Hello All,
Just curious if this question had come up previously. I find it adds to the immersiveness to have a unique calendar.
Thanks
Creative Director
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Hello All,
Just curious if this question had come up previously. I find it adds to the immersiveness to have a unique calendar.
Thanks
There is a calendar for the world; several, in fact, but there's one in particular that we'll be using. We'll post more about it when it's ready for public consumption.
Hmmm. So by that I assume it will not be detailed in Pathfinder #1?
Good to hear! Looking forward to it
There is a calendar for the world; several, in fact, but there's one in particular that we'll be using. We'll post more about it when it's ready for public consumption.Hello All,
Just curious if this question had come up previously. I find it adds to the immersiveness to have a unique calendar.
Thanks
Hmmm. So by that I assume it will not be detailed in Pathfinder #1?
There's only 98 pages in Pathfinder #1 and about 50 of that is adventure. We squeeze a lot into that back 48 pages, but not the whole world. Gotta leave something for the mythical future campagin setting book.
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Creative Director
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Golarion's calendar is close enough to the Gregorian calendar, in any event, that you could swap the two back and forth with minimal impact. Our calendar, I believe, will have 12 months of 30 days each, and a week is 7 days long. That calendar leaves five or so days out, which may or may not be "non-month associated festival days" or something to that effect. We're still working it out, though.
Posting the calendar to the blog might be a good idea, actaully, once it's ready. But for now, it's close enough to the Gregorian one that it'll do.
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Golarion's calendar is close enough to the Gregorian calendar, in any event, that you could swap the two back and forth with minimal impact. Our calendar, I believe, will have 12 months of 30 days each, and a week is 7 days long. That calendar leaves five or so days out, which may or may not be "non-month associated festival days" or something to that effect. We're still working it out, though.
Posting the calendar to the blog might be a good idea, actaully, once it's ready. But for now, it's close enough to the Gregorian one that it'll do.
Why not 5 weeks of 6 days? Would make it easier to know which numbered day of the month corresponds to which actual day of the week (IE the first of the month is always Monday etc)
A calendar is a nice opportunity to introduce Chelish rulers, Varisian prophecies or more about the Golarion Pantheon. My vote would be for names that are easy to remember and pronounce, sounding not too far from Gregorian analogues. Kinda the way that Eberron's days of the week also start with MTWThFSS, you know?
Cheers
There's no need to get too funky with the calendar. Just as long as there are plenty of festivals (ancient people loved festivals) and enough weird celestial events to make it shout out fantasy (such as the once in a millenium appearance of the Demon Nebula)!
Contributor
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Why not 5 weeks of 6 days? Would make it easier to know which numbered day of the month corresponds to which actual day of the week (IE the first of the month is always Monday etc)
Two words: Forgotten Realms.
More words: The rules for the most popular roleplaying game assume a 7-day week, players and GMs assume a 7-day week, WE assume a 7-day week, and human beings in general assume a 7-day week.
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Golarion's calendar is close enough to the Gregorian calendar, in any event, that you could swap the two back and forth with minimal impact. Our calendar, I believe, will have 12 months of 30 days each, and a week is 7 days long. That calendar leaves five or so days out, which may or may not be "non-month associated festival days" or something to that effect. We're still working it out, though.
For my homebrew setting, I used a 13 month calendar where each month was 4 7-day weeks for a total of 28 days. The nice thing about this is 13*28 = 364. This leaves open a "festival day" that could be new year's day or midsummer's day, etc. Also, a 28-day month correlates to the lunar cycle (assuming you use a real-world cycle) which would make life easier for an agrarian society (and lycanthropes).
-Skeld
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Golarion's calendar is close enough to the Gregorian calendar, in any event, that you could swap the two back and forth with minimal impact. Our calendar, I believe, will have 12 months of 30 days each, and a week is 7 days long. That calendar leaves five or so days out, which may or may not be "non-month associated festival days" or something to that effect. We're still working it out, though.
For my homebrew setting, I used a 13 month calendar where each month was 4 7-day weeks for a total of 28 days. The nice thing about this is 13*28 = 364. This leaves open a "festival day" that could be new year's day or midsummer's day, etc. Also, a 28-day month correlates to the lunar cycle (assuming you use a real-world cycle) which would make life easier for an agrarian society (and lycanthropes).
-Skeld
::Blink Blink::
Damn, I like that! It's so simple, yet....makes sense.
Contributor
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Ptolus has a calendar that is designed so that every year is the same. Not every month, but every year. It's one of few things about Ptolus I don't like.
Why? because screwed up calendars are fun! Especially if you give special significance to certains combinations of days and dates, like Friday the 13th, or a month with two full moons (a blue moon) or stuff like that. It gives reasons for mad cultists to need to complete their ritual on a specific schedule that players can figure out by looking at the claendar.
