So one thing my players have really gotten into is the calenders of my setting. Almost obsessively.
And later on, this started to really work in my favor as a GM, to the point now I'm wondering how I can add to it. I'e started to mark all my holy days, etc, but I'm trying to see what other GM's have done.
I'm not talking about the years, I'm talking about the day-to-day way that the days and months are measured. I use an eight day week (called the Hawaak) and the 60 day month (the Goesi), and a day in betweeen each month, called the Wuod.
celtrician calender (http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/The+Calenders)
So I'm wondering what has worked well for other setting creators to immerse their players in their worlds. What kind of calenders do you use, what other time and chronology tricks have you tried, what has failed that you want to warn us about (like my old really complicated astrological system my Gotipan monks used...my head is still spinning)
and if you haven't really built a setting specific way to mark your days, read and learn. When players know the days of your week, and what month and year it is, you've won another little victory.
(//../../e107_files/public/1198103416_392_FT0_astrologer.jpg)
(And how does your world spell calender?)
It is difficult to come up with the calender for my setting, since my setting is merely Earth several million years in the future. Thus, it is difficult to get away from the standard conventions:
Many cultures name the days of the week after the visible stellar objects. Sunday (day of the sun), Monday (day of the moon) ... In Japanese, the days of the week translate to Sun Day (sunday), Moon Day (monday), Fire Day (tuesday), Water Day (wednesday), Wood Day (thursday), Gold Day (friday), and Earth (the element, not the planet) Day (saturday).
The days of the week are references to the visible stellar objects, usually in order of visibility/importance: Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, , Jupiter, Saturn; as you can see, Sunday, Monday, and Saturday fit this; Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are named after Norse gods: Tyr's Day, Woden's Day (or Odin's Day), Thor's Day, and Freyja's Day (or Frige's Day). Before that, tuesday is associated with mars, wednesday with Mercury, thursday with Jupitor, and friday with Venus. Tyr was likened to Mars, Oden was likened to Mercury (why the king of the gods was likened to the messenger of the gods, I don't know), Thor with Jupiter (thunder association), and Freyja with Venus, so that's where our germanic names for the days came from.
It also seems that india named the days of the week after the same planets, and unless I'm mistaken, so did the Chinese. This points to shared human origins, or at least that we're all sheep and think alike.
(After researching, the order of the days of the week in china, based on the planets, are sun, moon, mars, mercury, jupiter, venus, and saturn; the same as ours. It is the same in India as well. Thus, it seems, I can't really escape this order, but I do get to give them different elemental associations).
Since my world has 7 elements and will still see the same 7 celestial bodies, there's no way I can get away from the 7 day week.
As for the months, again, I probably can't get away from a 12 or 13 month calender; month refers to the cycle of moons. I do have some leeway here, since time can slow the moon's rotation, but I will definitely have the months ending with the full moon (and I'll cheat and have everything fit together perfectly). I think the earth's rotation around the sun could change in time, but I think it would get slower, so I might have to alter the days of the week as well.
I'm thinking that I'll have irregular months with irregular weeks. A week is 7 days, but the month will be 31 days; 4 weeks, with the three days of the full moon as monthly holidays at the end of each month. This means the year will need to be 372 days long, only 6.75 days longer than the current year; I think I have enough leeway to make that change.
I'll keep the planetary order of days the same, but reorder the elemental associations. The Sun is Life, and the Moon is Death, Mercury is Air (its the fastest), Venus is Earth (its the brightest, and thus thought to be made of gold, a metal, which is tied to Earth), Mars to Fire (its red), Jupiter to Water (I'll need a justification), and Saturn to Void (it's the slowest, and thus furthest planet, so it is the gate keeper of the beyond; the Stars themselves are also tied to Void). Actually, Saturn will not be thought of as a "planet", but as a wandering star. Due to the associations, I actually need to have the week end on "moon" day, but that's only really a switch of sun and moon.
So my week will be "life" day, "fire" day, "air" day, "water" day, "earth" day, "void" day, and "death" day. I may put "void" day between "life" and "death", but this is quibbling over the weekend at this point.
Each week will end with the start of the phase of a the moon, which will always fall on "death" day. The Moon's tie to death ties in with Lycanthropes. Because the Moon is "death", the time of the full moon will be days of rest, where people don't work and celebrations aren't held.
This has gotten me thinking about a lot of things. Thanks for the motivation!
Well, I hadn't given the topic in general any thought until my most recent "for fun" design project, the Clockwork Jungle (http://www.thecbg.org/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?39646). There, the calendar is derived from the fraction 22/7, as that's the local approximation of pi; the Clockwork Jungle is a vast forest in which all compasses point to a central mountain "pole," so its residents think of distance in terms of degrees and distance from the center, not in terms of a North/south/etc. grid (as there are no such directions). Their choice of a calendar is informed by that world view, since both 7 and 22 are considered holy numbers and the circle is the holiest shape.
