Community Content: Getting Your Bearings In Relic

     If you’re new to the Great Expanse, here are some basics that you’re going to need to know about.

     The sun rises and the sun sets. The people of Austeria name their directions based on this – Riseward and Setward are obvious enough. Steppeward is in the direction of the Steppes? and Seaward is in the direction of the sea, at least if you’re on the Great Expanse. Which is also pretty easy. Just follow the sun’s journey and turn right to be heading Steppeward, left to be heading Seaward.

     The calendar is lunar-based, broken into 13 months of four seven-day weeks. The year is broken into three Ascendancies of four months, with an extra month called Festivale at the end.

Growth Ascendancy is the rainy season. Alternating warm and cold air creates frequent rains that wash the entire civilized area of our world. The months are called after the dominant constellations of that time: Arrow, Tree, Flame, Stream.
Light Ascendancy is warm and dry, ending with the harvest. Its months are Woodsman, Lady, Ram, Fleece.
Storm Ascendancy is windy and cool, too cold among the peaks and on the steppes for anyone other than barbarian clans and primitives. The constellation months are called Lamb, Shepherdess, Hunter, Ancient Wolf.
Festivale is a time unto itself between Storm and Growth Ascendancies. An extra day is sometimes added to Festivale to make sure the calendar keeps coming out right. Technically the constellation of that month is Death, but everyone just calls it Festivale because that’s when people rest and make merry, celebrate another year gone, another year to come.

Dates are written based on the end of the War. Yr208 is 208 years since the Wild was beaten and the siege of Garris lifted, which is also the point where the Third Age starts. Thus, 12 Lamb Yr208 is the sort of date you might see, which is fully ‘the twelfth day of the Lamb in the two hundred and eighth year of the Third Age’, but you won’t hear it referred to in that longwinded a fashion outside of the official chroniclers and biographers.

Festivale is different since it is not a part of any year. 21 Festivale Yr207/8 is the 21st day of Festivale between Years 207 and 208.As for the days of the week, there are seven of them and they were numbered by the Trader Imperium long ago: Oneday, Twoday, Threeday, Fourday, Fiveday, Sixday, and Sevenday. There are local variations (such as Caladon calling Sevenday ‘Heavenday’ as their day of prayer to Trinity), but those are the basics, and they mostly hold true.

Realms > Mortal Realms > Elements > Relic

Created by: 67.241.7.56. Last Modification: Sunday 02 of August, 2009 20:27:54 UTC by Kahnman.

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