on, but they cannot interact with physical objects the way that Humans or other beings can. On the first night of Ghostmare's Eve it is common to see many spirits communing with their loved ones and giving them a task of some kind to complete which will allow the spirit to pass on into the afterlife. Due to the nature of the spirits and the belief by the living of the power of those spirits and the angels and gods that watch over them, the living never fear the dead and instead welcome them. It is a common moment to see families and friends speaking with small numbers of ghosts in a gathering, reliving old memories and regaling old stories and tales from long-ago history. 

It is said to bring vast blessings, goodwill and luck to those who assist the dead with their final errands in order to help them pass on to the other side, and as a result of a completed task, it is not above or below the spirits to manifest a physical gift to them in return to provide this blessing. It is not a chosen gift from the gods however, and is in fact whatever object or other thing that a spirit believes will assist the living in some way or another throughout their own lives. However, to ignore the wishes of a spirit is to deny their rest and will keep them tied to the physical world through unknown magical means. This is a highly discouraged action however, and even those who are known to have shown a dislike for their family members are prone to offering assistance to their deceased in order to help them pass on from the world. It is said that should one refuse to assist their loved ones on these nights, they will receive a year's worth of bad luck and misfortune until the next year's holiday celebrations, after which they will be given a second chance to assist the dead into passing on to the immortal heavenly realm. 

The connection that this holiday makes to the celestial bodies around Tarris Six is that of the near-convergence of three known stars in the night sky which only happens every fifty years or more depending on the cycle of the stars. These stars each belong to a constellation that is named after a deity. The first is the star Rydall, of the constellation of The Great Peacemaker, which honors the titular goddess. The second is Pitosaes, of the constellation of the Guardian of The Gate, which depicts Pitos, the god of death and the gates through which one must pass to reach either the heavenly or hellish realm. The third and final star is Dybrus Prime, which crowns the constellation of The Dove, which depicts the titular bird standing over a broken thread, often thought to represent the death of a mortal being and the severing of life from the mortal plane. When these three stars are closest together, the energy that moves the spirits and holds them to the mortal world is at it's strongest, and yet during this time, the shortest period during which they can receive help takes place. This near-perfect alignment of the three stars only takes place every hundred years or so, meaning that during it's strongest peak, the shortest amount of time is provided to assist the dead in moving on. If they do not successfully reach the heavens, it is assumed they are pulled into a spiritual hell for the next year until a second chance is provided to save them. 

It is believed that Unione was one of the first to partake in this ancient tradition as a ghost before she was able to access heaven and pass on peacefully. She, as a spirit, communicated with her traveling group in order to tell them that she had passed on after being lost in a storm near the mountain's peak and that she had done so peacefully, even though she had been worried at the time about their own condition and whether or not they themselves had been lost before her. She tried to convince them to move down the slopes and past the valley in order to seek shelter, but their leader was undeterred and denied Unione's advice. He did however grant her the wish she needed in order to pass on, and wished her well until they might see one another again on the other side. This farewell would be their last, and it would be the fatal mistake that would lead to the group's demise the next day on a higher slope of the mountain, not much closer to the summit than they had been the day before.