The 'True Calendar' or 'Rainbow Calendar' is based on these numbers. In this calendar, there are 7 'movements' (about half an hour) in each 'period' (about 3.5 hours), 7 'periods' in each day, 7 days in each week, 7 weeks in each 'season,' and 6 and 2/7 seasons in a year (corresponding to 44/7 or 2Ï', the number of radians in a circle). The six seasons (and one 'partial season,' which lasts only 2/7 as long) correspond to the seven (there's that number again!) colors of the rainbow: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Purple. The 'Red season' at the start of the new year is also the short one, lasting only for two weeks, but it is typically a time of celebration or worship in most civilized cultures. The "Orange season" is considered unlucky, not because of numerical anomalies but because that color is associated with a very dangerous enemy.
Other calendars exist, but they are usually used alongside the True Calendar, and are usually more localized and aimed towards certain ritual or commemorative dates. Only the Iskites (one of the more advanced races) actually use an astronomical calendar as well '" because they clear their settlements of trees, only they see the sky on a regular basis.
It's sort of like real earth history backwards - in ancient Babylonia, they came up with the idea of 360 degrees in a circle because they noticed that that's about the angle stars turned (one degree) in a day (they used a 360 day calendar). In my world, because angles are so important, the calendar was derived from the measure of angles, not the other way around.
I'm not sure if this is actually a "true" calendar - that is, if it accurately represents a solar year - but 1) I'm not sure if there even is a solar year, as I haven't decided on the greater cosmology and 2) even if there is, it won't matter if the calendar is inaccurate because there are no seasons to measure years by (it's a tropical zone).
Of course, I wouldn't involve players with the math - but even if you don't know the reason behind the calendar, it does re-emphasize important themes (holy numbers, angles, etc.) and is quite easy to remember (the color associations). I think it's a good idea to have things that are both simple and memorable and also logical if a player or character is interested. It's simple without being arbitrarily so.
Quote from: LordVreegSo I'm wondering what has worked well for other setting creators to immerse their players in their worlds. What kind of calenders do you use, what other time and chronology tricks have you tried, what has failed that you want to warn us about (like my old really complicated astrological system my Gotipan monks used...my head is still spinning)
and if you haven't really built a setting specific way to mark your days, read and learn. When players know the days of your week, and what month and year it is, you've won another little victory.
When Languages Die (//)[/i] by linguist K. David Harrison, who spends an entire chapter on cultures and time-keeping, which had me seriously thinking about how time-keeping is handled in a game world.
What is really surprising is how diverse time-keeping is. Some cultures, like ours, has days, weeks, months, and years, not to mention many larger and smaller divisions. In the Tuvan culture of Siberia, Harrison says, you don't ask "What day is it?" You ask "Today is how many?" and your answer is strictly in lunar phases; the Tuvan culture doesn't have days of the week or months. He further added that Tuvans are so aware of lunar cycles that they don't even need it in the sky to tell you what today is.
Harrison also goes over naming schemes, citing the Tofa people, also from Siberia. They had, until displaced by the modern Russian system (which is almost the same as in English), 2 separate calenders; one was based off of hunting, another off of gathering:
Quote from: Table 3.2 Tofa hunting and gathering calenders, as remembered by Tofa elders[tr][td]Month[/td][td]Tofa 'hunting' calender[/td][td]Tofa 'gathering' calender[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]January[/td][td]great white month[/td][td]empty month[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]February[/td][td]small white month[/td][td]big log month[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]March[/td][td]hunting with dogs month[/td][td]tree bud month[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]April[/td][td]tree bud month[/td][td]good birch bark collecting month[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]May[/td][td]hunting in the taiga month[/td][td]digging saranki root month[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]June[/td][td](forgotten)[/td][td]bad birch bark collecting month[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]July[/td][td]hay cutting month[/td][td]hay cutting month[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]August[/td][td](forgotten)[/td][td]collecting saranki month[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]September[/td][td]preparing skins month[/td][td]preparing skins month[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]October[/td][td]rounding up male deer month[/td][td]move Autumn capsite month[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]November[/td][td]sable hunting month[/td][td]hunting month[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]December[/td][td]cold month[/td][td]braiding (rope making) month[/td][/tr][/table]
Note: Although this would have been a 13 month lunar cycle, common to all Siberian peoples, it was now remembered only as a 12-month cycle due to the influence of the Russian calender.
n.b.[/i] - Both the Tuvan and Tofa language are nearly extinct, with almost all of their speakers being quite old and with their children and grandchildren being almost exclusively monolingual Russian speakers.
So keep in mind that the various cultures don't have to, and in my opinion shouldn't, just be your own concept of the world (such as days of the week) shoved into some strange sounding names.
Works Cited:Harrison, K. David.
When Languages Die. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
I love the Tofa months in how descriptive they are.
One thing about history I always found interesting is how many reforms calenders have had.
By the way, some great, great answers so far. Our players don't deserve us.
