Last Spokky october blog

On the day of the dead when the year to dies.
Good Morning Boils and Ghouls and welcome to our last SPOOKY OCTOBER BLOG on Horror in RPG. I hope you all enjoyed our exsploartion of this aspect of our hobby?

Halloween is an interesting holiday,especially since it does not in fact Celebrate anything. We have this strange relationship with Halloween, we spend all this time,energy,effort and money on it as a group, yet individually we each have our own understanding of the holiday and why we celebrate it.

Though lets face it, we celebrate it for the candy.

Halloween has no one origin, it is a incoperation of several cultural events and celebrations that have all been mashed together. The actual origins of the evening date back to before the Roman Empire, while our modern version of the Holiday originated somewhere in the 50's and is the result of Candy companies trying to sell more candy.
The most interesting aspect of Halloween is that before the Romans it was considered the end of the Year, thus the whole “Day of the Dead when the Year to Dies” thing.

It was a celebration of the end of the summer, a successful harvest and as Summer became Winter it was the end of the Year as far as our ancestors believed.

Most of the things we associate with Halloween,Pumpkins,Candy, Masks, Ghosts also have very simple origins and have no association with anything Pagan or Evil.

The most well known aspect that dates back is the Ghost thing, as celebrated on November First with the Dios De' La Morte (SP?) celebration. As this was a time of endings and beginnings and of long dark nights our ancestors believed that on this night the spirits of the dead would return to visit them.Q This was not seen as a bad thing but as a celebration of there lives,they were welcomed into the home and food and drink was left out for them. As it was dark and the Dead have a horrible sens of directions, lights were set out so they could find there way home. Often these lights were placed in hallowed out gourds. The weight of the gored would prevent the candle from falling over,let the spirit know that there was food and warmth for them in the house and face it look pretty cool. (Plus you had to do something with the Squash after you took out all the good stuff)

So right there you have the beginnings of the “dead walk the earth” aspect of Halloween. Candles in Gourds (pumpkins) aspect and the giving food to the spirits (trice or treat).

The idea of giving food to the spirits at your door (trick or treat) most likely grew out of the previous idea of providing food for the dead(See above). It was believed by many cultures that these spirits might want to play tricks on there relatives and that other spirits might wish to harm the family.
Food was left out as a bribe to the more mischievous spirits in the hopes they would leave your house alone. Similar to Christmas carols some people would go visit there family and neighbors and partake of the free food. They would even knock on the door to demand the free food if it was not left out. If they did not get the free food they might preform a minor trick on the house, such as kicking over a light. Since they did not want any one to know it was them, they would often wear masks.

Masks and dressing up date back to the dawn of man's history. Shamans and warriors would wear masks and body paint for many reasons from hunting to religious ceremony's. In latter years masks would be parts of celebrations,theater,religion and crime. Any time someone did not want to be recognized or to play the part of someone else, a mask of some kind was used.

The darker and more sinister aspects of the holiday grew out of the general superstition during the dark ages and the holly roman Church desire to control people, and nothing controls the uneducated better then fear.

Now a days Halloween is, or at least should be about Children. AND CANDY. It is one of the few holidays despite all the mass media that is just for Kids. There is no historical or religious background to the holiday other then the mish mash of ritual;s and habits from the past. Take all that away though and it is about Kids and for kids. And the kid in all of us. AND CANDY.

Till next time enjoy the holidays in whatever forum you wish. Be safe,be sane and most of all Be excellent