Come celebrate the Desert Sky Festival in Cadentia, a desert border town south of RhyDin! Every year Cadentia celebrates the spring season and the migration of the Pharaoh butterflies with rooftop parties across town, where thousands of butterflies are released from cages to join the migration.
The Desert Gate Tower is hosting this year’s largest party, one of the highest points in town with a commanding view of the Great Desert. Dozens of Pharaoh butterflies, each with a unique pattern in its gold and turquoise wings, are in silk mesh cages with ribbon handles and handed out to guests at the top of the stairs and lift. Kites can be rented or bought from vendors along the northern side, in the shape of wyverns and butterflies and herons, and can be flown to chase after each other and jockey for the highest point. A flagpole stands in the center, surrounded by long, blank pennant flags, where fae artists can help guests to paint or glamour messages and symbols onto these banners before running them up the pole. Servers with platters of figs and lamb meatballs, flagons of wine, and bottles of arak are eager to offer a bite and a drink to guests, charging nothing (though the locals can be seen tipping generously and often).
At the southern end of the tower, wooden ramps with rope railings lead to hot air balloons with large baskets floating just over the edge of the desert, where guests can walk up to enjoy the view. If you want a good spot on the balloon, make sure you get up there before too late -- at 10:30 they will close the basket and retract the walkway, letting the ballons float out to the end of their tether! At 11:00 guests are encouraged to release their butterflies to join the migration passing over Cadentia, at the same time as thousands of others will be releasing them all across the town. Once the glittering kaleidoscope of turquoise and gold passes into the Great Desert, the balloons will be brought back to the rooftop to let guests out.
This is a live play event that will take place in our #cadentia-bazaar channel on Friday, May 8th at 9 pm Eastern Daylight Time. Kite vendors and event staff manning balloons and handing out butterflies are all NPCs and can be used in play by anyone. The butterflies are planned to be released at 11 pm. See you there!
