Nami Annual Celebrations

Comissioned Male Poseidonous Satyr by Zeta Gardner

"I don't know if attending Nami celebration festivals will win me the blessings of the Lady of Winds or not, but I might as well try just in case. These festivals are a lot of fun whether they work or not.
Nami wants mortals to enjoy life. Who are we to disagree with her?
-Alexy, Poseidonus satyr

When it comes to ordinary mortals worshipping the Nine, worship of the goddess Nami specifically is often broad in Scarterra but not very deep.
In many places, there is one large Nami festival every year, maybe two Nami festivals, but Nami is generally not venerated or thought of much the rest of the year.
Based on communication from Nami's spirits and oracles and passed down oral lore, most assume that Nami is a very laissez faire goddess that loves freedom and doesn't want to command mortals on how to live their lives.

"Some of Nami's detractors believe that Nami is a lazy or uncaring deity, and won't answer prayers anyway, so one should not bother wasting breath on prayers and venerations.
This is simply not true. It is not like the rest of the Nine are obligated to answer every mortals' requests, so why should Nami be expected to answer every request. Also, not every divine act of the Nine is flashy and obvious, and Nami is no exception. Nami is best known for her thunderstorms and rainstorms, but she is perfectly capable of acting subtly.
Going back to thunderstorms and rainbows, it is true that Nami is the weather goddess and most mortals can remember praying for specific weather and not receiving it. Just because you want a sunny day doesn't mean someone else doesn't need rain. Nami often gives her petioners what they need and not what they ask for or she gives them what they asked for in an unusual way.
I apologize if I'm rambling. Nami is the goddess of weather but she isn't only the goddess of weather. She seems more likely to grant requests that aren't related to weather. If you listen to any of the tales, it is obvious that Nami is an unorthodox goddess and will often answer prayers in unorthodox ways. Many find their reward from Nami after a long and interesting journey, either a figurative or literal journey. Nami is the goddess of travel and change afterall."
-Priest Benek of the @cult

Execution

Nami rituals have many variations for locale to locale but they usually involve fairly simple prayers and rituals at the beginning and end, but the bulk of the time and energy is spent on music, dancing, feasting, and carousing.
There is often a courtship or romantic element to these festivals. Some of these festival are pretty raunchy and some of them are quite chaste and orderly, but either way a lot of people meet their future spouses at Nami festivals.

Components and tools

There are no standard implements across every festival but there are some commonalities.
Torches and bonfires are common, especially in autumn and winter festivals. Bells, wind chimes, rainsticks, and drums are all used to symbolize types of weather and make a bunch of noise.
Food and drinks served at festivals is usually whatever is locally popular and seasonally available.

Participants

Even if they don't normally care for Nami much, almost everyone in locale will choose to participate in the Nami venerations and the accompanying revelry.
Scarterrans in general do take their formal worship ceremonies very seriously and the Rovers are no exceptions despite their seemingly lackadaisical take on life. They do usually keep the ritual formalities short and sweet before getting to more informal stuff.

Nami celebrations are usually intended to be all ages events. Morning activities tend to focus around fairly wholesome family and child-friendly with things like music, crafts, and puppet shows while the more adult celebrations occur around dusk and into the night.
Summer and Autumn tend to put more emphasis on adult activities and Spring and Winter festivals to be more family-friendly.
Some Rovers use the term "Sunny Festivals" to describe Nami festivals that lean heavily towards light family friendly activities and "Rainy Festivals" to describe Nami festivals that lean heavily drinking and debauchery.

by me with Midjourney

"Rainbow festivals" refer to festivals with especially good music and art. This can combine with the other two terms so you can have Rainy Rainbow Festivals and Sunny Rainbow Festivals.

Observance

Most supposedly civilized locales have a specific large scale festival to Nami on their calendars. It is fairy rare for two locations to have their Nami festival on the same day. Nami festivals are equally likely to be in the Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter.
Nami's priesthood, nicknamed Rovers is smaller in terms of raw numbers than most of the rest of the Nine, but more importantly, the Rovers are pretty informal and decentralized.
High ranking Nami priests or priestesses can ask their subordinate to assist with a Nami festival but they cannot order their subordinates to assist with a Nami festival.
With this volunteer system, you end up having some Rovers that only help with Nami festivals sporadically, but other Rovers really find they enjoy assisting in carrying out Nami festivals. Most Rovers travel a lot (hence the nickname "Rovers on the Wind", but Nami Circuit Priests famously travel extensively in an organized fashion to hit as many Nami Annual Festivals they can.

by Me with Hero Forge

-Norabruck Grumblespine, dwarven Circuit Priestess of Nami

"Most Rovers go to only two or three Festivals per year, some go to a lot more. It's not just about going to Nami festivals. We have a term "fair weather festivaler" for Rovers who only go to Nami annual festivals in order to drink and party.
Ideally, Rovers should arrive weeks early in order to help the locals set up and organize the festival. There is a lot of middle ground between only showing up to party and helping plan and organize the entire event and I have fallen on the whole spectrum.

I usually try to make eight or nine Nami festivals a year. Once, I managed to get thirteen but I was not able to get very early for many of them so I wasn't as helpful as I would have liked to be.
Some areas have so-called 'Sedentary Rovers', Rovers who break the stereotype by sticking to one place.

The so-called Sedentary Rovers of course have a big hand in coordinating and planning their local festivals. But if an area doesn't have any local Rovers to care of the early planning work, The Cult of the Compact and the local secular nobility are usually pretty good about helping set up and handling material concerns.
They can commonly count on help from the Lanterns, Stewards, In some places they can have all sorts of unexpected sponsors because everyone likes Nami at least one day a year."

Important Locations

• Scarterra

Related Organizations

• Nami Circuit Priests
• Rovers
• Sedentary Rovers