A few days ago Preparing a Winter Festival for the Holidays in D&D was posted on D&D Beyond. The article is broke down into five parts. The first discusses why you're doing a winter festival in your game. The second discusses using real world traditions. Some examples given are Evergreens and Yule Logs, Lord of Misrule, Wassailing, and the Wild Hunt. Each tradition is discussed in game terms. THis is followed by reindeer games to celebrate during the festival. Snapdragon/Flapdragon (which I recently learned of), Ice Kolf, King of the Bean, and good 'ol fashion sledding and snowballs fights are also discussed. Three pre-existing D&D holidays for Faerun, Eberron's Sharn, and Exandria. Finally some fictional inspiration is also given: Fraggle Rock, Star Wars Holiday Special, Discworld's Hogswatch Night, The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special, and the classic Rankin/Bass holiday cartoons.
I know of one official D&D winter holiday adventure, Winter's Splendor. It's a two hour adventure set in Waterdeep. It involves potential big bads from Dragon Heist, though given the time of year its set they shouldn't be the main villains. There is also a reference to to Barovia and my favorite npc, Gadof Blinksy!
If you are looking for more holiday themed adventures (all year long) Frog God Games has several:
- For The Love of Valentine
- Seanche's Lament
- By Dawn's Early Light
- Feast of the Gobbler
- How Orcus Stole Christmas!
- Orcus on 34th Level
- Orcus in a Winter Wonderland!
- Beware the Yule Cat
Do you ever run holiday themed sessions? Are festivals and important part of your games? I've definitely run Mutants and Masterminds Christmas adventures, but not much else.
I love a good holiday adventure! First one I remember playing in is the fairly classic A Kringle in Time for Risus. My buddy Father Josh (who ran that one) also presented a pretty cool Lovecraftian take on It's a Wonderful Life one year that I hope he'll make publicly available at some point. And...while it's pretty self-serving to mention it...I actually think my adventure In Bleakest Midwinter is one of the most useful and broadly accessible game things I've ever put out there. I was stoked to find out it was still run at least once this year! (Guess who ran it...yup...Father Josh...)
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