[3ed] Creation's Calendar

[Souls512]

This is what I got from the description in "MEASURING TIME" on page 73.
Thoughts and comments welcome.


I intend to make a more elaborate version later.

[Eldagusto]

The basic reasoning is that Calibration counts as New Moon since it is Moonless,

[Stephen Lea Sheppard]

Calibration isn't counted as part of autumn; the seasons all have 105 days total, IIRC, and then Calibration is outside of that.

[Stephen Lea Sheppard]

Also, when you're setting up the lunar cycle, it's best if you don't arrange for the new moon to land on the first or last of a month, because doing so messes with Calibration's "Suddenly, the moon is gone from the sky!" shtick.

[Blackwell]

Also, when you're setting up the lunar cycle, it's best if you don't arrange for the new moon to land on the first or last of a month, because doing so messes with Calibration's "Suddenly, the moon is gone from the sky!" shtick.

I don't know if it has to be sudden; the moon going away as usual but then not coming back like it's supposed to achieves the effect too. I kind of like it better, actually. Calibration may be freaky but it's still part of the natural cycle.

[Stephen Lea Sheppard]

The problem is that if the moon fully disappears on the last day of the month, why do people in Creation consider Calibration to be five days long? For most purposes, it's a five-day stretch when the moon isn't in the sky; if the moon disappears on the last day of the month, then we end up with a world whose inhabitants perceive it as possessing year that has fourteen twenty-eight day months, a twenty-seven day month, and six days of Calibration.

That is not, and has never been, how people in Creation are described as perceiving Calibration. Calibration's absent moon is weird and unnatural, entirely distinct from the new moon's progression from a waning sliver to entirely absent to a waxing sliver.

Also, Conrad's formalization of the new moon as falling on the last day of the month during 2e was what lead him to retcon Calibration's night as also lacking stars, which we're not keeping for 3e, so we don't really want to keep the thinking that lead to it, either. I'm not sure which day of the month the new moon falls on, but I'm sure it won't be the 1st or the 28th when it hits print.

[Eldagusto]

Oh, I was going to say the lacking stars thing... :P

This should probably have been placed in the core! >

[Stephen Lea Sheppard]

Oh, I was going to say the lacking stars thing... :P

This should probably have been placed in the core! >

Core is meant to be self-contained. No one would reasonably read "During Calibration there is no visible moon in the night sky" to mean "During Calibration there is no visible moon, nor are there visible stars, in the night sky." 3e core says during Calibration there's no moon. Doesn't mention stars. A reasonable read of that is, there's no moon but there are stars. It'd be gauche for the 3e core to specifically refute tiny 2e setting details like that.

(And this is why I always found claims that since all of 1e and the 2e core never specifically said there were stars in the sky during Calibration, it's technically not a retcon to declare there are none to be really grating.)

[Eldagusto]

No I don't mean the star thing, I mean the Moon Thing should be in the Core, I mean my other instinct is then to have it be a Full Moon, or Half moon I guess.

[DaWaterRat]

I think for most "impact" the Full moon should straddle the 28th/1st - which will make Calibration suitably freaky since it goes from shiny full moon to no moon and then back again.

Of course, that makes those few cultures that I'm sure exist (at least in my creation) that *don't* use Calibration to mark the start and end of the year a little weirder, but that's not a bad thing.

[Stephen Lea Sheppard]

Oh.

Yeah, maybe it should have been, but that sidebar was pretty long already. The core also doesn't have names for the days of the week. (Which may or may not still be the old Sunday, Moonday, Mercuryday, Venusday, Marsday, Jupiterday, and Saturnday from previous editions.)

[Murcushio]

I hate the calendar so much sometimes. I know that the devs have declared repeatedly that people live commensurately longer, and have commensurately longer maturation times, in Creation to balance out the extra time so that a sixty year old in Creation is roughly the same as a sixty year old here on Earth and not the seventy year old they should be, but it still always drives me nuts.

[Kyman201]

Wait, so Calibration's nights still have stars? There's just no moon?

That, to me, is entirely underwhelming. Like, I thought it was underwhelming when I found out therewas still daylight during Calibration, but now I find out that visually there's not a major difference between a night of a new moon and a night in Calibration?

Right, well, the core can keep that. I'm going to keep up my house setting rewrite that Calibration is five literal days of darkness.

No sun, no moon, no stars. All the lights in Heaven go out for five days, and during that time the greatest of demons may be called, on the nights when the Incarnae turn their eyes from Creation.

THAT is a badass and mystical stretch of time that makes Creation feel unlike Earth.

[Murcushio]

Wait, so Calibration's nights still have stars? There's just no moon?

That, to me, is entirely underwhelming. Like, I thought it was underwhelming when I found out therewas still daylight during Calibration, but now I find out that visually there's not a major difference between a night of a new moon and a night in Calibration?

Right, well, the core can keep that. I'm going to keep up my house setting rewrite that Calibration is five literal days of darkness.

No sun, no moon, no stars. All the lights in Heaven go out for five days, and during that time the greatest of demons may be called, on the nights when the Incarnae turn their eyes from Creation.

THAT is a badass and mystical stretch of time that makes Creation feel unlike Earth.

This seems unduly harsh in a setting that's already super duper harsh. Thousands are going to die every year if its five entire days of no natural light whatsoever. Artificial light is going to be hard to come by in many areas of Creation, and five days of everyone needing it for the most basic of tasks seems... problematic.

[Kyman201]

This seems unduly harsh in a setting that's already super duper harsh. Thousands are going to die every year if its five entire days of no natural light whatsoever. Artificial light is going to be hard to come by in many areas of Creation, and five days of everyone needing it for the most basic of tasks seems... problematic.

I admit I often handwave with rule of cool and the like, so the implications of five literal days of darkness probably haven't sunk in. Besides, some of the natives of the far north on Earth managed to endure much longer periods of no sun before the craziness set in. Before electric lighting was invented.

I'd prefer something like "No sun, moon, or stars" most for Calibration... But I'm willing to settle for "No moon or stars at night", which at least is more stark than "Just no moon. There's still days, and there's still stars, but there's no moon."