Calendar

In older times, there were **various calendars** in use across the known world. However, since the sixth century of the New Age, most of the world uses the **Magisterial calendar**, itself a revised version of the **Imperial elven calendar**.

The planet Aard was part of a greater system made of circles. In the center of the system was located Porthan, the brightest of all the elements which illuminated every day. Meanwhile the world Aard orbits Cherimi, one of the bodies located on a circle around Porthan. Even before the arrival of the elves, it was known to human and dwarven scholars that the time it takes Aard to orbit Cherimi is 16 days, whilst exactly 24 of these revolutions were contained in a single revolution of Cherimi around Porthan. These observations resulted in primitive calendars among humans, but these were largely restrained to determining agriculturally significant events.

## Magisterial calendar

The Magisterial calendar is the main calendar now used across the known world by both scholars and common folk. It was devised by the Magisterium during the early third century of the New Age. It was largely based on a modified version of the Imperiral calendar created by Ocanian scholars during the second century of the Old Age. It was spread largely due to its adoption by the Hosaq Empire which spread it across the continent.

The calendar has 12 months in every year, each having four 8-day weeks. The reduction of days in a week by half was considered to make the calendar more practical and easy to use on a day-to-day basis.

The Magisterial calendar is noteworthy for having formalised the distinction between the Old Age and the New Age (also known as Our Age in literature). The first year of the New Age was marked by being the first year where no contact was had with Sol Venail, officially marking the end of Elven influence over Var Venail. Every year preceding this are years of the Old Age, marked OA (without -), whilst that and every following year are years of the New Age, marked NA.

The current year of the Magisterial calendar is the year 1241 of Our Age, marked NA.

### Months of the year

The twelve months of the year are named after numbers, Elven and Human deities and descriptions of the periods of the year. The first month begins with the beginning of spring. The months are the following: Perenutur, Nurmanutur, Aisli, Solutur, Beser, Porthur, Meren, Pentur, Waënutur, Erimur, Saru and Lunur.

### Days of the week

The eight days of the week are all named after numbers, corresponding to their position in the week with the exception of the last day named after the number 12. These are: Itrdan, Benerdan, Cirdan-teg or Tirdan, Urdan, Ulirdan, Gondan, Peldan and Lunirdan. The Elven word for day is *cirdan*, from which stem the various suffixes following the numbers.

## Historical calendars

There have been several major calendars in use historically across Var Venail. Most of them have been entirely supplanted by the Magisterial calendar by the early eleventh century NA.

### Imperial elven calendar

The Imperial elven calendar, often called simply the Imperial calendar, is the only calendar in history to have reached the geographical extent, cultural and religious significance of the current Magisterial calendar. It was invented by the elves somewhere around 3000 OA, with its first year being the year 3637 OA, marking an unknown event. Each year was split into 12 months, with each having two 16-day weeks.

The Imperial calendar kept being used by Humans and Elves alike following the departure of the Old Empire, until it was progressively replaced with the Magisterial calendar.

The current year of the Imperial calendar is the year 4868, marked IC.

### Dwarven calendar

The Dwarven calendar is the oldest one, having first appeared with the Dwarven Empire around the beginning of the fourth milennium OA. The birthyear of the legendary founder of the empire Kazran-Kûl in 4133 OA was established as the first year of the calendar, with earlier times unaccounted for. The Dwarven calendar was one of the rare calendars which was used in parallel with the Imperial calendar during elven rule.

The calendar had eight 48-day months, disregarding the revolution period of Aard itself. Each month was then comprised of four 12-day weeks, in line with the Dwarven duodecimal number system. Due to Dwarven non-dependence on agriculture, the calendar was mostly used for administrative and record-keeping purposes.

The calendar's creation is attributed to Dwarven inventor Iôska Sûl who lived from the years 3999 OA to 3857 OA. The calendar was created during this period with full imperial and chronicler support. As such, it was immediately adopted across Dwamor (dwarvendom). It was for a time used by some humans which lived in proximity to the dwarves before the arrival of the elves. Even upon their arrival, the calendar continued to be used by the dwarves which nominally submitted to Elven rule. However the Dwarven realms began converting to the Magisterial calendar as early as in the fifth century NA, and the Dwarven calendar disappeared from widespread use in the eight century.

The current year according to the Dwarven calendar is the year 5374, marked DC.

### Orcish calendars

The calendars which are now referred to as Orcish were in reality developed by the goblins before their disappearance. These were modeled after the Dwarven calendar, and later came to integrate some elements of the Imperial calendar. However due to the lack of Goblin written records the precise functioning of the calendars in use by the goblins have been lost to time. With the rise of the Orcs in the mid-first milennium OA, the Orcish calendars were steadily replaced by the Imperial, and later Magisterial calendars.

The Northern Orcs have adopted the Magisterial calendar, but continue to use other years as their first year.

### Southern human calendars

The Southern human calendars were some of the rare human calendars developed independently from Dwarven or Elven influence. Magisters have found written records of over half a dozen calendars in the Southern Realms in pre-elven times, and estimate that there might have been twice as many. The great number of calendars in the region is explained by the very high cultural and religious diversity of the region in pre-imperial times. These calendars were somewhat replaced by the Imperial calendar with the Elven conquests, but were never completely rooted out, and some of them continue to be used in more rural areas to the present day.