On Ifpherion, there are four moons and two suns, all with regular, but unique cycles, so I can't really use an Earth-like system. I had the idea to tie the most popular calendar to the seasons, but upon consideration, that seems like a quite troublesome system. Hmm...I'm going to have to think about it some more.
As to how the notion is represented...
Well, in the common tongue of the world, it would be 'Kelndray'. Which is similar to 'Kaondray' (destiny), and 'Kuladron' (contract). I wanted it to be slightly obvious that the world was settled by Human colonists, and a tiny little bit of their language has survived, even after 100,000 years.
Quote from: LordVreeg(And how does your world spell calender?)
Calendar. :P
As to how I represent actual days, it tends to be different for each culture. The Duer calendar, which is the one that is in mainstream use in Wonders, is rather complicated. The world takes ten years to go around the sun, which affects its climate rather dramatically, and this time is measured in 'Cycles'. One cycle is roughly equal to ten of our years, and consists of fourteen seasons. There are two seasons which occur once, and six that occur twice. The unique seasons mark the hottest and coldest parts of the year, and the others mark the stages in between those points, and are thus repeated between them. The calendar goes from Raksh'aan (the hottest point of the year) all the way through Daksh'aan, Zek'aal, Maksh'aan, Rekza'aan, Manda'aan and Gulz'aan to Hammaz, the coldest part of the Cycle. Hammaz then returns to Gulz'aan, which then goes on to Manda'aan, and so on. Although this can be confusing, in chronicles they are often recorded either in Half-Cycles or with a Mez' (lit. Two or Second) prefixed to the month.
Each season consists of four 'months', Yaash'mah, Duun, Raakza'mah and Za'diin'mah. These are mostly there for historical accuracy and for discussing birth dates and so on, and are the largest unit of time above days. Days themselves are almost identical to our own - roughly the length of time taken for the world to rotate on its axis. These are marked by the suitably inflected number suffixiated with a 'ne, translating as Day. Duer do possess rudimentary clocks, which measure time in Twelfthdays (i.e. two hours). These clocks are based on water, however, and are not the most efficient of devices.
[blockquote-Wensleydale]The Duer calendar, which is the one that is in mainstream use in Wonders, is rather complicated. The world takes ten years to go around the sun, which affects its climate rather dramatically, and this time is measured in 'Cycles'[/blockquote]
Macro-cycles, especially climate based ones, are just such a fantastic way to mark a setting as 'alien'. And I'm sure it is not so confusing once the players hear every date that way.
Yeah, exactly. Date doesn't usually come into Wonders all that much, but the point in the cycle that it is DOES - because the climate changes so dramatically from near jungle-like temperatures to arctic. This obviously in turn has effects on architecture, wildlife, flora etc.
Celtricia is a polytheistic society, where no one wants to piss off a specific church, so there are pretty constant holy days.
But I love how your calender is intertwined with the climate. That really makes the players feel it.
An expert from my website on the Calendar:
QuoteAlmost all of Kishar uses a lunisolar calendar developed by the encarans almost 16,000 years ago, though few realize the calendar's origins. The year begins near the vernal equinox (of the northern hemisphere). The year is made up of twelve months, each consisting of 29 or 30 in direct alternation, keeping the new moon around the first of each month. Every third year adds a thirteenth month to the year keeping the calendar aligned with the tropical year.
Month Days
Hoinomasa 29
Duwmasa 30
Tremasa 29
Ketormasa 30
Penkemasa 29
Swekmasa 30
Septmasa 29
Oktomasa 30
Newmasa 29
Dekmasa 30
Hoindekmasa 29
Duwdekmasa 30
Treidekmasa* 29
*occurs once every 3 years
A day is roughly 24 hours long, with the respective length of day and night varying based on location and season. Names for days of the week tend to vary, but most cultures translate the original encaran names: Moonday (on which the new moon should land), Windday, Earthday, Fireday, Waterday, Lifeday, Sunday. The names from the sun and moon pay tribute to the celestial bodies, while the other names are derived from early classical thought about the composition of reality.
The encaran calendar assumes the year 1 Encaran Calendar (EC) begins with the founding of the Encaran Empire (in 14,970 BCE). This would make the current year 15,999 EC.
While most of the world uses the calendar system, the years used vary based on the location. Most of western Midgard uses a calendar that begins with the last year of the Great War as year 1 Common Era (CE). Prior years are are considered Before Common Era (BCE). Under this system, the current year is 1029 CE. Dates listed are in CE unless otherwise noted.
I am not really happy with the names of the days of the week, as they sound forced. Actually, Xeviat may have given me some other ideas.
The names of the months are derived from proto-Indo-European numbers, with "masa" at the end (I think I adapted a Sanskrit word for month, but I'm no longer positive where I got it).
I use a 28 day, 12 month model. We use the normal month names, but not the actual day of the month names. Most time is tracked by fortnights and new moon/full moon phases.
