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Lantern Night

Posted
Updated
BySuraia Silverbell

Date: Liday, Cycle of Noent, Season of Ysandra (last day of the year)
Observed by: Nearly everyone across the Xaverion Islands, regardless of faith
Also known as: The Walking of Lights, The Quiet Turning

Overview

Lantern Night marks the final day of the year on the Xaverion calendar. Where the Snowdance Ball is bright and social, and Thoron’s Blessings is warm and noisy around the hearth, Lantern Night is the hushed step between years.

From sunrise to dusk, people move more softly than usual. Shops close early, work is set aside, and even the busiest streets seem subdued. After dark, families and neighbours take to roads, fields, hill paths and shorelines carrying lanterns lit from a single shared White Flame.

This is not a night for revelry or spectacle. Lantern Night is about looking back without flinching, letting go of what cannot be carried further, and choosing what hopes will cross with you into the new year.

Names & Meaning

Lantern Night – The modern calendar name, used on temple lists and city notices. It describes the most visible custom: lanterns carried through the dark on the last night of the year.

The Walking of Lights – An older phrase still common in villages and folk tales. It emphasises the shared act of walking through darkness together, each person holding a small piece of the light.

The Quiet Turning – A more neutral, philosophical term favoured by followers of the “Eighth Faith” and by those who keep the customs without tying them to any god. It frames Lantern Night as the subtle turning of one year into the next.

Older sayings describe this night as the time when “the year itself takes its leave”. The lanterns and the White Flame exist less for unseen powers and more for people: a way to give shape to remembrance and release.

Roots & History

The tradition of ending the year with light and walking predates the New Faiths by generations.

In village records and house ledgers, the last night of the cycle appears as:

  • a time when families walked their boundaries with lanterns “so the dark would not follow them home”,

  • a night to remember the dead and the year’s events without trying to call anything back,

  • an evening when each household brought a coal or spark to a central fire, then carried its light home again.

When the New Faiths took hold, temples chose not to replace Lantern Night. Instead, they wove it into their own stories:

  • Ysandra’s clergy speak of gentle endings and wise reflection,

  • Thoron’s priests cast it as the quiet counting of cost after a hard campaign.

Even so, many people still treat Lantern Night as something older than any temple’s claim—a custom belonging more to Eonil, memory, and conscience than to any single god.

Unlike the Night of the Veil, Lantern Night is not about stepping into other realms or seeking spirits. Any talk of “ghosts” is mostly metaphor: regrets, old fears, and worn-out promises that need to be set down.

Customs & Traditions

Relative Silence

From dawn on Liday, people try to keep voices low and tempers cool. Arguments are postponed, debts are not loudly demanded, and major announcements are usually held back for the new year.

A common saying runs: “How you walk Lantern Night is how the year will follow you.” One quiet day will not tame an entire year—but it sets an intention.

Preparing the Lanterns

In the afternoon, attention turns to lanterns.

  • Poorer households use simple oil lamps or shuttered candles.

  • Wealthier families bring out carved wood-and-glass lanterns, coloured glass, or mage-lit orbs.

  • Many make paper sending lanterns: light frames wrapped in oiled paper, painted with stars, house signs, or single words like “hope”, “begin” or “enough”.

Children help by:

  • cleaning soot from old glass,

  • cutting shapes into paper shades (stars, leaves, constellations, simple sigils),

  • choosing a small token (stone, shell, scrap of ribbon, dried flower) to carry during the walk—something they will throw away at the end,

  • helping older relatives write short lines on the sending lanterns:

    • a hardship, regret, or burden written discreetly inside,

    • a wish or hope for the new year written outside.

Not every lantern is meant to be released; sturdy heirloom lanterns are cherished and used year after year. But most households will make at least one “sending lantern” for the night’s final rite.

The White Flame Vigil

The White Flame is the heart of Lantern Night.

As dusk falls, people gather at a central place: village green, harbour, hilltop, temple square, or a simple crossroads. There, a single flame is kindled—often:

  • struck from fresh flint or steel, or

  • taken as a small coal from an old hearth and coaxed into bright life.

Whatever its true colour, this light is called the White Flame. It stands for:

  • the light that survived the year’s hardships,

  • the warmth a community managed to keep between its people,

  • the clear moment of looking back before stepping forward.

From the White Flame, every lantern in the gathering is lit in turn. Some communities do this in complete silence; others sing low, steady melodies or hum simple tunes. Temples may add a brief blessing, but in many places the only words spoken are a few sentences from an elder, or none at all.

