d30 Rituals of Summer

March 22, 2022

Praise the D30, cyclopean chthonic orb, grandest of the dice. Accept this offering of rituals, and blessed be thy rolls.

This table has weird summer-flavored customs, celebrations and rituals for pagans or cultures with remnants of ancient beliefs.

Results are in order of escalating weirdness. Depending on what you want, use the following:

d10 for fairly mundane/realistic results

d20 for weird resultsd

30 for trauma, fear and sacrifice

Should you enjoy this table, I have others...

Rituals of Spring
Rituals of Autumn

Rituals of Winter

d30	Ritual
1	Wildflowers are planted into thatched roofs
2	The able-bodied embark on a hunt for the greatest beast. The victor receives tribute from the village until the next summer when the hunt begins again.
3	Young folk wrestle livestock. Victors claim the animals as their own.
4	Children lead prisoners in dances. Those who follow the child’s instructions satisfactorily are freed.
5	Boasting competitions are held. If contestants are caught in a falsehood, they must drink. Those who pass out are hung nude upside down in the square.
6	The town square is made open for public confessions to be pardoned by elders.
7	Children are sent in pairs to forage in the wilderness, one blindfolded and the other the leader. Each day they alternate their roles.
8	Fruits are painted with lavish scenes and placed for display until they rot.
9	Choirs chant praise to the sun from dusk till dawn that it may grace them with its glory forevermore
10	Elders are presented with a fruit from the tree of each household. A coin is given to the family for each seed their gift holds.
11	Performers enact complex plays using puppets made from taxidermied animals.
12	Songbird nests are placed within lanterns of vellum which are sent to float away in the night.
13	Local lords and officials surrender their authority for a fortnight and are buried to the neck. They must beg for nourishment and any promises they make in exchange must be kept on pain of death.
14	Citizens craft small sachets of narcotic herbs which they hold under their tongues all day.
15	An opulent stained-glass enclosure holds the cocoons of colorful butterflies which are augured like runes
16	Outcasts, criminals and sinners are brought to the town square. Citizens may each throw a single stone and coin, which the outcast may keep when they are exiled.
17	One sheaf or fruit of every hundred is left as a gift to the lords of the wild, that they might spare the settlement the predations of their beasts.
18	Each household must tend to a family of mice. They must present them to the elders and are held to account for their well-being. Those who fail must live on half-rations through the fall.
19	Newborns are given cuts with the tooth of a fox or wolf. It is given to them as a pendant to be worn their whole life.
20	A feast is held, and all types of drink and narcotic are consumed. Celebrants indulge until the point of vomiting, which is done in a ceremonial trough. It is used to baptize young children.
21	Those who wish to seek blessing are tied to stakes or trees on the outskirts of the settlement and left for the animals. If they are unscathed at dawn, they have been shown favor.
22	A criminal or outcast is placed in an iron cage in the town square. The bars are greased with oil and fat and kept aflame constantly. The cage is just large enough to survive unburnt, provided they do not move...
23	A citizen is chosen to be buried except for their head in a mound of fertile soil, covered in moss and mushrooms. They are tended and kept healthy until the end of summer, when they are exhumed and the fruits of their soil are shared among the settlement.
24	A bear or comparable large predator is caught. Warriors fight one after the other to the death to defeat it, clad in loincloths and wielding a single blade.
25	A buried hero is exhumed and their skull used as an oracle for rulers until the next solstice, after which it and the body are ground and mixed in draughts to become part of them forever.
26	Clay bracelets are given to every citizen for protection from spirits. If it is lost or broken, they are determined to be a changeling and face exile or death.
27	For the duration of summer the death of any foal, calf, or the like will be matched by sacrifice of an elder.
28	Visitors are offered rich rewards to prophesy what the year will bring. Those who refuse are imprisoned and tortured to obtain prophecies, and released only if they prove true.
29	Children craft masks of wild animals and hunt in packs on all fours.
30	An elder is selected by lottery and given alchemical concoctions before they are flayed and twisted into a Blood Eagle in the square. Wild celebrations are held and acolytes praise them from sunrise to sunset for as long as they survive. They are preserved and enshrined in a secret temple, worshiped every solstice.