The Festival of Lights is the one great, secret gathering of the proscribed Strangler cult – also called Deceivers – each year. It is conducted by only the highest-ranking cultists: their priests and the jamadars of each band; few subordinates attend. It is always held at their shunned temple within their Holy Grove – known to the rest of the region as the Grove of Doom. The temple features relics, an altar, and a huge idol of their Goddess, Kina, which is "equipped with an ornate headdress loaded with gold and silver and gemstones", eyes made of priceless cabochon rubies, and fangs of crystal.
The Festival takes place over three days. The first day of the Festival is called Etsataya. The middle day is the actual high holy day: a time to settle disputes and cases, initiate new candidates, and torture and murder sacrificial victims. A notoriously treacherous event, even a portion of the initiates are killed as well. Notably, whereas Stranglers avoid all shedding of blood during the typical murder-sacrifices undertaken outside the Festival, bloodshed and beheading is common within the Festival itself. The candidates are even made to drink blood which might be human.
Dreams of Steel[]
A cancelled Festival of Lights, followed by a real Festival later, are both described firsthand by the Annalist Lady in Dreams of Steel. Pressured by Narayan Singh, she attends the Strangler's attempt to hold a Festival at its normal scheduled date shortly after she orchestrated the Massacre at Khadi Junction. It is cancelled when she discovers that outsiders had defiled the temple before their arrival. Before they depart, she foils the cult's unannounced life-or-death test by stealing the black rumel of Moma Sharra-el the moment he attempts to use it to kill her, and kills him with it in turn.
The temple is purified later, and during the minor holiday of Nadam, the rescheduled Festival is finally held. The Festival is marked by four drummers continuously drumming outside the temple, and several more within it. When Lady is undergoing her initiation into the cult, the idol is possessed by Kina directly for the first time in the group's history. The statue moves, killing several of the candidates. The shocked priests interrupt the rites early to celebrate, and even set their 20 remaining prisoners free to announce to the wider world that the Deceivers are real and that they had found their Goddess.
Bleak Seasons[]
Another Festival of Lights was interrupted and its celebrants slaughtered in Bleak Seasons by a Black Company raid. Murgen, One-Eye, Goblin, Thai Dei, Wishbone, and Wobble killed most of the Stranglers and captured some shadowweavers that had been sent by Longshadow as emissaries. But, their prime target Narayan Singh escaped with the Daughter of Night.
Soldiers Live[]
A final Festival of Lights was celebrated by the Daughter of Night and Narayan Singh in Soldiers Live. Here, they sought to reconsecrate their restored temple and restore contact with their Goddess. The event was called off when Soulcatcher's crows exposed their presence, indicating that they had been spotted. They scrambled in time-honored fashion; later events strongly suggest this would be the final Strangler Festival of Lights ever celebrated.