If every month is 28 days, then either every month has a Friday the 13th, or there never is a Friday the 13th. Lame!
Every month having 30 days, with 5 non-associated days works great!
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Ptolus has a calendar that is designed so that every year is the same. Not every month, but every year. It's one of few things about Ptolus I don't like.
Why? because screwed up calendars are fun! Especially if you give special significance to certains combinations of days and dates, like Friday the 13th, or a month with two full moons (a blue moon) or stuff like that. It gives reasons for mad cultists to need to complete their ritual on a specific schedule that players can figure out by looking at the claendar.
If every month is 28 days, then either every month has a Friday the 13th, or there never is a Friday the 13th. Lame!
Every month having 30 days, with 5 non-associated days works great!
I see what you're saying, but you could just have "special events" that only occur at certain times of the year. True, every month would have 28 days, but maybe only in a certain month, once a year, a certain lunar event occurs (etc. etc.). You can still have special, odd days that are odd because of something that happens, while having even months.
No biggie, to each his own though.
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Contributor
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You can do that, but which works better from a roleplay perspective:
PC: So they have to sacrifice the prisoners on a Friday the 13th. When' the next Friday the 13th? <looks at calendar> Oh crap it's in two days! We shouldn't have wasted so much time!
or
PC: So they have to sacrifice the prisoners at the conjunction of mercury and mars. When's that?
DM: It's in two days.
PC: Two days? Dude, you aren't giving us much time.
For me it always works better when the players can and do put the bits together themselves. Granted, it's a molehill, but it's my molehill!
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I liked the Arduinian calendar, which was originally 453 days - 12 months of 30 days each (5 six-day weeks), and three days of Tai Taowyn, the Endyear period. Later, Dave Hargrave changed it to 455 days, increasing the time of Tai Taowyn to 5 days.
After Dave's death, I went through his notes and saw he'd listed the phases of Arduin's three moons. The silver moon had a 13-day cycle, the blue moon a 7-day cycle, and the red moon a 5-day cycle. Multiplied together and you had 455 days, which explained the change in the calendar.
I calculated a moon phase chart off of this and his notes on Arduin holidays and yearly events. Several years later, I found his ex-wife had made the same chart, which matched up exactly.
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If every month is 28 days, then either every month has a Friday the 13th, or there never is a Friday the 13th. Lame!
If you use a leap day every 4th year, then Friday the 13th becomes a much more rare event. It also gives you a special festival every 4 years, like Sheildmeet in FR.
But to each his own.
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Creative Director
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Why not 5 weeks of 6 days? Would make it easier to know which numbered day of the month corresponds to which actual day of the week (IE the first of the month is always Monday etc)
MADNESS!
Changing things like that only cause continuity traps, and end up confusing things more than they help. Making such drastic changes to the standard calendar mindset might make for cool flavor in a novel or movie, but for an RPG it's too much clutter.
We'd rather focus on exciting adventures rather than keeping track of how many days are in a week. We're harried enough as it is! :)
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For my homebrew setting, I used a 13 month calendar where each month was 4 7-day weeks for a total of 28 days. The nice thing about this is 13*28 = 364. This leaves open a "festival day" that could be new year's day or midsummer's day, etc. Also, a 28-day month correlates to the lunar cycle (assuming you use a real-world cycle) which would make life easier for an agrarian society (and lycanthropes).
I'm a big fan of having multiple calendars for disparate cultures. One culture may use a solar calendar, another a lunar calendar, still another a lunisolar calendar or further still some use a calendar that's synchronized to a celestial body other the Sun or Moon.
Hmmm. So by that I assume it will not be detailed in Pathfinder #1?There's only 98 pages in Pathfinder #1 and about 50 of that is adventure. We squeeze a lot into that back 48 pages, but not the whole world. Gotta leave something for the mythical future campagin setting book.
Excuse me? Did anybody else catch this?
Ok Dr. Schneider, you've let the cat outta the bag of holding?
What's the deal with the campaign setting book? Spill, spill spill!!
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Being in another time and place is what fantasy is all about. So, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't make the days of the week sound like our real world days. Mornday, Twasday, Winisday, etc.
Nothing breaks the sense of reality to me in a fantasy novel or setting than this kind of uncreativity. In a Star Wars novel, Han Solo drank a cup of "coffeine" and suddenly I snapped back to reality, aware that I was merely reading a novel. I HATE it when fantasy settings have "coffeine" week days. I understand why you have to go for 7 day weeks. But at least give us different sounding weekday names—to give us a sense of being in another time and place.
Thanks guys, you're all doing a GREAT JOB!
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Two words: Forgotten Realms.
