The Royal Vintners' Festival

As befitting a holy city of its esteem, Lescatie and its surroundings host many grand celebrations, usually performed on important holidays to ensure the favor of the gods in the coming seasons. However, there are plenty of events of a more down-to-earth nature - and perhaps the most celebrated of all is the great Vintner's Festival.

Grapes of many varietals grow readily in the valley around Lescatie, and a robust industry has emerged centering around the production of wine. Although just about every village and manor has its local blend, there are several guilds, monasteries, and noble families with long-standing traditions of viniculture, and many of these producers have grown famous across the City-States and beyond for their vintages. Such a famed industry is bound to accrue wealth and power for those involved - and, in Lescatie, this tradition has grown to support the annual Royal Vintner's Festival.

Taking place on the second weekend of Bloodmoon (the eleventh month in the world's lunar calendar, and at the tail end of the grape-harvesting season), the Royal Vintner's Festival ostensibly commemorates the feast day of Matto the Great, but barely anyone who participates has their mind turned to the divine. It marks a great exhibition of wines from across the kingdom, with the major producers sending delegations to showcase their offerings for the season. The festival is held in the kingdom's center of wine production, and on these days the fairgrounds are packed with stalls and tents from all participating wineries. The central attraction is, of course, the sale of wine - with some of the most prized and prestigious varieties only being sold to the public on this date, and for a hefty sum, many a noble house would do just about anything to secure a cask for their cellar, and the possession of even a bottle can become a status symbol. However, the event has grown over the years, and its scope has expanded to a great deal of festivities - plays and performances, sporting events, craftsmens' competitions, and demonstrations of the wine-making process can all be found under the festival's auspices.

True to its name, the Royal Vintners' Festival is attended by the royal family of Lescatie, who travel with their entourage to the site of the event several days in advance in a grand procession that draws many an eye in the towns it passes through. At the conclusion of the event, the King is presented with a fleet of wines from all of the most honored wineries participating, and only after all have been drank does he announce his favorite. The status as the King's favored winery is taken as one of the highest honors a grower in the kingdom can bear; even when the King holds little actual power, the competition for the title is a heated one, and the wines that win such honors attract princely sums in the coming days. It is noted that the King tends to judge wines more reasonably when he drinks them while sober; to that end, what order the wines are served can have as much of an effect on their placement as their actual quality.

Though they do not receive as much attention, there are also prizes for the wines favored by other members of the court, including the Matriarch. Tradition holds that the day of the Royal Vintner's Festival is the only day the word of the High Priest of Voltan is not held to be infallible, so that the faithful do not mistake drunken blatherings as divinely inspired. Surprising some, Wilmarina I did not do away with the tradition of partaking in the festival, seeing it not as a mark of decadence ill-befitting of a holy man, but as a way to connect with the people and to show she was not above their indulgence. Opinions on this are mixed.

All the same, the festival is open to the public as well, with many coming from far corners of the kingdom to partake in the affair, and to sample the wines being offered. In the leadup to the event, the roads are often packed with traffic, and many inns have sprung up along the way to cater to travelers - though even they often fill up quickly, and it is not uncommon to see people sleeping in tents and wagons along the road.

The festival is held at the fairgrounds just outside the town of Caureloc (hex 048.023), which has grown into a prospering market town thanks to the commerce brought by the festivities. Though many houses, guilds, and wineries - some, increasingly, hailing from lands beyond Lescatie - participate in the event, for the last few years, the King's favors have always been bestowed on one of two participants, both happening to be housed near the fairgrounds - the noble House of Roussel, and the Monastery of Lannuon (hex 051.023).

The noble family is run by Duchess Marceline Roussel, a stately woman who opens the doors of her castle (hex 048.025) to all visiting nobles - including the royal family, who traditionally take up residence there during the event - though beneath her veneer of generosity, she hopes to benefit from her company with the most esteemed in the kingdom and to enjoy their favor, especially to secure an advantage against political rivals. After all, the influence of a friend of the King is not to be scoffed at.

The monastery is run by Father Theofrede, a rotund, ruddy-faced old abbot who is known to enjoy the excesses of life; although the monastery keeps a vineyard ostensibly to keep the monks occupied in the labors of the gods, he has grown wealthy on the sales of the wine it produces, and hoards much of the wealth for himself, as well as enjoying a good drink of his own. Even within the monastery itself, he is often regarded as a poor excuse for an abbot - yet he is unlikely to fall out of power any time soon when he has won the King's favor time and time again, and few would dare to challenge a man of such esteem.

Naturally, with both parties trading the highest honor afforded to Lescatian vintners back and forth, they are hard at work every year trying to one-up each other and sabotage the efforts of their rivals, laying plans even months before the event takes place. Of course, there are many other participants too, and with the fame and fortune they stand to win, many would be quite eager to see themselves emerge as a dark horse champion - even if they needed to go to more clandestine routes to secure such an advantage...