The Festival of Autumn

At the end of each harvest season, it is common to see a flurry of pamphlets circulating the cities of both Resta and Galeon which detail many points of physics, microbiology, zoology, botany, and agriculture. While the point of this is lost on travelers from other countries, the adherents of Crane's Doctrine of Knowledge recognize these as signs of the yearly Autumn Festival, also referred to as the Festival of Crane. It is at this time of the year that people are encouraged to learn more about the world around them and mortalkind's place in it. The Autumn Festival is both a celebration of a successful harvest and a reminder of the consequences of ignorance.

The festivities center around a science fair catered by a seasonal feast of the year's harvest. Pumpkin, cranberry, and apple dishes are the main attraction, as well as the proteins of farming livestock such as chicken and beef. In Resta, the fair takes place in the capitol Courtyard, like any of the four seasonal festivals, where science projects are put on display between the food carts. These projects are judged by a panel of Crane priests and, in Resta, the monarch awards the most enlightening and insightful presentation with the Royal Boon. This immeasurable honor, which also is awarded to combat tournament winners from the Summer Festival, allows the recipient to make any request of the current ruler of Resta which falls within their power provided that such a wish does not pose a detriment to the royal family or Resta itself.

The Galean version of this festival, however, is wildly different. For starters, the festivities take place in every city rather than a single capitol. Furthermore, while they remain committed to the agricultural roots of the festival, Galeon's citizens have instilled a sense of progress into the festivities by also focusing on technology as a tool for mortalkind's improved relationship with the planet. There is some debate as to whether this is a good thing, as marvelous feats of engineering often overshadow the hard scientific work of other participants. Finally, the award for the best project carries less weight, as the people of Galeon are more motivated by curiosity than Restans.

The traditions of the Autumn festival date back to the early Second Age, not long after Resta's founding. The Blackstone family farm was struggling to rebuild after the plague that ravaged the merging lands of Necros and Coronos. It had already suffered through three consecutive harvests with disappointing yields. As a result, they struggled to even produce enough to feed their animals. They prayed to every god they could think of to keep the bellies of their livestock and countrymen full to no avail. This led the family matriarch, Lara Blackstone, to critically examine the land and their techniques. Through her efforts, she had discovered a residual pathogen from the plague that had crippled the land and killed their plants. This began a long winter of digging up every patch of land on the farm and treating the earth with a chemical that was known to render the pathogen harmless. 

The following year, the Blackstone Farm had its first truly successful harvest in a decade. As the Blackstones and all of Resta celebrated this new bounty, Lara gave a message to her people that informs the spirit of the Autumn Festival. The Gods gave life and form to the planet, but they cannot manage every aspect of people's lives. Instead of praying to the gods for sustenance, it falls to the people to develop an understanding of the workings of their world so that they can solve their own problems. As the Doctrine of Knowledge demands intellectual improvement, this message resonated with its adherents in particular. The party that followed is known as the first Autumn Festival, a tradition that is repeated every year in which there is a successful harvest. Since then, the applications of science to the continued survival of mortalkind has become a more and more critical focus of Autumn. So it is that Fall has become a season of study and reflection on the failures of those who waited for the Gods to bless their problems away.