Holidays of Sigil: Factol Skall

On the Curious Sigilian Festival of Factol Skall's Birthday

No-one really knows when Skall was born, of course - probably not even Skall himself. He's commonly thought to be around forty or fifty years old, though there are rumors that he may be older than he looks.

And certainly the Dustmen do not, as a rule, celebrate birthdays. They may celebrate the transition to deeper stages of death in their formal, solemn way, but never births.

So it was that in the first Hive of Regula on the 115th year of Hashkar's reign, the Xaositects declared that henceforth they would celebrate this day as Factol Skall's birthday. "Poor guy," they said in many variations. "Never had a birthday party. We'll fix that!"

Every year since, the Xaositects have paraded by the Mortuary with balloons, festive hats, and cake. Most of the cake ends up hurled at passers-by or at the Mortuary itself, but this only adds to the festive atmosphere. The Xaositects sing songs in honor of Skall, carry around images of him, play pin-the-tail-on-Skall and fetch-skall-out-of-the-ooze-puddle-with-only-your-mouth, have Xaositects and random vagrants dressed like Skall do speeches, and make Skall the honorary Xaositect factol for the day.

Many other Sigilians have taken up the tradition as well and Factol Skall's Birthday is celebrated across the Cage, even when the Xaositects themselves are distracted or forget, or accidently celebrate it on a different day instead (one year they celebrated it eight times), even after Skall's presumed mazing before the Faction War. Some things just don't die.