Summerset Isles — H/F
Holidays and Festivals of the Summerset Isles
The Altmer calendar is a mirror of their perfectionism — every festival measured, refined, and steeped in symbolism. Their celebrations are not rowdy nor mortal in tone; they are orchestrated acts of harmony meant to reflect the divine order of Aetherius. The Summerset year is illuminated by ritual, pageantry, and reflection, where beauty becomes worship and precision becomes prayer. Each holiday renews the eternal covenant between the High Elves and the ideal of transcendent purity.
The Festival of First Light
Time of Year: Morning Star 1
Description:
At the turning of the year, as the first dawn spreads over the seas of Summerset, the Altmer observe the Festival of First Light — a solemn and radiant acknowledgment of new beginnings within unchanging order.
Temples of Auri-El open their marble gates before sunrise. Thousands gather along the cliffs and terraces of Alinor, facing east toward the horizon. As the sun rises, the air fills with the resonant tones of crystal harps and choral hymns sung in Aldmeris. The first rays strike the temple’s golden spires, refracting into a thousand beams that wash over the congregation.
After the hymn of awakening, citizens share a communal draught of seawater mixed with crushed pearl — the “Sip of Origin” — symbolizing purification through light. No trade, noise, or frivolity follows; the rest of the day is reserved for silence, meditation, and the composition of verse in honor of Auri-El’s path across the sky.
Purpose:
The Festival of First Light reaffirms the Altmer belief that renewal must serve continuity — that even change is but the perfection of order.
Atmosphere for Play:
Still and brilliant. The air shimmers with sunlight and incense, voices echo softly among marble arches, and every movement feels choreographed. Perfect for moments of awe, revelation, or divine visitation.
The Coralline Rite
Time of Year: Rain’s Hand 13
Description:
Held along the coastlines and coral shallows, the Coralline Rite honors Trinimac, ancestor of valor, and the sea’s enduring power. At dawn, Altmer priests and sea-knights descend into the surf wearing armor polished to mirror brightness. There, they stand motionless in the tide, reciting the Litany of the Deep Foundation, a hymn invoking the endurance of coral — strength through stillness, beauty through resistance.
As the sun rises, initiates dive into the water to retrieve fragments of living coral, believed to carry Trinimac’s blessing. The coral is then placed in ornate basins within temple courtyards, where it will be tended for the rest of the year.
After the rite, the day turns celebratory: maritime games, debates, and poetry contests take place along the promenades of Sunhold and Cloudrest. Sailors present offerings of pearl and salt to the ocean in exchange for calm waters and fortune.
Purpose:
The Coralline Rite reminds the Altmer that strength without grace is brutality, and that endurance, like coral, must grow patiently and beautifully.
Atmosphere for Play:
Resplendent and luminous — sunlight glittering off waves, silver armor gleaming beneath blue skies. The sound of harps and surf intertwines, a perfect setting for reflection or the unveiling of omens from the sea.
Gaudy Moon
Time of Year: Second Seed 8
Description:
One of the few Altmeri festivals permitting unrestrained artifice and color. Gaudy Moon celebrates the height of creativity and the dual aspect of the moons as symbols of reflection — light borrowed from perfection.
Throughout Alinor, artisans and mages compete in displays of enchantment, illusion, and sculpture. Streets fill with luminous banners, and crystalline lanterns hover in midair, changing hue to match the shifting sky. Elves parade in elaborate robes, each tailored to represent one of the constellations, while poets recite works inspired by lunar geometry.
Temples dedicate the evening to Mara and Meridia, weaving light through prisms to form moving patterns that dance across marble facades. The festival culminates in the Moon’s Reflection Banquet, where each guest is seated before a mirror rather than a companion — a reminder that self-perfection is the highest pursuit.
Purpose:
Gaudy Moon is an expression of the Altmeri ideal that beauty and intellect are divine crafts — that to adorn the world is to honor creation itself.
Atmosphere for Play:
Dazzling and cerebral. The air shimmers with enchantments, the laughter of nobles mingles with spell-song, and reality itself feels momentarily elevated. Perfect for intrigue among scholars or subtle magic gone awry beneath the moons’ glow.
