High Hunt

A High Hunt, also called a Wild Hunt, was a religious celebration in tribute to the Beast Lord Malar.

Description
High Hunts were required to be held four times per year, one for each season. They were organized and run by a Huntmaster or Huntmistress. The Bloodmoon Circle, a sect of Malarites in the Hullack Forest, celebrated their High Hunts on Midwinter, Greengrass, Midsummer, and the Feast of the Moon.

It was a sporting event that consisted of a predetermined "mark," usually a human male, being equipped with non-magical weapons, armor, or other items, then set loose, usually in woodlands with a guarded boundary. The participants of the hunt (armed only with ceremonial daggers, their natural weapons (if any), or a pair of Claws of Malar and adorned with trophies from creatures that they had previously slain) had to then find and kill the mark before the following sunrise. If the mark escaped or otherwise survived until sunrise, he earned immunity from any subsequent hunts and could also ask anything of the Huntmaster or Huntmistress, unless it involved the deaths of followers of Malar.

Malar could choose to allow exceptions to the rules usually imposed on High Hunts. In one such case, he allowed the vampire Dhusarra yr Fadila el Abhuk to conduct a High Hunt in Waterdeep, and lifted the time restriction on hunting in this urban environment. However, he also prevented anyone involved in the hunt from leaving the city without direct divine intervention. The Bloodmoon Circle, being all lycanthropes, did not grant a boon to anyone who survived a High Hunt except to give them their choice of lycanthropy strain and join the group, or die.