More words: The rules for the most popular roleplaying game assume a 7-day week, players and GMs assume a 7-day week, WE assume a 7-day week, and human beings in general assume a 7-day week.
Funny you'd mention that. I use the term tenday a lot myself.
I'm a bit eccentric though.
I'm all for 12-months with 30 days each for a 360 day year. If you add in the "festival" days it gets too much like Greyhawk (which isn't a bad thing but it's been done).
Ya know, I just thought about it and the year could have twelve 28-day months with two extra holy days in each month (on the full and the new moon) used for opposing deities. This would basically make each month have 30-days and the year be 360 days long. You'd just have to match 24 gods (or other things such as demon lords or celestial events) to the 24 main moon phases.
Heck I'm more interested in knowing details about Golarian's cosmos myself. How many moons does it have and what does it or they look like. How about constellations?
What's the deal with the campaign setting book? Spill, spill spill!!It is, as he said, mythical.
I suppose that's why they're called myths.. Because they're such tremendous let downs. : )
Cheers one and all-
GG
Thank you for the calendar information!!
Golarion's calendar is close enough to the Gregorian calendar, in any event, that you could swap the two back and forth with minimal impact. Our calendar, I believe, will have 12 months of 30 days each, and a week is 7 days long. That calendar leaves five or so days out, which may or may not be "non-month associated festival days" or something to that effect. We're still working it out, though.
Posting the calendar to the blog might be a good idea, actaully, once it's ready. But for now, it's close enough to the Gregorian one that it'll do.
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Being in another time and place is what fantasy is all about. So, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE don't make the days of the week sound like our real world days. Mornday, Twasday, Winisday, etc.
Nothing breaks the sense of reality to me in a fantasy novel or setting than this kind of uncreativity. In a Star Wars novel, Han Solo drank a cup of "coffeine" and suddenly I snapped back to reality, aware that I was merely reading a novel. I HATE it when fantasy settings have "coffeine" week days. I understand why you have to go for 7 day weeks. But at least give us different sounding weekday names—to give us a sense of being in another time and place.
Thanks guys, you're all doing a GREAT JOB!
I just read the blog on the days of the week. Those are "coffeine" names. Oh well. That's just a minor thing. I'm still going to LOVE this setting. Keep up the great work, guys!
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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I liked the Arduinian calendar, which was originally 453 days - 12 months of 30 days each (5 six-day weeks), and three days of Tai Taowyn, the Endyear period. Later, Dave Hargrave changed it to 455 days, increasing the time of Tai Taowyn to 5 days.
After Dave's death, I went through his notes and saw he'd listed the phases of Arduin's three moons. The silver moon had a 13-day cycle, the blue moon a 7-day cycle, and the red moon a 5-day cycle. Multiplied together and you had 455 days, which explained the change in the calendar.
I calculated a moon phase chart off of this and his notes on Arduin holidays and yearly events. Several years later, I found his ex-wife had made the same chart, which matched up exactly.
Neat story. I'm intrigued by Arduin, but I never managed to get it back in the day.
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Speaking of Calendars...
Does anyone know what month Burnt Offerings is going to start in Golarion?
Should we assume the Golarion equivalent of August?
Arodus is the Golarion equivalent of August. Mike McArtor was kind enough to post the day and months names on the blog. I particularly like Oathday (Thursday). Oathday in Arodus would be time to sign ironclad contracts.
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yup.yup.
I copy/pasted that to notepad until the Gazetteer comes out.
But what month/season does Burnt Offerings start?
I'm running a PbP and wanted to get intro stuff out of the way so I could run with the first encounter right off the bat.
of course with Pfinder#1 around the corner...i'm sure we'll all find out soon enough
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Creative Director
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First day of autumn.But for us anal-retentive, calendar tracking DM's....
I'm guessing it correlates to our own world? So we could assume that the Swallowtail festival would happen near the end of Rova? Is it a standard set date or does autumn begin at varying, but close, times each year?
In the end, it's best to assume it equates to our own world. So go ahead and start it, at this point, wherever and whenever you want. No one will notice if, 8 months down the line, you end up being off by a few days or weeks.
Oathday in Arodus would be time to sign ironclad contracts.That's kinda how we have Oathday figured as well. :)
In one of my homebrew worlds, I came up with "Bargain" for the name of a day of the week, a day to go shopping and buy neat things. I also had a "Sword" day for when the customer comes back to complain (the equivalent for Monday).
I've been working on a calendar for the campaign, building from the blog info. So far, this is what I've come up with...
