d30 Rituals of Summer

 

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...

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.



 

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