The Calendar for a setting my friends and I are creating is, sadly, sorta typical. Its a 322.525 day Calendar. The Calendar is separated into 4 Seasons which are each composed of 2 Months. Each Month is 42 days long and are divided into five 8-day weeks. There are a total of 4 intercalary days, 2 of which are permanent, 1 that occurs every second year and the last that occurs every 4th year. Each of these days are not accounted for in the normal day-to-date scheme. Each of the 4 Greater Gods are associated with a particular season; each Month is thus named after a combination of a Greater God's name and the name of either the first or current Emperor. The Emperor's names are added because each is considered to be living aspects of divine force given human form, the most important of which are the first and current. Also their addition demonstrates that life is cyclical as well as putting the Current Emperor on a par with the near mythic First Emperor, as well as the Greater Gods. Finally, each of the days are named after one of the 8 lesser Gods.
My friends and I are still in the development phase but here's what the basic calendar looks like (note: Philip and Conrad are the place-holder names of the first and current Emperor, respectively).Also, we're still trying to find a way of combining the God's names with the Emperor's name... Like I said, we're still in the development phase, lol.
[spoiler=Very quick picture of the Calendar I just made]
(//../../e107_files/public/1198706370_503_FT42264_calendar4_.png) (//../../e107_files/public/1198706370_503_FT42264_calendar4.png)
[/spoiler]
[blockquote=PHOENIX]I am not really happy with the names of the days of the week, as they sound forced. Actually, Xeviat may have given me some other ideas.
The names of the months are derived from proto-Indo-European numbers, with "masa" at the end (I think I adapted a Sanskrit word for month, but I'm no longer positive where I got it). [/blockquote]
Hey, this is why we do these things. Xeviat is always helping people with good ideas.
Something that I did was to make older names and later generational names....normally people contract names and form colloquialisms that later become the names people use.
Another point I forgot to bring up before: weeks are a silly little invention. They aren't really tied to any kind of phenomenon found in nature; they're just a somewhat useful construction in our modern world. In other societies, weeks are meaningless and pointless. Many cultures base the week as a 5-9 day period based around today. Others ignore it as unessecary. Our monoculture pins it as 7 days based either on Sunday or Monday, with the former being more common.
Other divisions also have silly little things to them, as well. Months, for example, don't really need to be "months;" instead, they can be lunar cycles, which begin on a certain phase of the moon (the new moon, in the English version, but it could be any, seen as it is an arbitrary assignment.)
The Tuvan culture, a group related to the Tofa I mentioned above, doesn't really use "days." They go off of the exact lunar phase; Harrison recounts that it could be the middle of the day, or even after the moon has set, and the Tuvans who have retained their traditional ways (which are being largely supplanted by the Russian culture) could tell you the exact phase of the moon.
On the one hand, time systems don't actually mean that much. They are simply
[blockquote=Limetom]Another point I forgot to bring up before: weeks are a silly little invention. They aren't really tied to any kind of phenomenon found in nature; they're just a somewhat useful construction in our modern world. In other societies, weeks are meaningless and pointless. Many cultures base the week as a 5-9 day period based around today. Others ignore it as unessecary. Our monoculture pins it as 7 days based either on Sunday or Monday, with the former being more common.[/blockquote]
Well, actually many weeks are not modern. Many historical, ancient societies had them, often based on religious significance. Hindu, Babylonian, Roman all had variations on the 7 day week based on clestial bodies they could see and religious days. Also, many early agrarian societies involved going to the market, and Wikipedia notes that many early names for the week were derivatives of the word 'Market'.
But your underlying points are very well taken, that weeks are subdivisions created around cultural specific delineations, market, holy day, fasting, fishing, etc. And campaign or setting needs to take advantage of this. I also use the work-week to delineate further the class strata in Celtricia. For the moneyed classes, there is a 5 and a half day work week (out of the 8 day week), while for the common folk it is a customary to work for 7 out of the eight days, and for the truly underclass, everyday is work to survive...
Then perhaps weeks are completely unnecessary for my setting. It would be a simpler answer: it's not Tuesday, it's "Duwmasa 1st."
My setting doesn't have a great deal of use for calendars (since it's only a year old), but I've decided that everyone tends to talk about seasons rather than years. Seasons are much more emotionally involving than they were even for real-world farmers in the Middle Ages, since not everyone was even sure that the first Winter would end. There are still skeptics in The Overture who aren't sure that seasons are going to fall into a regular cycle. Thus, they talk about the Second Spring instead of Spring of the Second Year, etc.
For anyone using non-standard names for days, have your players actually become accustomed to using them or can reference them without help?
I've always found that alternative month/day/week names simply confuse players more so than help flesh out the feeling of the setting.
The Xiluh calendar works rather odd. Depending on how you look at it, it's either more simple (every month is 20 days), or more complex (extra-calendar days) then the Gregorian calendar.
By the way, I think it's kinda funny that so many people seem to incorporate some sort of "leap day" concept in their calendars. Is there any reason for this, in the various settings? For me, it was simply a chance to add a bit of complexity to the calendar.
