Night of Souls

An Allsoulstide Melaina charm

Melaina, the Faerie Lady of Souls, is most in the minds of the people of the Land of Azurth during the Allsoulstide celebration at the end of the harvest. Children go a-guising and receive treats in the form of skull-shaped cakes or candies. The nuns of Melaina paint their faces and perhaps dye their hair in honor of their goddess.

The Sisters of the Lady of Souls sometimes bestow skull cakes, as well, but theirs are of a magical sort and only doled as they divine the goddess wills. Ingesting one of these special cakes imparts the ability to speak with the departed, provided they are near an item or location tied to the soul, and the soul wishes to talk (reaction roll). The willingness of the one who ate the cake is not required.

On these nights, flickering will o' wisps abandon their usual places and appear in the streets of cities and towns and punctuate the darkness with their eerie, variegated glow. While not as overtly malevolent as the mad ones that haunt the wild or forgotten places, their purposes are inscrutable, though legends say they sometimes urge the living to discovery of old secrets.