[Raven Bloodmoon]

Well, I am struggling with my timekeeping right now. I have generally come up with a sceme for tracking hours; days; weeks; and months, but I can having trouble figuring out how to set up my calendar.

DISCLAIMER: This world was created by imaginary beings called deities. The result is that I don't give two hoots about physics, the real world, or any arguments that include either.

Each month follows the moon, and for the sake of ease, three moons happens to make one season. Now here's the fun part. As each moon is 28 days long and contains four weeks. The full month starts on teh new moon and the full moon occurrs halfway through the month. Now there are eight major holidays: one on each solstice and equinox and one on teh midpoint between solstices adn exuinoxes. These days are in addition to the days in the month, so the year is actually 12 months and 8 days long as of now. I don't think I will add anymore out-of-month holidays, but I am still setting something up so that it doesn't get too whacked out. As the phses of the moon will be important, I want the length of a moon to be fairly stable.

I was just considering making each month 29 days long and having the full moon fall on a day that is not included in any week. The new moon would not even be part of a month and perhaps would be a day of celebration (holidays) or preperation for the next month.

Lastly, I am looking at tying magic to the phases of the moon, though how I am not yet entirely certain. I was figuring that the phase so the moon will either affect the DC or caster level of some set of spells. The contents of that set is still up in the air. Similarly, I plan on eclipses being some pretty major events magically, also. Especially solar eclipses. Once i work out the mythological explanations of these, I expect I'll know more about what is going on and what gets affected how.

In the meantime, any assistance with the calendar or ideas for the stuff I mentions would be greatly appreciated.

[Dthclaw]

Hmm... well, a question I can think of now... are they different moons (literally) for each month/season? Or is it just one moon? If they were all different ones, that would make for a good explanation as to how they would affect magic, with each moon controlling some aspect of magic as it waxes/wanes. Plus it would be pretty neat

Maybe your 29th day of the month is when some massive celestial event causes a/the moon to metamorph into another. Day of celebration/terror

When you say assistance with the calender, what precisely do you mean?

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Different moons sounds interesting, but I am not certain if it fits right. I am already having some subtle changes with the seasons as different planes come nearer the material plane (yup, orary...gotta love it). As for assistance, for starts knowing if this is a good idea would help. Really, I guess I'm still in the brainstorming stage a little. I know I want the calendar to not be a standard one and to be a little unique in some ways. I've looked up some real calendars, but most of them are either too subjective or just a bit off.

One other thing I was thinking that would make things a little more complicated (particularly for the DM) would be to make the world more like earth in that the lunar month does not match the solar year neatly. This would cause the full moon through the months and cause all sorts of havoc on timekeeping and tracking magic. I would think that since most primative cultures did use a lunar month adn that the moon plays a par tin magic will force a lunar month on the world for the most part. Making that match the seasons is just me being lazy. Imagine a world were the winter begins on a different day every year, and after a couple decades may be startign in April. I suppose it is no stranger than having the new moon start on a different day every month...

[EDIT]

Upon a little math and further reading, I have discovered taht thirteen months of 28 days happens to work out to exactly 364 days. Tnat's not too bad. So upon further consideration, I think there will be the 8 holidays as listed, but they will fall on days included in the calendar. Perhaps the sole exceptions to this will be the day of hte new year. On leap years (every 7 years, because 7 is a nice number) an extra day is added just before the new year and belongs to no month. Again, a major celebration.

[Dthclaw]

That works.

Now for month names, I suppose.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Well, so far, I've been ripping off a lot of celtic names and using a mix of Welsh and Irish for a rudimentary naming language (just nouns and adjectives, basically so I can call a particular tower of famous repute Minas Tirith instead of having to call it Hill Tower, like it means if you are enough of a nerd to actually look that up in the back of the Silmarillion.....shut up.)

So in conclusion, I am thinking of basically ripping off the Celtic calendar. I'll translate these into whatever I finally call this naming language later.