Quote from: PhoenixThen perhaps weeks are completely unnecessary for my setting. It would be a simpler answer: it's not Tuesday, it's "Duwmasa 1st."
Well, I used to work that way, and it actually helped immerse the players in my groups to set up a week that was based on the schedule of the city. When I only used the monthday, I got less involved players.
Quote from: MonikerFor anyone using non-standard names for days, have your players actually become accustomed to using them or can reference them without help?
I've always found that alternative month/day/week names simply confuse players more so than help flesh out the feeling of the setting.
yes, my players became occustomed, and that was one of th reasons I started this thread, so I could push that envelope. Once I put them on the site and started referencing them a lot myself (and embarreSsed them when they forgot a few holy days). But putting it on the site where my players reference a lot, and for while I was printing out the excel sheets with the calanders and passing them out with every session.
@Moniker:
You do become accustomed, but it does make it harder. For any casual setting, I thus stick with the Gregorian calendar. When I came closer to publishing stories in Kishar, however, I began to ask myself why that calendar would be in use; verisimilitude won out over simplicity (but then I'm not really running games in my setting these days, so I guess that's okay).
Quote from: MonikerFor anyone using non-standard names for days, have your players actually become accustomed to using them or can reference them without help?
I've always found that alternative month/day/week names simply confuse players more so than help flesh out the feeling of the setting.
This has always been a problem for me. My players are often quite content to just use the English Gregorian Days and months, if at all possible. In some settings I have created, bah, no one cares; in others it does matter. When I change the names of the days, I typically refer to them a lot while I GM, such as setting days for quests to be done or having the PCs meet others on particular days. Repetition leads to retention.
Also, to help make things easier it is often wise to name things in an a way that is phonetically easy. Which do you think will be remembered and used more often: Xel'zbugitaril or Priana? If you said the former... well you're just weird then. The latter is obviously easier and 5 will get ya 10, the PCs will remember it far more easily than the former.
Another way to help get the PCs to remember the names would be to have less actual names to remember. I always thought it would be cool if a Calendar named the weeks, rather than the days. Each day would have a number (such as Firstday, Secondday, Thirdday, etc.) while each individual week (say there's 4 in a month) would have an actual name, such as Saane. So if you wanted to meet someone for breakfast 2 days hence you should say "Saane Seventhday" or "Seventhday of Saane." In this model your PCs would only need to remember 4 names instead of 7+.
Quote from: Sdragon1984The Xiluh calendar works rather odd. Depending on how you look at it, it's either more simple (every month is 20 days), or more complex (extra-calendar days) then the Gregorian calendar.
By the way, I think it's kinda funny that so many people seem to incorporate some sort of "leap day" concept in their calendars. Is there any reason for this, in the various settings? For me, it was simply a chance to add a bit of complexity to the calendar.
I like leap days because they are interesting and provide depth to what is essentially a boring spreadsheet. I also add them because I tend to make leap days important, unlike the Gregorian Leap day. Leap Days are days of merry fun and great festivals. Plus as we all know large social gatherings are a hotbed for possible adventure hooks...
Hmm, thinking about it I know of another reason why I like Leap days - they represent imperfection. It just doesn't feel real if the world orbited the sun in an easily divisible number of days. Granted I'm sure somewhere in the galaxy some planetoid does but the majority, I am sure, are flawed. I suppose I also like that the imperfection occurs in something that constantly strives for symmetry, perfection and predictability. Granted, leap days occur regularly but they often throw a wrench in the system when they are added, at least in my opinion.
[blockquote=EELF]So if you wanted to meet someone for breakfast 2 days hence you should say "Saane Seventhday" or "Seventhday of Saane." In this model your PCs would only need to remember 4 names instead of 7+. [/blockquote]
I just wanted to lay down a quick kudo...I think these sound great. Really nice 'setting-specific' terminology that just rolls of the tongue.
I agree with LordVreeg.
Elemental Elf, mind if I steel your idea of just naming the four weeks in a month? That sounds like the best idea thus far.
I'm also thinking of just having 12 months, 3 to each season, and each having a name along the lines of Waxing Winter, High Winter, and Waning Winter, and so on.
Quote from: LordVreeg[blockquote=EELF]So if you wanted to meet someone for breakfast 2 days hence you should say "Saane Seventhday" or "Seventhday of Saane." In this model your PCs would only need to remember 4 names instead of 7+. [/blockquote]
I just wanted to lay down a quick kudo...I think these sound great. Really nice 'setting-specific' terminology that just rolls of the tongue.
I am both honored and flattered that you'd 'kudo' my idea :)
Quote from: JharvissI agree with LordVreeg.
Elemental Elf, mind if I steel your idea of just naming the four weeks in a month? That sounds like the best idea thus far.
Steal to your heart's content! :)
Quote from: JharvissI'm also thinking of just having 12 months, 3 to each season, and each having a name along the lines of Waxing Winter, High Winter, and Waning Winter, and so on.
That's a nice way of handling names of the months. Its easy to remember and flavorful!
