Riven’s Defense Attorney

Zenith: Your birthday is a day of rest. You're legally entitled to take the day off school or work (with pay) and people are expected to make sure you don't have to do any chores or anything unpleasant. If you're at work and someone comes in and says it's their birthday, you can insist that you HAVE to help them carry that empty basket, and your boss will roll his eyes and take over the cash register for you

On paper, Zenethi birthdays aren't especially celebratory; they're more supposed to be about reflection. You relax, meditate on your accomplishments and let go of your failures from the last year, think about what you want to change in the next year, etc. In practice, however, it is unspoken tradition to treat birthdays as state-sanctioned hangover recovery periods. You party HARD the night before and call your friend's bosses the next morning to get them excused to 'assist you'

Andros: EVERYONE you know is invited. Your teacher, your boss, your dog, every barista who knows your name, because a big party is a status symbol, and it's just more fun. Most parents start guestbooks for their babies to track how many people they meet each year, and most people keep those guestbooks until they're either dead or have met everyone in their town (it will be used for their funeral too).

The birthday person's job is to clean and decorate their home and send invitations, and the guests bring the feast. After everyone finishes eating, there is a highly scripted tradition: the guests ask their host if everything was to their liking, and the host says no (depending on the region the guests might get something wrong on purpose, or the host will just make up something to complain about) and the guests beg forgiveness and ask if there's anything they can do to make amends for this transgression. At this point the host may ask anything of their guests, who are collectively responsible for filling that request (newlyweds usually ask for a house).