Seed-Fall
Darkest Depths
Cold Time
Stay-Home Time
Ice Time
Windy Time
Shoots-Show
Bright-Time
Horse-Time
Claim-Time
Arbitration-Time
Song-Time

Bright-Time is listed only once, but it actaully lasts two moons. The two moons are developing the names Early Bright-Time and Late Bright-Time, but this is a recent change that is still underway.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Okay, this is what I have settled on thus far:

I am using a lunar calendar with 12 months and the new year occurring on a day not included in a ny months. Ever month begins on a full moon. I have removed Leap Year as I fail to see the point in including it. It does nothng for flavor, really.

Each year has the standard four seasons. Each month has four weeks, each one marking off a phase of the moon. Each weak has 7 days. Each day has 12 hours of 120 minutes each; the day begins on the first hour known as Dusk. So far, all is named and looks good.

Now the next fun part. Naming the years. I am using the orary setup for my cosmology, and I will be working out a celestial calendar of sorts, but for the average person, I need a way to name the years. While such ideas as listing them in terms of the rule of a leader, this would only work in small regions. I need something more universal. I would prefer not to copy Faerun and have some ivory tower with a scroll in it that has prophesized the next gazillion years of existance. One idea is something akin to the chinese calendar with the years on a cyclic naming thing, probably elemental in nature in this case, but you still run into the problem of "Which Year of the Dog?"

I know that oracles will play major roles in this setting as they provide guidance and what not, but I prefer to leave them out of the greater naming system. Perhaps once I contrive a history, I can start to carve out a system based on past events. But if I can avoid copying that system, I would prefer it. Any suggestions?

[Axel]

There's the traditinal method, select some critical historical event and date everything based on it's occurence in relation to that event. There is, of course, the traditional Anno Domini calendar, the Romans counted from the founding of Rome, etc. Numbers prevent the difficulties inherrent in cyclic dating (there can only be 1 year 562ACU), and make it that much easier to determine how long ago (or how long from now) a particular event occured. It also gives insight into what the people think is significant, since they centered their dating system around it. Consider, if the US devised its own calendar system based on the year 1776AD, you'd be absolutely certain that we thought July 4rth was a bloody important day and would celebrate it.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

I have considered this, Axel, and will probably fall back on it. I just ahven't devised too much history yet. I was also sort of looking to see if anything interesting or unusual might pop up. one of the useful things about the cyclic naming of years is that you can politely determine a person's age without directly askign them their birthyear. Just an example of how cyclic naming provides social functionality also. But the age-old mundane X years since Y method will probably be the one that gets adopted. oh well, i suppose.

That is not to say I am closed to other alternatives.

[Dthclaw]

Could always go for something like the Elder Scrolls games; years were divided into things like 438th year of Third Seed (Era) or 294th year of Second Seed.

They were annotated as 3E438 or 2E294, respectively.

Continuing with the Elder Scrolls example, major events that would mark a new era/seed would include things like a Daedric (Demonic) invasion, fall of the Imperial dynasty, world-shaking changes, etc.

Heck, it's an alternative to the ye olde real-world timekeeping.

[Raven Bloodmoon]

And a good alternative at that. Again, I still need to work out some history, but that might be a good one to go by. At the moment, the world is young enough that there will probably only be one era thus far, though a new one is about to start, so a good time to introduce the change and actually show it spreading across the world. Thanks for the idea.

[Axel]

Dthclaw, on Sep 8 2006, 12:24 PM, said:

Could always go for something like the Elder Scrolls games; years were divided into things like 438th year of Third Seed (Era) or 294th year of Second Seed.

They were annotated as 3E438 or 2E294, respectively.

Continuing with the Elder Scrolls example, major events that would mark a new era/seed would include things like a Daedric (Demonic) invasion, fall of the Imperial dynasty, world-shaking changes, etc.

Heck, it's an alternative to the ye olde real-world timekeeping.

No, that is just ye olde world timekeeping convention, except with a slight alteration on what constitutes an era. Instead of setting it integer system based from some zero year, with only two values, before or after, you've got up a system with multiple sets of positive numbers that end arbitrarily. The same system was seen in Lord of the Rings and associated books, the 4 ages in question each start the year numbering over from 1.

