Waterdhavian Social Season

Winter

• The fierce Northern winters essentially shut the city down. As of the first blizzard, snow usually lies thick on the ground, and cruelly cold winds rush in off the ocean to lock the city down.
• Most nobles flee the city entirely during the winter, preferring to lock down their opulent villas in favor of country properties that are much cozier, or even for holdings in warmer, more southerly lands (most families of Tethyrian blood maintain houses in Amn, Tethyr and Calimshan, as well).
• As a result, while the Guild of Street Laborers works diligently to keep most of the streets of the city snow-free, the Sea and North Wards are basically left to snow-over (with the exception of the High Road and major roads).

Spring

• Fleetswake (Ches 21st - 30th): Generally speaking, the Spring Social Season begins with Fleetswake, when winter has let up enough to allow ships to return to the Waterdhavian harbor. Many noble families return during this week, taking rooms in inns while their servants prepare their estates for reinhabiting. By the time of the Highcoin, the nobles have mostly all returned.
• Fair Seas Festival (Ches 29th - 30th): The returning nobles make their presence known to their fellows with elaborate Fair Seas Feasts. Those Houses that retain a strong presence in the city have the upper hand in these plans, for they're in place to arrange their feasts and send out invitations to those nobles who are just now getting back into the city. The nobles also make a point of preparing to contribute to Umberlee's Cache in extravagant ways during these parties, which are the favorite scene for the cache collectors to take up offerings from the noble Houses.
• Highcoin (Ches 30th): While the rest of the city is focused on the Fair Seas Festival, the nobility take the Waukeenar festival of Highcoin very seriously. Lord Piergeiron's Highcoin Ball is an absolute necessity for those intending to be on the scene this season - if you miss it, you're an afterthought at best for the rest of the year. The coin that is traditionally gathered on this day is gathered at the door of the ball.
  • This ball is usually accompanied by accolades on what the nobles contribute to Waterdeep's prosperity by the Open Lord, myriad Guildsmasters and other personages of importance. This event begins at sundown, and most of the nobles make sure to be at the sinking of Umberlee's Cache as the true beginning of this festival, lining the shoreline in their finest garb, and then promenading to the Palace afterward.
• Waukeentide (Tarsakh 1st - 10th): The nobles of Waterdeep take the merchants' festival very seriously. This entire week is filled with parties of all sorts; Waterdeep's nobility see it as a sort of "leaping into the deep end" to get back to the social whirlwind of the city.
  • The nobles turn out en masse on the second day of the festival, Caravance, to shop at the newly-opened Market.
• Spheres (Tarsakh 10th): The final day of Waukeentide is celebrated with grand parties.
  • The day begins with a gathering at Piergeiron's Palace, where the nobles gather to watch the glass orbs full of coin gathered at the Highcoin Ball be launched into the air after being enchanted to cause the glass to wholly render down into a harmless glittering dust upon impact.
  • After this spectacle and a shared warm drink courtesy of their host, the nobles break away to wander off to their myriad parties. It is considered to be something of a game among them to try and poach guests away from one anothers' parties at this point - you never know who actually is going to show to your Waukeentide party.
  • The parties themselves are always grand spectacles, the hosts attempting to make them enthralling enough so that guests don't go awandering for fear of missing something, while the guests frequently travel between the parties, afraid to miss out on any one of them. As a result, the streets of North and Sea Wards are filled with small clutches of traveling party-goers in their festival finery.
• Greengrass (Festival): Wreaths of fresh flowers - some wider across than a man is tall - adorn the front gates of noble villas at Greengrass. Though a few do enjoy pilgrimages to celebrate the holiday in the hedonistic revel known as the Lady's Revels at the nearby Chauntean abbey of the Goldenfields, the nobles of Waterdeep tend not to do too much on this day.
  • The main exception to this rule is with those families who deal in wine. These families (the Amcathras, Ammakyls, Melshimbers, Rosznars and Thanns) often hold open-barrel tasting parties, where the coming year's vintages are tasted to see how they're coming along before being bottled and sold. These parties are as much about business as they are about pleasure, with the families inviting various masters of the Vintners', Distillers', & Brewers' Guild, and various prestigious tavern- and inn-owners in attendance as well.
• Guildsmeet Ball (Mirtul 12th): Coinciding with the Waukeenar holiday of Sammardach, this ball is thrown as a joint function by those guilds in the city who deal most with the nobles. It is an opportunity - wholly at the expense of the guilds, of course - for the nobility to meet and mingle with important guildsmen that they might not otherwise encounter, and for the guilds to make introductions to up-and-coming guildsmen and young nobles who'll be taking over their family fortunes in a handful of years. Though plenty of business does get done here, the event is primarily social. Indeed, most Houses avoid scheduling social events for a full week following the Guildsmeet, to allow newly introduced nobles and guildsmen to invite one another to dinners and other engagements after having met at the ball.

Summer

Summer is marked by a variety of important parties, balls and similar events. It is the time to be seen, and while it has the fewest traditional events, it is when each of the Houses try to make their mark on the season with a new theme, entertainment, patronage or other event that will set the tongues to wagging about them.