I wasn't sure how the lunar cycle rane on Golarion, so just stuck all the moon phases on Moonday (and of course in a game with lycanthropy we always need to know when a full moon might pop up...). I estimated the equinox, solstice, aphelion, and perhelion dates and also a lunar eclipse from the 2007 calendar for North America. I'll be considering autmun as running from Rova 1 to Neth 30, with the other seasons likewise measured in three-month blocks.
I'll keep updating as we get more dates for holidays, perhaps a corrected lunar cycle, etc.
As with all my work, comments/suggestions are most welcome!
I've been working on a calendar for the campaign, building from the blog info. So far, this is what I've come up with...
I wasn't sure how the lunar cycle rane on Golarion, so just stuck all the moon phases on Moonday (and of course in a game with lycanthropy we always need to know when a full moon might pop up...). I estimated the equinox, solstice, aphelion, and perhelion dates and also a lunar eclipse from the 2007 calendar for North America. I'll be considering autmun as running from Rova 1 to Neth 30, with the other seasons likewise measured in three-month blocks.
I'll keep updating as we get more dates for holidays, perhaps a corrected lunar cycle, etc.
As with all my work, comments/suggestions are most welcome!
Sounds great, but... "Access Denied. Bandwidth limit exceeded." :(
This should work better for you...
This is great. A big help. But how do you get the Swallowtail festival being on the first. Thought it said on the day of the Autumn Equinox so wouldn't it be the 23rd?
This is great. A big help. But how do you get the Swallowtail festival being on the first. Thought it said on the day of the Autumn Equinox so wouldn't it be the 23rd?
It's stated as beginning on the first day of Autumn, not the Autumn Equinox. What constitutes the first day of Autumn varies considerably (real-world):
Some cultures place the equinox as the start of autumn
Some cultures place the equinox as the middle of autumn
Some cultures count specific months (August/September/October, or September/October/November for instance) as the season of autumn
I went with the last approach, declaring Rova, Lamashan, and Neth as the months of autumn as it's easier to divide the calendar up in this fashion and I don't have to worry about the actual season moving around. If you choose a different definition for your campaign, you'd obviously need to move the festival.
Ah. Good point. Guess I fall under the culture (least personally) who feels the beginning of Autumn falls on the Equinox.
I considered starting autumn in August, but the dang hot weather here (I'm in AL and we've been hitting 100+ for weeks now) held me to using September instead. As with most things, it likely varies by culture/race in Varisia as well. I can see the nomadic Varisians favoring the equinox as the start, while the imperial-derived folks favor a static time tied to their official calendar, while still others hold to something like "autumn begins when the first leaf of the such-and-such tree turns color." I'll likely use this in my game to highlight the distinction between cultures.
Oh, and of course folks on the other hemisphere hols that this is spring, not autumn!
I love the calendar, erian_7, but I'm having trouble figuring it out.
It says that the Swallowtail Festival is on Wealday, Arodus 31. But it also says that the day before is Toilday, Arodus 29. That is, unless I'm reading this incorrectly.
My copy also only has Arodus going up to the 29th on its own calendar page, and the 31st can be found at the beginning of the Rova page.
Is my copy flakey, or am I misreading, or is this a simple copy mistake?
Help, please.
I love the calendar, erian_7, but I'm having trouble figuring it out.
It says that the Swallowtail Festival is on Wealday, Arodus 31. But it also says that the day before is Toilday, Arodus 29. That is, unless I'm reading this incorrectly.
My copy also only has Arodus going up to the 29th on its own calendar page, and the 31st can be found at the beginning of the Rova page.
Is my copy flakey, or am I misreading, or is this a simple copy mistake?
Help, please.
There should only be 30 days in each month, so Arodus 31 should be Arodus 30, with the Swallowtail festival being on Rova 1 (unless you move it).
There should only be 30 days in each month, so Arodus 31 should be Arodus 30, with the Swallowtail festival being on Rova 1 (unless you move it).
Help, please.
AHHHHH!
I have been using this the beginning of September and have been racking my brains to remember the original author. I have linked to it often and haven't been able to credit anybody.
I moved the Swallowtail Festival to the 23rd to coincide with the Equinox.
I love the calendar, erian_7, but I'm having trouble figuring it out.
It says that the Swallowtail Festival is on Wealday, Arodus 31. But it also says that the day before is Toilday, Arodus 29. That is, unless I'm reading this incorrectly.
My copy also only has Arodus going up to the 29th on its own calendar page, and the 31st can be found at the beginning of the Rova page.
Is my copy flakey, or am I misreading, or is this a simple copy mistake?
Help, please.
This is an issue it appears with OpenOffice.org opening this excel sheet. Well at least this is the same exact issue I am getting with the calendar when I open it with OpenOffice.org.
I have changed the sheet so that it opens in OpenOffice.org(Version 2) now correctly. For those that don't have any office suite I created a PDF version below also.