Exalted Calendar
Calendar reproduced by Graylion
MEASURING TIME
Time passes in Creation much as it does on Earth, with sun, moon and stars rising in the east and setting in the west. Most cultures divide the ensuing days into twenty-four hours. The idea of minutes and seconds as discrete units of time remain from First Age lore, but chronometers more sophisticated than sundials, sandglasses, and hour-candles are rare, leaving such units as vague abstractions to most.The Realm measures the passage of years from the accession of the Scarlet Empress. It is now RY 768, five years since the Empress’s disappearance. The traditional calendar year is comprised of fifteen lunar months, each 28 days long and divided into four weeks. These are arranged in five cycles named for the elements— Air, Water, Wood, Fire, and Earth—each divided into Ascending, Resplendent and Descending months. The year begins with the month of Ascending Air and ends in Descending Earth.
Spring starts early in the cool, damp Water cycle and proceeds into the warm burgeoning of Wood, in which winter crops are harvested. Summer extends from the middle of Wood through most of the scorching cycle of Fire, a period long enough for Creation’s more fruitful regions to manage another two or three harvests. The final harvest comes in the crisp autumnal months of Earth, followed by the icy cycle of Air.
The year ends with the five days of Calibration, when the weather is in disorder and Luna hides her face. Calibration is a time of strange portents, ill fortunes, and broken destinies, when gods, ghosts, and demons walk the earth. Some cultures mark Calibration and the end of harvest with a five-day festival of dancing, loud music, and masks to scare away ill luck. Others spend it in solemnity or fear, beseeching whatever powers they trust to protect them from misfortune, catastrophe, and the coming winter.
- Exalted 3rd Edition (pg73)
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