Quote from: Sdragon1984By the way, I think it's kinda funny that so many people seem to incorporate some sort of "leap day" concept in their calendars. Is there any reason for this, in the various settings? For me, it was simply a chance to add a bit of complexity to the calendar.
If you're making a calender that has the 1st month of the year alway have the winter solstace in it, leap days are almost always a nessecity. If the orbit of your planet around it's sun (or the sun around the planet, as the case may be) so perfectly aligns with the time it takes for the planet to turn once on its axis that you never have an extra day that needs accounting for, then the calendar doesn't seem believable.
My setting has two moons in it, and it takes roughly 14 cycles of the quicker one for them to align at a certain point in the sky, thus a 14 lunar month "year" is used for recording dates and events, even though it only takes about 4 or 5 lunar months for the planet to go through all 4 seasons. The years are named after the the constelation the moons block out from the sky, while the months have fixed names, based off of saints that were born in that month.
Quote from: JharvissI'm also thinking of just having 12 months, 3 to each season, and each having a name along the lines of Waxing Winter, High Winter, and Waning Winter, and so on.
In Canada, there's four distinct seasons:
1) Winter
2) More Winter
3) Is Winter done yet?
4) Construction.
I'm doing something right...or I'm reading it as such. My PC's from the Igabr group are arguing online as to what they are doing for the Day of Chaos holyday coming up on Fastak...
Cantus, I have to give you credit...I have a binary solar and lunar world, and never bothered to take it into account. Having the years being named by the constellations blocked is pure genius.
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Quote from: CantusQuote from: Sdragon1984By the way, I think it's kinda funny that so many people seem to incorporate some sort of "leap day" concept in their calendars. Is there any reason for this, in the various settings? For me, it was simply a chance to add a bit of complexity to the calendar.
If you're making a calender that has the 1st month of the year alway have the winter solstace in it, leap days are almost always a nessecity. If the orbit of your planet around it's sun (or the sun around the planet, as the case may be) so perfectly aligns with the time it takes for the planet to turn once on its axis that you never have an extra day that needs accounting for, then the calendar doesn't seem believable.
I don't see that as being so unbelievable, in a sci-fi setting. If you dismiss the requirement of the winter solstice being in the first month, all you need to do in our world is increase the length of a second 1.0006849315068493150684931506849 times (1:1.0006849315068493150684931506849 is the same ratio as 365:365.25, according to the calculator in this computer), and "reclaim" that extra six hours/year that we set aside to make leap days. Using the same idea of hyper-precise mathematics, you could even get every other unit of time measurement to be perfectly standardized.
Also, as has already been mentioned, a sci-fi setting includes the possibility of a world that just happens to have such perfect organization in the axle revolutions and orbital revolutions.
I know most of the settings here are fantasy, but we do have a few sci-fi settings, and even some settings based on more radical concepts as ring worlds and such, so why should we rule out the option of a perfectly standardized calendar?
SD is right. As long aas it rings true and has versimilitude for the players, it should be a good calendar 'mechanism'.
I conceed defeat. SD is right, I just didn't think it through as much as I should've.
Quote from: CantusI conceed defeat. SD is right, I just didn't think it through as much as I should've.
I wouldn't concede just yet. Your point of imperfections is still valid. I mean, both methods are conceivable, particularly in a sci-fi setting, but the perfect cycle seems extremely improbable, and the hyper-math would require commonplace devices that could measure with precision well beyond
trillionths of seconds (something, I'm sure, Pope Gregory didn't have when he proposed his new calendar).
I guess my point was that it's certainly possible to have such a calendar, but your argument of imperfections show that it's improbable, which seems to be more important to verisimilitude.
Quote from: Kap'n XeviatIt also seems that india named the days of the week after the same planets, and unless I'm mistaken, so did the Chinese. This points to shared human origins, or at least that we're all sheep and think alike.
(After researching, the order of the days of the week in china, based on the planets, are sun, moon, mars, mercury, jupiter, venus, and saturn; the same as ours. It is the same in India as well. Thus, it seems, I can't really escape this order, but I do get to give them different elemental associations).
Xev, can you provide the names for the Indian (and Chinese) days? Or a link to your material if you found it online? I'm interested in that for my own work.
Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrograde_motionRetrograde motion[/url] or some other distinctive feature. If a civilization has telescopes, or planets inside it's orbit are much more visible, the phases of such planets are also interesting. From Earth, with a telescope, the Moon, Mercury, and Venus have complete phases, and outer planets have limited phases (Mars, for example, only goes into a partial crescent on either side.)
Also, I'd recommend anyone interested in this stuff to get Stellarium (http://www.stellarium.org/), an open-source planetarium. It's pretty fun to even just mess around with, not to mention used by the University of Hawaii's Astronomy Department, among others.
A calendar, I've discovered, is an excellent way to screw around with numbers, if you're into that kind of thing.
For example, I quote part of my setting:
QuoteThe Dilandri calendar is 360 days long, which is divided into fifteen months of 24 days each. Each month is further divided into four six-day weeks.
