Bring a light, or come and be lit. – Invitation to the Ball of Lamps
Once a year, on the night of the lowest tide, when the Mouth stands open longest and the sea seems for a few hours almost to remember the Reach, Glimhaven holds the Ball of Lamps. It was first held in 1851, the year the Board was founded, to settle the last quarrels of the Descent with dancing instead of oars, and it has been held every year since, in the great hall of the Upper Galleries, under the Stone Sky. Every holder of a lamp is invited and every holder brings their lamp: not the lamp itself, which stays burning over its door, but a hand lamp lit from it, carried up the Great Stair in procession at the turning of the tide. The old families come first, in the order of the Register, their lamps in silver and crystal. The Board comes after, and the fleet, and the trades. The Warrens come last, those of them who are lit, carrying their lamps in tin. The Order of the Cold Light does not come, and sends, each year, a single basket of glowing fungus, which the Board each year receives...
From the lore of The Gaslit Reach.