Could go with a cyclic naming convention, and count the number of cycles. We'll say you've got 10 named years, thus every ten years constitutes one cycle. Every 10 cycles is a century, and cetera. You're still arbitrarily counting cycles, and have really only divided the number you use by 10, and you've made years seem more like months. But on the plus side you'll fool your players into thinking you've got a really original timekeeping convention.

I should cheer up. That was cynical even for me.

[blacxthornE]

Raven Bloodmoon, on Sep 4 2006, 06:18 PM, said:

Well, I am struggling with my timekeeping right now. I have generally come up with a sceme for tracking hours; days; weeks; and months, but I can having trouble figuring out how to set up my calendar.

DISCLAIMER: This world was created by imaginary beings called deities. The result is that I don't give two hoots about physics, the real world, or any arguments that include either.

Each month follows the moon, and for the sake of ease, three moons happens to make one season. Now here's the fun part. As each moon is 28 days long and contains four weeks. The full month starts on teh new moon and the full moon occurrs halfway through the month. Now there are eight major holidays: one on each solstice and equinox and one on teh midpoint between solstices adn exuinoxes. These days are in addition to the days in the month, so the year is actually 12 months and 8 days long as of now. I don't think I will add anymore out-of-month holidays, but I am still setting something up so that it doesn't get too whacked out. As the phses of the moon will be important, I want the length of a moon to be fairly stable.

I was just considering making each month 29 days long and having the full moon fall on a day that is not included in any week. The new moon would not even be part of a month and perhaps would be a day of celebration (holidays) or preperation for the next month.

Lastly, I am looking at tying magic to the phases of the moon, though how I am not yet entirely certain. I was figuring that the phase so the moon will either affect the DC or caster level of some set of spells. The contents of that set is still up in the air. Similarly, I plan on eclipses being some pretty major events magically, also. Especially solar eclipses. Once i work out the mythological explanations of these, I expect I'll know more about what is going on and what gets affected how.

In the meantime, any assistance with the calendar or ideas for the stuff I mentions would be greatly appreciated.

The disclaimer reminded me of an older post about calendar making and the responses to my three-moon and one moon-like sun idea. I support the disclaimer .

I'm a little sad about the moon-oriented atmosphere because I was thinking about doing the same thing in Sultansword, which is surprisingly still in development. I even thought of making it a whole theme for Sultansword, something huge about the moons. That's why there were three. Well, I guess I can still do it, or just think of something else. I think it'll depend on the ideas I, my friends and maybe you guys come up with.

Well, I'm a little confused with the out-of-month days now. How many days are there in a single year? And how are these divided into (and out of) months?

[Raven Bloodmoon]

What I've settled on so far is this: There are thirteen moons (months) in a year, each lasting 28 days. Months start on teh night of the full moon. Thus, that provides for 364 days that fall in months. Then there is Sawain, which is a special holiday when all the gods put aside theri differences and come together to celebrate the new year. As a result, even the moon and sun abandon the sky to celebrate and thus this 365th day does not acutally fall in a month. It is New Years Day so to speak and is a huge festival. There are other things that result from the gods being away, but most of this has to do with spirits in this world and mortals visiting the spirit world. It is quite the taboo to act maliciously on Sawain.

So to answer your question more to the point, there are 13 months and 1 day that is not part of a month as there is no moon at all that "day." All other holidays have actaul dates in months (aka, the third day of Seedfall).

[blacxthornE]

Raven Bloodmoon, on Sep 12 2006, 12:15 AM, said:

So to answer your question more to the point, there are 13 months and 1 day that is not part of a month as there is no moon at all that "day." All other holidays have actaul dates in months (aka, the third day of Seedfall).

oh alright. that's quite simple now. thanks. but i guess there's nothing much for us to assist now, eh?

[Raven Bloodmoon]

Not in the calendar part, but I still would like some ideas for naming the years other than ye old real world stuff. And also any ideas for just how to handle orary events (aka, conjunctions between planes adn what not) would be appreciated. Just any ideas at this point. Don't need to be fully fleshed out.

I'm still in information gathering stage. Let's see how I roll my check.