Each day is 25 hours long, fluctuating between 17 and 12 hours of daylight, depending on the season. Each hour is divided into 60 minutes, and a minute into 60 seconds just like normal earth.
As I'm sure most of you know, my setting is based on the number five, so why don't we explore the prevalence of this number...
360 days in a year= if you divide by five, you get 72, which is factorable into 8 and 9, or 3^2 and 2^3. Add the exponent to the base and you get... five.
fifteen months= three times five. If five is perfection, three, being midway between five and zero, signifies normality.
24 day month= 2*2*3*3*3 factors down into five prime numbers.
four six day weeks= surrounding five on either side.
25 hour day= 5 squared.
the minutes I'm considering bringing over to the five standard, but then I get the issue of having to deal with actual game effects...
I went for relative simplicity, if it's complicated players will have trouble remembering and using it - a simple one requires some adjustment of basic inherent thought patterns utilized our entire lives, complicating matters exacerbates this. I hadn't thought of the realism of variance which Cantus points out, even though I deliberately included a slight variance between the orbit of the binary stars around their common gravitational midpoint axis and Panisadore's orbit around them - almost precisely the same but over the course of a 40,000 year cycle the smaller of the two suns seems to disappear behind the larger for about 10,000 years. (This has occurred twice in the known history of the world but few besides elves and Khurorkh realize this, other race only vaguely recall the second occurence, creating "ages" of the First Sun, Old Sun (refering to the presence of the smaller,) and current New Sun. That's not a part of what LV is asking here, but I'm kinda surprised that I didn't think of the normal results of variance on yearly calendars.
Anyway, here's mine:
oops
I went for relative simplicity, if it's complicated players will have trouble remembering and using it - a simple one requires some adjustment of basic inherent thought patterns utilized our entire lives, complicating matters exacerbates this. I hadn't thought of the realism of variance which Cantus points out, even though I deliberately included a slight variance between the orbit of the binary stars around their common gravitational midpoint axis and Panisadore's orbit around them - almost precisely the same but over the course of a 40,000 year cycle the smaller of the two suns seems to disappear behind the larger for about 10,000 years. (This has occurred twice in the known history of the world but few besides elves and Khurorkh realize this, other race only vaguely recall the second occurence, creating "ages" of the First Sun, Old Sun (refering to the presence of the smaller,) and current New Sun. That's not a part of what LV is asking here, but I'm kinda surprised that I didn't think of the normal results of variance on yearly calendars.
Anyway, here's mine: (Relatively) Standard Calendar for Panisadore.
1 Year = 403 days, divided into 13 months of 30 days + 1 intercalary holiday at the end of each month, named as follows:
Month: (ending in:)
1.Sleeping
2.Waking
3.Flooding
4.Growing'
5.Gathering
6.Burning
7.Storming
8.Planting
9.Working
10.Waiting
11.Reaping
12.Singing
13.Freezing
Holiday:
1.First Stirrings
2.Rutting
3.Anointing (in Mud)
4.Flower Frolic
5.Bower Feast (Low Harvest Tide)
6.Oath Taking
7.High Sun Salute
8.Blessing of the Furrows
9.Festival of the Pavilions
10.Sharpening Day
11.High Harvest Tide
12.Grande Ovation
13.Mummers' Night
Each Month is divided into 3 weeks of 10 days each, named as follows:
1.Stillness (commonly observed as a day off of work/temple day)
2.Stone
3.Rain
4.Wind
5.Flame
6.Claw
7.Leaf
8.Sun
9.Moon
10.Star
Lunar cycles are:
Melanar Bloodmoon: 40 days
Surnest the Wanderer: 144 days
The calendar is Elven (Fehladurh) in origin (Khurorkh timekeeping was originally based on the cycles of Melanar Bloodmoon which also regulates the menstrual cycles of both '˜Orkhs and humans,) and is now in common usage by virtually all surface civilizations (If they speak Common then they're at least familiar with it.) Because of the axial tilt of the planet is less than that of Earth the temperate zones are broader than those on Earth. Given the binary suns the planet is also generally hotter. The monthly names reflect the seasonal changes in temperate zones primarily, where the time around the solstice is often too hot and dry for many crops. Hence there are often two growing seasons '" a short one in spring followed by a later autumn season. Winters are generally shorter and milder than Earth norm.
Days and dates are referred to by week (numbered) followed by day then month. For instance, '3rd Wind of Reaping,' which is abbreviated in writing as 3-4-11. Holidays are simply referred to by name and abbreviated as --#. Year numbering varies widely.
Quote from: Stargate52524 day month= 2*2*3*3*3 factors down into five prime numbers.
2 x 2 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 108, not 24.... unless I'm missing something?
Quote from: IshmaylQuote from: Stargate52524 day month= 2*2*3*3*3 factors down into five prime numbers.
2 x 2 x 3 x 3 x 3 = 108, not 24.... unless I'm missing something?
sorry, 2*2*2*3. It was late.
