Calendar and Seasons
Something we always kind of try to incorporate into our worlds is a unique, world-specific calendar, usually in the form of a different year or foreign seasons. I think the closest we got to anyone actually caring was in Avatar campaign, where the phases of the moon and specific holidays might have impacted our ability to bend the elements, but even that fell to the wayside pretty quickly. This just isn’t something we usually keep track of because none of us want to put in the work towards keeping track of the days. Well, now that I’ve dabbled into tracking your days in Lumen to prevent excessive out-of-session activity, I think it’s actually pretty manageable and I’d like to give a deeper calendar system a shot.
This system is intended to give a sense of depth to the world without making you all feel like you’re speaking a different language by just asking for the date, as well as ensuring you all are accurately and realistically using the time that you have for out-of-session downtime. It’s also intended to develop Holidays for fun roleplay encounters, either if we happen to be at the table for any specific nation’s Holiday or if you ever stop to enjoy a day on the calendar when you’re enjoying downtime.
The Sanjania Duer Calendar
The most popular and widespread calendrical system in all three planes is the Sanjania Duer Calendar. More often referred to as the Duer calendar, this system is the timekeeper’s equivalent of the Common language and is used by the vast majority of nations and cultures. Only a sparse few groups choose to use other timekeeping methods as their primary calendrical system, usually small pockets of life tucked away in the deep crevices of Hell who have little interaction with other cultures, if any at all. This doesn’t mean there is absolutely no such thing as other systems used in the world, I just won’t be developing them like this one.History
The history behind the Duer calendar is a subtle mystery. It is known that the week and month system, as well as a few days of the week, were directly inherited from a system that was once Heaven’s primary calendrical system, the Rambiturgic Calendar; so, at the minimum, it is widely accepted that the Duer calendar originated from Heaven. However, most days of the week in the Duer system are Rubiconian; while there is no specific calendrical system that these days link back to, the etymology is rooted in old Rubiconian languages and has no history in either Heaven or Hell. The history behind the year of the Duer Calendar is entirely unknown. What exactly happened on year 0 to begin this calendar is theory work at best; many people believe it has something to do with Rubicons irregular nature, others believe the calendar began entirely in Heaven and incorporated Rubiconian names much later, few believe it has to do with the Athaneos or even the Eyes of Rubicon. Whatever the reason, there is no concrete answer on the origin of the years. In addition, exactly how the calendar became so prevalent is also a mystery. Heaven, unsurprisingly, has the earliest records of using the Duer Calendar out of the three planes. Hell picked up on the calendar a mere hundred years after Heaven’s usage of the system. Despite the Rubiconian influence on the system, though, there is no significant evidence of the plane utilizing the calendar until thousands of years after year 0. It is likely that the system was inspired by and subsequently pushed onto Rubiconians by Heaven after their notoriety in the plane had drastically increased, but the exact reason why is unknown. Over time, there have been attempts to overthrow the Duer calendar as the primary calendrical system, but all have fallen short for one reason or another. Most of these attempts come from Hell, as they have zero significant reason to follow the system other than “everyone else is doing it”. Regardless, the Sanjania Duer calendar remains strong as the primary calendar in every plane by large margins.The Year
The Duer calendar goes back tens of thousands of years, down to year 0. This significant collection of ages has only withstood the test of time due to magical calendars and dedicated timekeepers in both Heaven and Hell. The system has lived long enough that even the most dedicated timekeepers have lost track of the earliest hundreds of years in the calendar. The current year is 56,025. Most people when talking about the year will just refer to the last two digits, “25” or “the 25th year”. Less commonly, people may say “It’s the twenty fifth of fifty six”, or “It’s the 25th year of the 56th milenia”, or even less commonly “It’s fifty six O’ twenty five”. One year is 168 days. The beginning of the year is a holiday just like it is in our world; I will cover that alongside any other local holidays in each nation’s articles, once those are released. Each plane and even specific regions keep track of the seasons differently; I will cover seasons later in this document.The Month
Instead of our 12 months of the year, the Duer calendar splits up its year into three months, each of which is split in half to create six functional months. Each full month is 56 days, whereas each half month is 28 days. The first half of every month is referred to as the “early” half, and the second half is always the “late” half. The first month of the year is Tieli (pronounced tee-lee). The first half of the month is “Early Tieli”, and the second half is “Late Tieli”. When talking about the date, you might say “It's the 21st Early Tieli” or “It’s the 7th day of Late Tieli”. The second month of the year is Lonli (pronounced lawn-lee). The first half of the month is “Early Lonli”, and the second half is “Late Lonli”. When talking about the date, you might say “It's the 12th Early Lonli” or “It’s the 28th day of Late Lonli”. The third and final month of the year is Senli (pronounced sen-lee). The first half of the month is “Early Senli”, and the second half is “Late Senli”. When talking about the date, you might say “It's the 3rd Early Senli” or “It’s the 18th day of Late Senli”. When writing out the date, you write day-month-year. Months are written 1-1, 1-2, 2-1, 2-2, 3-1, or 3-2. A full date, like “The 4th Late Lonli of the twenty fifth of fifty six” for example (which, by the way, people wouldn’t normally say the entire date like that… that’s like saying “it’s the eleventh day of February in the year twenty twenty-five”), would be written as “4, 2-2, 25”. Another example, the date “14, 1-1, 25” would be the 14th Early Tieli, 56,025. I won’t decide what month, or even day, the campaign will start on just yet. If you guys want to start on a holiday, or in a specific season, I’ll gladly pick that day or a day in that season for the beginning. If there’s any disagreements on that topic, we can talk about it together. I know that’s starting to get into “speaking a different language” territory, but it won’t come up in conversation a lot. My intent behind having the last two digits of the year by “25” is to keep it grounded in our world a little, with it being 2025. The half-months are also split into roughly the same number of days as our months at 28 days, so you can immediately get the sense for how far into a half-month you all are. Most of the time, you all will be saying things like “it’s the 22nd” or just the day of the week, so I hope this part won’t be too strange to keep up with.The Days of the Week