The Lantern Walk

Once lit, the lanterns are carried out into the dark for the Walking of Lights.

The route varies:

  • villages may circle their fields or trace the boundary of the settlement,

  • towns wind through their oldest streets,

  • coastal communities walk along quays or beaches,

  • hillfolk climb to a vantage point overlooking the lights below.

People walk slowly, keeping close enough that each person’s lantern light overlaps with another’s. Conversation is kept soft. Some families murmur memories of the year; others walk in shared silence.

It is common to pause at one or more waypoints:

  • a high place to look back over the scattered lights of home,

  • a graveyard, memorial stone, or tree of remembrance, where lanterns are briefly turned outward,

  • a bridge or crossroads, where the group halts and then steps over together, marking the crossing from “what was” toward “what will be”.

Those who could not attend the White Flame Vigil sometimes join the procession as it passes, adding their own lights to the flow.

Sending the Year Away

The walk usually ends where it began, returning to the square, green, harbour, or courtyard of the White Flame. From here, communities choose one or more closing rites.

River and Sea Lanterns

In places with rivers, lakes, or sea, many families set their sending lanterns afloat:

  • small wooden “boats” or leaf-woven rafts are set on the water with a lantern fixed atop,

  • wishes written on the outside and burdens written within are left to the flame.

As the lanterns drift downstream or out toward open water, the inner words burn and vanish, while the outer wishes sail on in a chain of light. Watching them disappear into the dark is often the quietest, most emotional moment of the night.

Sky Lanterns

In calmer regions (and where wind, roofs, and local sense allow), people use light, floating lanterns:

  • oiled paper or thin cloth over a light frame, with a small fire-cup or spell-flame beneath,

  • lit from the White Flame and held until they tug gently upward.

Before release, families often whisper what they are choosing to let go of, and what they still dare to hope for. On a signal, the lanterns are released together and rise, scattering like new stars.

Sky lanterns are usually reserved for wishes; sturdier hand-held lanterns are kept for the walk itself.

Token Casting

Where water access is poor or sky lanterns are impractical, the older token custom remains.

Each person takes the small object they carried—a stone, shell, scrap of cloth or dried flower—and throws it into a brazier, onto a cold hearth, into deep snow, or off a cliff into the sea. As they do, they silently name something they will not drag into the next year: a grudge, a fear, a habit, or a promise they know they cannot honour.

Lantern Dimming

In some communities, the night ends with Lantern Dimming.

On a given signal, everyone slowly shutters or blows out their lanterns until only the White Flame remains. After a few breaths in near-darkness, the White Flame itself is extinguished, or left to burn down naturally. The dark that follows marks the moment the year is considered truly finished.

After whichever rite is chosen, people go home quietly. Any lanterns kept back are carried with care: these are the lights that will be cleaned, repaired, and brought out again when the year next comes to its close.

Cultural Notes

In Cities
City Lantern Nights can be striking: rivers of light weaving through narrow streets, lanterns reflected in canals or harbour water, whole districts quietly choosing the same colour. Taverns dim their lamps, street music softens, and fireworks are held back for the New Year’s Feast.

In Villages and Rural Areas
Rural Lantern Nights tend to keep to the simplest reading: this is the night when the old year is walked out of town. People speak of “seeing the year off properly” and “not leaving the door untended when the past leaves”. Wise folk, hedge-priests, and occasional spirit-scholars may attend, but most avoid overt magic; Lantern Night is about gentle closure, not daring the unseen.

New Faiths and the Eighth Faith

  • Ysandra’s temples see the White Flame as her soft light, showing what must be laid down.

  • Thoron’s priests liken it to the last campfire after a campaign, around which warriors sit and quietly reckon cost.

  • Followers of the Eighth Faith treat the White Flame as nothing more—or less—than the sum of what people kept alive for each other this year.

Place in the Calendar

Lantern Night completes the year’s closing arc on the Xaverion Islands:

  1. Snowdance Ball – Public winter splendour and social bonds.

  2. Thoron’s Blessings Eve & Day – Hearth, family, gifts, and charity; a celebration of shared endurance.

  3. Lantern Night (Liday, Noent, Ysandra) – White Flame Vigil, lantern walks, releasing burdens and sending wishes ahead.

  4. New Year’s Feast (Thyr Garandar, Thoron) – Two days later, the new year begins in earnest with fire, noise, “first” foods, and fresh resolutions.

By the time the first fires of the New Year’s Feast are lit, the White Flame of Lantern Night has long since gone out. Whatever still burns in people’s hearts then is theirs to carry into the year to come—and, in time, theirs to change.

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