No worries! I was just being a mathematical snob ;)
[blockquote=s&m]Lunar cycles are:
Melanar Bloodmoon: 40 days
Surnest the Wanderer: 144 days
The calendar is Elven (Fehladurh) in origin (Khurorkh timekeeping was originally based on the cycles of Melanar Bloodmoon which also regulates the menstrual cycles of both '˜Orkhs and humans,) and is now in common usage by virtually all surface civilizations (If they speak Common then they're at least familiar with it.) Because of the axial tilt of the planet is less than that of Earth the temperate zones are broader than those on Earth. Given the binary suns the planet is also generally hotter.[/blockquote]
I do like this. Celtricia is in a binary system (really binary. 2 planets, 2 suns, Celtricia has 2 moons), but I like your tying to the menstrual cycles. It shows a lot of thought.
While direct links to lunar gravity and menstrual "tides" have never really been proven, I think that it does have good verisimilitude. I was originally thinking of having the cycles of elves and slower breeding races - e.g. dwarves, linked to Surnest, possibly the Burrowing Peoples as a whole and then linking that of Elves to the combined lunar phases - chart both as sine waves, only ovulate when both are near full at the same time and menstruate when both are near new. I need to actually plot this and look at it tho - it would create rather long "windows" of fertility in between even longer infertile phases - there would be very distinct "generational cycles" arising from the periodic "baby booms" it would produce. Not necessarily a problem tho - just that if the pattern is distinct enough (like 4 years every 150) it's going to have a very significant impact on Fehladurh culture and society. I need to look at the combined lunar patterns any way because of tidal influences - if I treat Melanar's gravity as roughly equivalent to our moon's (Panisadore is similar in size to Earth) then when I add Surnest's influence it can cause some helaciaous tidal effects. I thought to mitigate this by having Surnest full at apogee and Melanar full at perigee, but realized lunar visibility is actually irrelevant beyond observational purposes - gravitational effects of actual apogee and perigee cause the tides regardless of associated phase. On a planet where seafaring is a significant element this kinda *has to* matter, which has me pondering designs in the back of my mind for flexible floating wharfs and piers etc. to cope with the occasional "superhigh" tides. Part of the fun for me of creating my own setting - drop in a different element and trace the ripples that would result - little things can have some big effects. . .
Quote from: Snargash MoonclawWhile direct links to lunar gravity and menstrual "tides" have never really been proven, I think that it does have good verisimilitude. I was originally thinking of having the cycles of elves and slower breeding races - e.g. dwarves, linked to Surnest, possibly the Burrowing Peoples as a whole and then linking that of Elves to the combined lunar phases - chart both as sine waves, only ovulate when both are near full at the same time and menstruate when both are near new. I need to actually plot this and look at it tho - it would create rather long "windows" of fertility in between even longer infertile phases - there would be very distinct "generational cycles" arising from the periodic "baby booms" it would produce. Not necessarily a problem tho - just that if the pattern is distinct enough (like 4 years every 150) it's going to have a very significant impact on Fehladurh culture and society. I need to look at the combined lunar patterns any way because of tidal influences - if I treat Melanar's gravity as roughly equivalent to our moon's (Panisadore is similar in size to Earth) then when I add Surnest's influence it can cause some helaciaous tidal effects. I thought to mitigate this by having Surnest full at apogee and Melanar full at perigee, but realized lunar visibility is actually irrelevant beyond observational purposes - gravitational effects of actual apogee and perigee cause the tides regardless of associated phase. On a planet where seafaring is a significant element this kinda *has to* matter, which has me pondering designs in the back of my mind for flexible floating wharfs and piers etc. to cope with the occasional "superhigh" tides. Part of the fun for me of creating my own setting - drop in a different element and trace the ripples that would result - little things can have some big effects. . .
Right. tidal influences. from what you describe, big ones.
I had everything and the math figured out for my binary suns...until someone reminded me that Celtricia being 2.5X earth sized screwed up all of my equations. CRAP>>>>
I haven't tried to work out solid equations - only went for conceptual consistency, not letting anything produce really blatantly glaring violations of physics. Truth is, to place a planet at the appropriate distance around a binary system as described would probably be even further out and require a much longer year (measured in equivalent days if I stick to 24 hour rotation of earth sized planet) and I highly suspect that the rotation of the twin stars about their common axis would have to be much faster to maintain separation - or a lot more separation pushing the planet out even further. . . And I am *not even* going to mess around with fluctuating albedo values from this much water and sunlight (the planet as described would be really cloudy, but then cooler. . .) followed by cooling/freezing and reduction in water vapor. In short - I would be amazed if someone could produce a set of equations by which Panisadore could actually exist (supporting life as we imagine it) and be anything like I've described! Hell, I'm not even sure if the wonky orbit of Surnest could actually work. But I think it sounds pretty good and makes for decent story. . . (Kinda like hearing Liberace and realizing he was a decent pianist if you just don't look to closely.)