For simplicity, the days of the week will be the same as in English. Sunday will be the start of the week, and Saturday will be the end. The etymology for most days of the week is mostly fine anyway; since this is Bayonetta inspired, having the days be nordic isn’t very far from the lore of the world anyway. Saturday is the weirdest one, and we’ll chock that up to Heaven doing it’s thing, alongside Sunday being The Lord’s Day.Time of Day
I’m also not going to change the hours of the day or the difference between AM and PM. The clock and general definitions of time (minute, hour, etc) will be the exact same as ours.Seasons
In our world, there are a variety of different seasons based on your location on the globe, and even places that share the same months experience them differently (for example, July is a snowy season in Australia). Each plane also experiences different seasons, some more complex than others. The following sections will give you a brief overview, but some specific nations or regions on the map may have different seasons depending on the climate of the area (some places on earth have a wet and dry season, for example).Rubiconian Seasons
The seasons in Rubicon follow how we’re used to for the most part. Most areas have a spring, summer, fall, and winter, just placed differently across the three months depending on where they are. Several fey are deeply intertwined with the four seasons, so even places with a wet and dry season have closer to a four-season split by specifying early and late dry/wet season. In the region I will create a map for, Late Senli and some of Early Tiele are considered winter. The rest of Early Tiele and Late Tiele are considered spring. Early Lonli and some of Late Lonli are considered summer. Finally, the rest of Late Lonli and Early Senli are considered autumn.Heavenly Seasons
Heaven is a universally temperate plane; although many places have differences in humidity and altitude, making up the more varied ecosystems and climates, the plane generally does not see extremes in any region. Because of this, most of the plant life is green year-round and the inhabitants don’t rely on a pattern of seasons like in Rubicon. Heaven does face changes that Rubicon doesn’t ever have to worry about, though; the massive airspaces between continents are filled with wind currents that fluctuate throughout the year, creating two distinct seasons for the majority of Heaven. Quickbreeze is Heaven’s season of rapid air currents and chilling winds berating the continents, as the name implies. This is the cooler of the two seasons, as the cold air in-between continents is more easily swept onto land, pulling heat from the islands more rapidly than usual. Still, the temperatures don’t usually go below that of a chilly autumn day in Rubicon, aside from a few stray islands or mountain tops. During this season, traders and travelers take advantage of the stronger winds to push them further and faster along their regular routes. Heaven’s inhabitants are likely to compare autumn and winter temperatures to that of quickbreeze, and may use foreign expressions like “faster than a hawk in quickbreeze” to make comments about speed. Stillbreeze is Heaven’s season of more stagnant air, as the name implies. This is the warmer of the two seasons, as the wind currents are much more like gentle breezes and do not carry the cold mid-airway winds nearly as far. The air never goes completely stagnant, and the heat doesn’t usually go above that of a sunny spring day in Rubicon. During this season, farmers and other producers take advantage of the more stable weather to work longer days and enjoy the warm breezes. Heaven’s inhabitants are likely to compare spring and summer temperatures to that of stillbreeze, and may say things like “I’ve never felt such a harsh stillbreeze” in reference to some of Rubicon’s harsher climates. Different places in Heaven experience these seasons at different times of the year. I don’t know how frequently you all will be visiting Heaven and how close the locations you visit will be, so I answer questions about the season as you enter. As far as I’m aware, none of you have any experiences in Heaven, so your characters may not know what season it is without the help of the locals anyway.Hellish Seasons
Hell is a different monster from the other two planes. The nature of Hell’s layers makes for a vast variety of different ecosystems, each with fluctuating weather or terrain hazards. Thus, each layer has its own distinct seasons. I will give you a brief description of each layer’s seasons below:- Avernus: This layer experiences a galewind season where the winds are borderline lethal and traveling in that region is almost impossible. Otherwise, the layer still experiences harsh winds, but the environment is able to be traveled with less hazard. Inhabitants refer to the two as “galewind season” and “journey season”.
- Dis: This layer doesn’t experience any typical seasons aside from some runoff of the intense winds in Avernus. Instead, they have extreme storms and tornadoes that harass the layer on a weekly basis.
- Minauros: This layer has a wet season and a dry season. During the wet season, there is constant snowfall and blizzards. Dry season sees almost no snowfall.
- Phlegethos: This layer experiences a season of heavy tectonic activity and a more stable season, referred to as “flood season” and “dry season”. Flood season sees the most earthquakes, rockfalls, and ravines flooding with lava, whereas dry season is more still.
- Stygia: This layer experiences a monsoon season and a dry season. During monsoon season, the storms can even be felt under the water.
- Malbolge: This layer experiences periods of heavy volcanic and geyser activity. This season is referred to as “the eruptions” and consists of frequent volcanic eruptions, bubbling and exploding lava pools, and smoke-filled skies. Otherwise, the layer’s inhabitants just say the layer is “not erupting”.
- Maladomni: This layer experiences constant bouts of rain and is always extremely humid. There are no real seasons in this layer, just weeks of constant rain and weeks of only intermittent rain.
- Cania: This layer experiences zero differences in weather or elemental activity, making Cania the most stable of all the layers.
- Nessus: This layer has very little difference in weather or climate, but will have occasional months of pure, delicate snowfall and months without any snowfall at all. Some of the layer’s sparse residents will just say “the snow has begun” or “the snow has stopped”, but no more extreme than that.
Comments