• Founders' Day Viewing Parties (Flamerule 1st): Some civic-minded nobles throw small parties in the very stands of the Field of Triumph, using their influence and coin to lay claim to one of the viewing boxes and inviting important city officials and other nobles to the festivities they host there. It's considered an old-fashioned event, however, even if the alliances created and influence garnered with various city officials makes it worth it.
• Sornyn Ball (Flamerule 5th): The end of the Waukeenar festival around treaties and envoys, this ball is thrown by Lord Peirgeiron as a welcome to the new diplomats to the city, and a welcome back to those who've been here for years. It is an opportunity for the noble Houses to get to know the ambassadors, and they do so with gusto, seeking the best possible opportunities for their families (and the city, of course).
• Midsummer Ball (Midsummer Festival): The Midsummer Ball is an all-night affair that starts at dawn of Midsummer eve, and lasts until the dawn of the following day. This event is thrown in the Heroes' Garden, the Sea Ward park, and features an elevated dance floor, dozens of elaborate pavilions (sponsored by various Houses) with plenty of delicacies and ever-flowing drinks and music aplenty.
  • It is an evening originally intended to permit the sons and daughters of the nobility to meet one another under less-supervised circumstances, to dance and drink and flirt freely within the bounds of the outdoor Ball. In recent days, this has taken on a slightly more lascivious nature, where even those who aren't looking for a consort might take a fancy to someone they meet at the ball and spend some intimate time drinking and dancing with them.
• Shieldmeet Ball (Festival): Every Shieldmeet, Lord Piergeiron throws a grand ball for Waterdeep, with the interiors of the Palace laid open for nobles and the wealthy, and a grand festival air in the courtyard in front of the palace. Room within is limited, and the guests within are always influential and important, so the jockeying to achieve a place within is intense.
• Divine Pageantry (early Eleasias): Another event considered hopelessly old-fashioned by young, fashionable nobles, it is the only holy festival to Siamorphe, the goddess of nobility considered the patron of all Waterdhavian nobles. As such, no matter how de rigeur it is, the wise patron or matron of House ensures everyone in their family is there to take part, dressed in fine antique garments, spreading coin and remembering the proper old fashioned forms of address.
  • Many young nobles (and not a few elders) spend the weeks before the Pageantry going over the hoary old documents that detail every proper title, honorific and form of address for everyone they are likely to meet on that day. A gaffe in these stilted forms of address is not just a social blunder, but an act of blasphemy against the goddess of nobility.
• The Promenade of Violets (Eleasias 1st, Ahghairon's Day): A grand masquerade ball thrown by the House of Wonder in honor of one of the founders of Waterdeep, and the first of the Open Lords, the Promenade is held at the House of Wonder, the temple to Mystra, but organized and arranged by a small council of nobles chosen by the Temple Magister. This honor is usually bestowed on those families with some ties to wizardry themselves (meaning the Eltorchuls, Thunderstaves, and Wands families dominate), along with the head of the Magists' and Protectors Order, Mhair Szeltune. The ball is eagerly anticipated for its unprecedented spectacle, thanks to the magical talents of those who organize it.
• The Annual Garden Parties (Eleasias 17th): Originating as Waukeenar Huldark celebrations, the annual garden parties of the Sea and North Ward are (like many things involving the nobles of Waterdeep) a fierce competition.
  • For months, noble families work to see that their gardens are the finest possible works of art. On the day of the party, each of the Houses involved throws a massive garden party, seeking to show off their gardens in the best possible light while also demonstrating the support of their peers.
  • A trio of judges travels from party to party, technically judging the quality of the garden, but also partaking of the merriment. These are usually personages of note, including clergy of the nature gods, previous years' winners and even Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsun (a noted gardener in his own right) once or twice in the past.
  • By nightfall, a winner has been decided, and runners are dispatched to announce the victor at each of the ongoing parties, which usually results in a flood of guests abandoning the parties of losing Houses to essentially invade the party of the victors.

Autumn

• Harvesttide Hunts (High Harvesttide Festival): Often occupying several days on either side of this high festival, Waterdhavian nobles have taken to organize hunting retreats from the city (which is dreadfully hot around this time of year).
  • A few families with hunting lodges and the proper accommodations within a day or so of Waterdeep organize extended hunting excursions and invite their guests along. Though wardens and other servants tend to do the majority of the actual hunting, there is usually a prize prey of some sort (usually a stag or boar) that is hunted. The rest of the undertaking is generally an extended bout of drinking, eating, courting and the other merriments available to the nobility in the countryside.
• The Raising of the Guard (Marpenoth 11th): An annual military exhibition in the Field of Triumph organized by Lord Piergeiron's offices, the Raising of the Guard celebrates the founding of the Guard and Watch in Waterdeep.
  • After the midday exhibition, a grand ball is held in Piergeiron's Palace, where snappily-dressed men and women in uniform mingle with the nobility and other important personages. Many jaded nobles like to think of this as a good time to take a soldier for an evening's bed companion, and more than a few soldiers have leveraged the contacts they made at such events into more lucrative careers with the Houses of Waterdeep.
• The Remembrance Revel (Feast of the Moon Festival): Marking the end of the official Waterdhavian season, the Remembrance Revel begins with visits to the City of the Dead in the later part of the day, visiting House crypts and paying respects. In some ways, because so many nobles depart Waterdeep for the winter right after this event, it is a time to say goodbye to one's dearly departed, seeing them one last time until the following year.
  • As night falls, the normal curfew on the City of the Dead is lifted for one single night, and the nobility of the city host a grand masquerade revel, with laughter, song, dance and plenty of drink. The following day, most of those nobles who will be departing the city begin making their arrangements to do so; indeed, many of its most important members depart on ships or caravans the next day, leaving servants and less-important members of the House to close up the family's villa and operations for the winter.

• Young noble women being presented to Lord Piergeiron as formally entering society.
• Arts exhibitions and cultural events (theatrical openings, bardic gatherings, fashion exhibitions, literary exhibitions,
• Flower shows and other horticultural exhibits (garden parties and competitions)
• Sporting events (Olympiad @ Field of Triumph, equestrian events, boating races)
• End of Season
• Matrons' Tea
• Boat Show (and harbor-parties)