The Harmonious Conclave
Time of Year: Midyear, first week
Description:
The Harmonious Conclave is not a festival in the common sense but a weeklong symposium of learning, diplomacy, and philosophy. Every ten years, the Altmer gather in Alinor’s Grand Convocation Hall to reaffirm their cultural hierarchy and share advancements in art, alchemy, and metaphysics.
Each day is devoted to a school of enlightenment: one to arcane arts, another to philosophy, another to social law. Orators speak from dawn to dusk before audiences of scholars and dignitaries. The evenings bring formal banquets illuminated by enchanted constellations — precise replicas of the night sky shifting across vaulted ceilings.
During the final night, the Archmagisters perform the Rite of Resonance, combining spells into a single harmonic vibration intended to align Summerset’s magic with Aetherius.
Purpose:
To celebrate intellect and reaffirm the Altmer’s place as stewards of knowledge — to ensure that learning remains not merely pursuit, but duty.
Atmosphere for Play:
Orderly yet tense — brilliance bordering on arrogance. Ideal for political debate, hidden sabotage of magical experiments, or philosophical crises that ripple through perfection.
Day of Reflection
Time of Year: Frostfall 9
Description:
As autumn’s gold fades into the calm of winter, the Altmer turn inward. The Day of Reflection is spent in meditation and remembrance of the lost ancestors — the pure Aldmer whose ideals the Altmer strive to emulate.
Temples darken their halls. The populace wears silver-gray robes, and no music is played save for a single low tone sustained throughout the day — the “Chord of Continuance.” Families visit ancestral halls to contemplate portraits or sigils of their lineage, offering polished stones engraved with family names.
The clergy of Auri-El deliver sermons on the frailty of mortality and the virtue of striving toward the undying perfection of their forebears. No trade is conducted, and even speech is limited to necessary function.
Purpose:
The Day of Reflection binds every Altmer to memory — to remember that their current form is but a shadow of their divine ancestors and that striving is sacred.
Atmosphere for Play:
Silent and austere. The air carries the scent of stone and candle wax; footsteps echo in empty streets. A moment for solemn oaths, secrets whispered in stillness, or confrontation with legacy itself.
The Evening of Ascension
Time of Year: Evening Star 30
Description:
The culmination of the Altmeri year — the Evening of Ascension — is both closing and awakening. It celebrates the journey of Auri-El through time and the eternal renewal of the spirit through contemplation.
As twilight falls, all Summerset’s bells ring once. Every house extinguishes its lights. For one hour, the Isles are silent except for the whisper of the sea. Then, at the precise moment the last ray of sunlight vanishes, a wave of illumination sweeps across the land — every temple, tower, and spire ignites in perfect unison with golden flame.
At that instant, the Archon of Alinor delivers the Invocation of Return: a long, rhythmic recitation calling upon Auri-El to bless the coming year with purity of thought and steadiness of heart. When the prayer ends, the people raise their eyes to the night sky, where magical constellations shimmer in perfect alignment — the Altmer’s symbolic bridge to Aetherius renewed.
Purpose:
The Evening of Ascension reaffirms faith in divine order and perfection through restraint. It closes the mortal year with celestial symmetry, sealing Summerset’s harmony for another cycle.
Atmosphere for Play:
Transcendent and overwhelming. Golden light engulfs the horizon, choirs chant in mathematical rhythm, and time itself feels still. A fitting setting for climax — revelation, divine communion, or the perfection of an ideal before collapse.
Cultural Significance
Summerset’s holidays are deliberate acts of philosophy — structured expressions of the Altmer belief that beauty, intellect, and divinity are inseparable. Theirs is a calendar of refinement, where even celebration must serve enlightenment.
Each event embodies a virtue: the Festival of First Light teaches humility before order; the Coralline Rite enshrines discipline through endurance; Gaudy Moon indulges creation as sacred art; the Harmonious Conclave channels wisdom into unity; and the Evening of Ascension seals it all with celestial closure.
These are not days of freedom but of reaffirmation — reminders that perfection demands vigilance. To the Altmer, to live beautifully is to worship; to err is to fall from grace.
In Franz’s campaign, Summerset’s festivals can shift tone from serene to unsettling — the harmony of crystal halls masking deep pride, the calm of ritual concealing forbidden art, the golden light illuminating the shadow of hubris. Within the Summerset calendar lies the quiet truth of the Altmer: that order can be both salvation and cage.