Happy Fourth of July

 Happy Fourth of July everyone in the U.S.A., so here is a photo from NASA of the Apollo 17 mission planting of the U.S.A. Flag on the Moon by Astronaut Eugene Cernan. This was the last mission and thus flag the U.S.A. put on the Moon.

So does this have anything to with RPGs? Absolutely it does! We will get there.

First I hope you all get some fun and RPG play time today or at least some good food! I hope you all have a good and safe day with family and friends. Please practice Real Safety Tools around fire, hoses, buckets of water, fire extinguishers, controlled lighting on nonflammable surfaces (that sort of thing), safe operation of fireworks, no unsafe firearms usage like shooting into the sky, safe driving (no DUI), safe BBQing, deal appropriately with firework disposal including making kids put burnt out sparklers in buckets of water so no one steps on them in the grass while they are still hot, and please watch the kids playing with any fireworks including snakes. Kids do dumb things, like the time the neighbour’s kids came riding by on their bicycles with fireworks going off duct taped to their bicycle helmets on their heads… yeah you can’t make up the level of stupid kids think are brilliant ideas. Every year my state bans more and more fireworks mostly because parents are not supervising the kiddos and said children are getting hurt or because grown adults are causing major fires. Just be safe and have fun.

Now the RPG part of the post. Every culture has holidays, things they celebrate and I believe part of creating an authentic feeling background is including this aspect of real life in your setting. Now fantasy sci-fi type settings vary greatly but considering holidays like a nation’s, kingdom’s, empire’s, federation’s or even a settlement’s founding would most likely be celebrated. So whip out those timelines (you all got them, Game Masters in my experience can’t help but create them) and start coming up with interesting and intriguing customs for your sentient beings and their fantasy cultures to express their founding. 

On planet Earth in real life many cultures do all sorts of things, parades, fireworks, lighting up buildings, flags, battle re-enactments, speeches, laser light shows, special performances of theatre or music, feasts of various types, traditional dances, folk clothing, sporting events, a military parade and more. Consider the culture and setting first, then shape the celebration customs around those considerations. For instance a space civilisation might celebrate the foundation of a larger governing body that unified several planets with a display of lit up spacecraft and planetary parades. They might do some sort of artistic exciting laser light display in space. Conversely it could take a completely different expression amongst a space civilisation that is nomadic in nature, not unified or whose focus is different. A merchant based civilisation  might celebrate the founding of their Stock Market or a nomadic culture might celebrate the founding of their clan or tribal system. Maybe the recitation of the rights of the citizens from a specific location such as a space station or moon they were first read aloud on is done every “year”. A culture into spiritual or religious expression as their highest concern might have solemn events. The expression of such celebrations can take many forms. Maybe only certain foods are eaten while other forbidden, maybe people share water or spirits in a ceremony meant to reinforce unity, or perhaps pilgrimages occur. Recitation of religious text could happen or the first statements by the first space explorers for that culture.   So tap into your inner Muse and create some celebrations for your space cultures. The holidays might not even be yearly like on Earth but follow some other cycle. The War Jubilee of a culture could be a thing, in its most extreme form maybe every 40 galactic years culture X attacks another civilisation or launch raids on shipping lanes (the whole culture goes pirate for a set time period) or has space gladiator games to the death, in its mellow form it could reenact famous battles and have non lethal combat sport events on the local and Olympic style level. Maybe the culture divides into two warring groups of either actual violence or mock combat. There is a lot you can do to create interesting and truly alien feeling celebrations of “founding”.

Happy Founding Day All!

PS don’t forget to give each culture’s foundation day celebrations an unique name.