Keruuseen

Keruuseen is a term used in contemporary speculative fiction and some tabletop role-playing materials to describe a ritual practice or mechanism by which a community attempts to draw resources or energy from the environment during particular cycles. As a neologism, its precise definition varies between works, and there is no single canonical description.

In most depictions, keruuseen consists of phases such as preparation, invocation, gathering or harvest, and relinquishment. The practice is typically linked to seasonal or celestial cycles and is framed as a reciprocal relationship between humans and the surrounding ecosystem or with unseen agents anthropomorphized as guardians or spirits. Participant actions may include symbolic offerings, songs, chants, or the arrangement of physical objects to focus intention.

Keruuseen appears across different settings with variations in ritual specifics, such as the nature of offerings, the governing timetable, and the entities that oversee the process. Some works cast it as a communal practice reinforcing social bonds; others present it as a private or secret rite with ethical implications regarding balance and consent of non-human actors.

In real-world scholarship, keruuseen is treated as a fictional construct used to explore themes of resource dependence, ritual economies, and world-building dynamics. Critics discuss its plausibility, function as a narrative device, and potential parallels with real harvest or rite-of-passage customs. Proponents argue that it provides a versatile framework for examining environmental ethics in storytelling.

Related concepts include ritual, harvest festival, energy economy in fiction, and neologisms.