About Melyrian Calendar

Melyrian Standard Calendar is used in most places around the world to determine the year, day, and months. It goes by Moon cycles, which last exactly 30 days. The year breaks into 12 months. Weeks are seven days long, and every year has 360 days.

Moon cycle

Each month begins as the New Moon is at its peak. This means that days 1, 2 & 30 are under the New moon.

The new moon is followed by Waxing crescent in 3rd to 6th day of the month, turning in to the First Quarter on 7th to 10th day. In 11th to 14th day, the moon is waxing gibbous, and finally, Full Moon is seen around 15th to 17th day of the month. Day 18-21 moon reaches Waning gibbous, 22-25 it was already Last Quarter, and finally during 26-29 moon is Waning crescent before the cycle starts all over again.

This means that every year starts from the new moon, but not always on the same day of the week. Calendar cycles through 7 different calendar bases, so calendars on a weekday perspective are going to be reused pretty quickly.

Several celebrations in Melyria are tied to moon cycles. This includes holidays like the Midsummer Moon in Silver Shore Island.

Moon phases by Dale Humphries

Current year

Year 4047 AoS

Number of months in a year

12 (Janar, Febor, Maral, Apren, Mayol, Juner, Jular, Augor, Seper, Octar, Novar, Decar)

Number of days in a year

360

Number of days in a week

7

Number of days in a month

30

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For sake of sanity - word from the GM

The calendar of Melyria is oversimplified and tries to mimic the Gregorian calendar, but only on the superficial level - no, things have been made even easier to make adjusting to things even easier. 7 days week and 30 day months are something players can easily grasp and I pretty much keep using the gregorian month and day names just to keep things simple and give players less to think about. Every month goes with the moon cycle that is always exactly as long, and the little piece of randomness to dates comes from the 7-day week that doesn't go even with the 360 day year.

Is that lazy? Possibly, but to be honest, I wouldn't mind making such things from scratch - if I would be writing a novel, alone, without players I might even do a more complicated calendar. And the new calendar system could be really fun for players too, especially if you can establish it right from the start! But the fact of the matter is, I think there is a high potential of such thing messing with the flow of the game and I didn't have calendar for first sessions, so I figured that for this setting, familiarity might be the way to go. And too much new info can turn into a distraction that takes out of the game.