Sidenote: Fallow's Eve Costumes

The tradition of dressing up in costume for Fallow's Eve stretches back hundreds of years, likely getting its start in the Glory Days. While initially in the spirit of scarecrows meant to protect crops from errant birds, the harvest festival has rapidly grown more commercial in recent years.

The following is a list of common to semi-common costumes worn for Fallow's Eve.

## **Costume Examples**

### **Ghosts**

Ghosts don't exist - at least, they haven't existed for centuries - and gothic horror is the chique! Plus, they’re easy costumes to adapt and improvise with. You could be as basic as a white sheet, or go full whirling-in-rags-with-a-ball-and-chain, or gaunt-face-undead-style.

### **Starsailors**

‘Starsailors’ is a genre of fiction from the ‘dreadfuls’ - cheap, mass-produced literature - born out of nostalgia for the astral sea and flights of fancy through the sky. They often include Gith characters.

One author particularly claims that the stories they tell are all first-hand accounts from Lord Zaeth himself: A.J. Yorgos, a Mandrake writer. His series, *Damsel Downe and the Knights of the Night Sky*, is the most popular of its kind, and has spawned many imitators.

### **Abyssonauts**

Similar in principle to starsailors, abyssonauts feature in a genre of fiction as folks who brave the deepest depths of the sea, where anything might lurk. These tend to be more horror-oriented, speculating as to what’s at the bottom of the ocean, and what the Circadian Empire might have been like. The suits abyssonauts wear are fashioned like armor with glass helmets to ‘keep in the air’. They obviously wouldn’t work, but they look a little better as costumes.

The most famous series of abyssonaut books (which coined the term) is usually called the *Below* series, given that its first entry was called *So Below*. It has a decent amount of interest in the Empire and its history, though it does run with the common, if contested, Leviathanite narrative that the Empire was brought to ruin by the Abyss. The writer, pen name Lillileif, is believed to be a sea worshipper because of this, though their reclusive nature has stopped prying journalists and fans from gleaning too much about their personal life.

### **Scarecrows**

The classic. Tend to not be so common nowadays, but that raggedy fashion is still there - straw hats, potato sacks and all.

### **Pirates**

A more recent addition that started a little after the Coalition  came to power. Some more conspiratorial people think that the Coalition deliberately started having people dress up as generic pirates to reduce them, and make them seem like a thing of the past. It’s not really clear whether this is true or not, even within the Coalition.

Regardless, as long as it’s the harmless archetype, it’s not seen as so bad.

### **Vampires**

Now this is a deliberate attempt to put these creatures in the past. No one’s been killed or had their memories stolen by a Vampire for hundreds of years, and the costume is mostly just ‘a threatening aristocrat with sharp teeth’ anyway. Some people just have sharp teeth already. It’s not hard.

In fact, dressing oneself as a generic undead is much worse. Both for the people who remember how terrible Ulthir’s shock troopers were, and for the Hollows  who don't need things any worse.

### **Goblins**

Unless you believe literally anything you're told, you don't think Goblins actually exist. Neither do clearly-defined appearances for them, so people tend to go with whatever they want. They're folk-tale creatures after all, who's going to disagree with you?