Shent Years

In society there are certain milestones in one's life. These are known as the Shent (or Kagant) years. For most these are the age of family work (when children start doing meaningful jobs around the house), age of apprenticeship, age of eligibility, the age of acheivement (the age to take on apprentices), and the age of wisdom. Different sentient species and cultures treat these milestones differently, and may have different ages or thresholds by profession or gender.
To contrast these: For Tarlinjin humans and halflings these are often considered 7(Work), 13(Apprentice), 19(Eligibility), 38(Achievement) and 67(Wisdom), most elves set the ages at 11(Work), 22(Apprentice), 50(Eligibility), 180 to 300 (Achievement, depending on profession) and 400 to 600(Wisdom depending on profession). For The Touched these are often decided by the family based on individual achievements or milestones and have no fixed age. They will often breech children at the age of work (in other words move them from dresses to adult clothing). Breech comes from a common term for trousers.
For the Tarlinjin, all of these are celebrated with food and dancing. Typically in a village there will be a community dance and feast yearly for each of the milestones. The feast and dance of Eligibility occurs in early spring, and is followed a week later by the hunt for apprenticeship though this is mostly symbolic as parents and masters have agreed previously on what apprenticeship their child will be undertaking. Then in the summer is the water festival, where the children of the correct age are taught to do household tasks and are first allowed to compete in Water Jousting. The celebrations of achievement occur in fall with the harvest festival and presentation and competitions of various crafts. The Telling is a winter festival of fires, warm stew and listening to tales from those who have reached the Age of Wisdom. Typically tokens of appreciation are given to family and friends who reach these milestones.