Omatsuri

Omatsuri is a holiday that takes place on the sevenday of the seventh tenday of Kentgannon throughout Pteris, and is known far and wide across the realm as a summer festival of purification, luck, and good fortune for the coming year, especially involving adventurers, but it also can involve common folk as well. Many towns will hold festivals to celebrate the occasion, but the backbone of the holiday follows a very simple process:

1. Find someone out on the adventuring road, and present a bottle of water to them. If they present one in return, they accept.
2. Each person will pour some water over their hands to purify them.
3. Each person will then pour some water over the other person's feet to harden the ground beneath them.
4. Each person will then drink the remainder of the water.

ABOUT

Omatsuri first cane into conception in 125 PR, when people were seeking solace from the threat of the demonic invasion. Though it wouldn't gain popularity for another couple years, the appeal of purity allowed it to grow exponentially in the years to come. Though the basis of it is hardly a holiday in its own right, many towns have grown to adopt the traditions and expand on them, creating full summer festivals filled with food stalls, spiritual masks and other regalia, and games for all ages to enjoy, to the point where Omatsuri is now more commonly associated with lavish firework shows, intricate porcelain masks, delicious food, and good friends instead of the core basis of purification, though the traditions are still there.

HISTORY

Many of the cultural connotations behind Omatsuri stem from spiritual beliefs that revolve around the warding off of demons, which caused the holiday to spike in popularity after the Demonic Invasion. Cleaning your hands and feet with water can be seen as a spiritually pure act that can ward you from evil, which can have some physical benefits if holy water is used in the matter.