Dra'Elstin
Dra'Elstin is an Official GemStone IV Document, and it is protected from editing.
Name of Holiday/Celebration: Dra'Elstin
Date of Holiday/Celebration: Spring, usually in Ivastaen
Who celebrates it: All non-city dwelling sylvankind
Where it is celebrated: Throughout the woods and forests of Elanthia
A short description of the holiday: The Dra'Elstin is no simple festival -- it is a wild, otherworldly convergence where the sylvankind abandon the constraints of ordinary existence and meet the raw pulse of the just waking natural world. Held on no specific day, but typically occurring during Ivastaen, the Dra'Elstin begins when the forest breathes out its first true sigh of life. The celebration is less a structured event and more a living ritual, shifting unpredictably based on participants and their relationship with nature.
The Wild Awakening
The festival does not begin at dawn, nor at any planned hour -- it begins when the forest itself decrees it. The signs are unmistakable: whispers in the branches, a hum in the stones, the sudden bloom of a flower that wasn’t there the night before. When the first person hears the call, they let loose a piercing cry of renewal, setting off a chain reaction of voices until an entire glade howls with life.
The Rootsong Dirge
Celebrants press their palms to the soil, humming a low, resonant note that seems to vibrate through their bones. The roots of the oldest trees shift and twist in response, forming ephemeral patterns in the soil -- visions, omens, and often, mere nonsense. The eldest among those present interpret these signs, declaring the guiding spirit of the season.
The Veil of Shifting Faces
No one may walk the festival untouched by the forest’s will. To take part in the Dra'Elstin sylvans gather around a pool of still water, its surface reflecting the sunlight from above. One by one, they peer into its depths, waiting to see what stares back -- for on this day, reflections don't always match gaze…
Some see themselves as they were in another life, others find their features blurred and shifting, and a rare few glimpse nothing at all. Whatever the pool reveals, the sylvankind must become. They alter their appearance accordingly -- some paint their faces with patterns of forgotten beasts, others weave their hair into elaborate knots and spirals resembling the gnarled roots of trees. A few... embrace stranger changes, distorting their silhouettes with layered cloaks or twisting reeds into false antlers.
For the duration of the festival, names are left behind. To call someone by their true name is a transgression, for they are not who they were yesterday. Instead, they are addressed by whatever form they have chosen for the holiday -- The Crooked One, The Silent Echo, The Moss-Bound. The boundaries of self shift like the flickering light through the trees.
The Feast of Borrowed Voices
At twilight, the community shares a meal in absolute silence -- save for the voices of the Elstintryth, the mimic-singers, chosen individuals who have spent the past year collecting the words of others. They echo back stolen phrases, memories, and riddles, crafting a fragmented, dreamlike story that belongs to no one and everyone at once.
The Dance of Unraveling
As night deepens, a hypnotic dance overtakes the festival. Some move in slow, deliberate spirals, while others jerk and twitch like windblown leaves. There is no music, only the sounds of the forest itself -- the snapping of twigs, the rustling of unseen creatures, and the distant, echoing hoots of unseen birds.
As dawn creeps in, the festival does not end -- it merely dissolves, like mist under the sun. The masks are left hanging in the trees, the footprints fade, and the whispers in the branches go quiet once more. The Dra'Elstin is never the same twice, but those who take part in it carry a piece of its strangeness forever.