Felaryan Calendar

You know, one option would just be to keep the plant 'vague' for now, and just debate it in the meantime.

The plant the elves used could be just theoretical, as a means because its been thousands of years since then, and also because its easier for us to churn out the actual article, and fine tune it in the mean time.

http://felarya.com/wiki/index.php?title=Calendar

Yup. He dead indeed.

here is what it looks so far :

Quote :

under construction

With an ever-changing sky and no significant seasons to use as a mark, keeping track of time in Felarya has always been a difficult task. Many civilizations in the distant past have devised their own methods to measure the passing of time, such as the position of the sun or the cycle of the moons, but none proved consistent enough to be reliable. It wasn't until the dawn of the Elven Empire that the first true Felaryan calendar came into being. The elves found that the most reliable (and satisfying) way to measure the passing of days in Felarya was to use the growth cycle of a remarkable plant called Safaras, capable of growing very steadily in almost any environment. Taking advantage of the lack of true seasons, farmers across the empire cultivated their fields into circles called Safarims, which they then divided into twelve smaller plots, not unlike a modern clock. Every month, they would plant one of the twelve plots, and then wait until thirty days and thirty nights had passed before planting the next.

Once a year had passed since the first plot was planted, it would be ready to harvest. After the elves harvested and replanted this first field, they would wait till the dawn of the next month when the second plot would be ready for harvest. Through this carefully calculated method of planting and harvesting Safaras every month, the elves not only created a very reliable way of measuring time, but also a much more consistent income of food across the empire that helped them a lot on planning ahead. With the fall of both the Elven and Sagolian Empire, and the advent of the clock, the use of Safaras as a tool to measure the passing of time has long since fallen out of style. However you can still find some small safarims carefully cultivated and tended by Negavians at some locations in Negav, as a tribute to the past. Moreover, the calendar devised by the elves stood the test of time and remained the basis for most of the commonly used calendars in the modern world. Even the name of the months, derived from elven deities, stayed almost the same, with only a few variations between civilization.
Months

The elven calendar uses twelves months in a year with each month being 30 days or 3 Decals (10 days) long. The months were named from short elven phrases, each about a certain deity of the elven pantheon. Nowadays the names have become entirely common among the population and most people have completely forgotten their origins, which sometimes irritate elves.

Temolin, derived from the goddess Temolian. The original name is "Temolian Olin", meaning "Duty of Temolian". In the elvish culture it's a time of growth and industriousness where elves are especially hard at work.

Sermidyne, derived from the god Sermidian. The original name is "Sermidian-dyne", simply meaning "The time of Sermidian". It's a time of challenge and self-improvement. Elves push themselves hard during Sermidyne and major contests and tournaments among them often take place during this month.

Araxion, derived from the god Araxiad. The original name is "Araxiadon", meaning "Araxiad's chance". A time of prosperity, wealth and optimism.

Dregadil, derived from the god Rendregad. The original name is "Rendregad-adhil", meaning "The grasp of Rendregad". A time of uncertainty, caution and reflexion. Elves hate waging battles during this month and see it as a bad omen. Almost no elvish victories ever occured during Dregadil.

Shiwolin, derived from the goddess Shiwo. The original name is "Shiwo Volin", meaning the "Song of Shiwo". It's a time for Rejoyce and hope and to be creative. Many elvish celebrations and parties take place during Shiwolin.

Atim , derived from the goddess Atimielle. The original name is "Atimialle ogadim", meaning the "Blessing of Atimielle". It's a time for courage, confidence and fortitude.

Tatal, derived from the goddess Thatalia. The original name is "Tali-Thataliae", meaning "Thatalia's exultation". A time for being bold and daring, pushing forward toward the goal ahead or victory. Many wars were declared during Tatal by elves.

Felantil, derived from the goddess Fealanthia. The original name is "Fealanthia avil", meaning "Call of Fealanthia". A time for love, passion, courting, exuberance, gathering and coming together as a community. It's also a time of feasting which could mean more predation from elves across Felarya.

Norowune, derived from the goddess Norowina. The original name is "Norowina Korowune", meaning "Norowina's gentle embrace". A time for reflection, self-consciousness and solemnity. Many elvish traditions are upheld during Norowune.

Orchomenyne, derived from the god Orchomenos. The original name is "Orchomenos megnamedyn", meaning "The time of Orchomenos, the cursed". It's also called "the month of the cursed" or "the cursed month". It's a time of chaos, death, destruction and sea changes ahead. Elves are very wary and cautious during Orchomenyne and steel themselves for the worse. It's also the month when Cal-Chanim occurs and creatures from Milkadis temple come flooding out of mirrors.

Margil, derived from the god Margadan. The original name is "Margadan Volangil", meaning "Margadan's litany of the past". A time for honoring the memories of the fallen, melancholy, renewal and looking ahead.

Zeturin, derived from the god Zetur. The original name is "Zetur Telurin", meaning "Zetur's tranquility". A time of Peace, wisdom and deep thoughts. During Zeturin, many elves try to make additional efforts to reconcile with people they have a quarrel with.

What do you think ?

It works quite well I think! Take a bit of time to get used to since it doesn't follow the typical calendar lettering but I like the descriptions of every month and how each month adds to the Elven mind set and mythos. They needed something to be strengthened as a race in Fealarya. Seriously they are important to allot of major events in Felarya but don't often get any praise or dotting even out of the human sized races hardly.

Oh just nopw realized I don't see anything for days. That to be added latter?

It looks really deep and well-detailed. The names of the months make a lot of sense, and I like that you add a little lore to each one's description. I'll be honest, I do have some reservations about how you describe the development of the Sasafras fields. I feel like, if they simply waited 30 days and 30 nights, it'd end up inconsistent due to the changing sky, which is what we wanted to avoid in the first place. I thought the idea was, like, they recorded how long it took the plant to fully grow from planting to harvest, and then divided that time out into twelve equal parts, with nothing to do with the day/night cycle of Felarya. Am I wrong? I feel like I might be nitpicking too much.

You are nitpicking too much. For the sake of simplicity, it's implied that a full day day and night cycle lasts roughly 24 hours. Even if that doesn't technically makes sense given the idea that not every sky is the same everyday, sometimes you just have to say "Screw it!" and cut some corners in order to make your idea fit. Let's face it, either we accept this whole idea that a day is roughly 24 hours, as shaky as it sounds, and have this brand new calendar idea that help enrich Felarya's lore, or we can all be pedantic and argue this one point for months and not get anything done. I don't think I need to point out which option is obviously the better one.

Shady Knight wrote:

http://felarya.com/wiki/index.php?title=Calendar

Yup.  He dead indeed.

I stand corrected.

That would work... if the entry didn't mention clocks. If days are never the same length in Felarya, then clocks would be completely pointless. Unless clocks somehow also manage to adapt to how long a day would pass, which probably wouldn't be able to happen.

What they're powered by isn't the problem, but how they could be able to accurately measure time if we go with the idea that no two day and night are ever the same length. They could be both solar and lunar powered, but if one full day is 24 hours long and the next only 22, then your clock is going to be a little inaccurate, wouldn't it? Add in eight more days, each one lasting however many hours they want, and your clock is now completely and hopelessly useless for measuring time.

But... that problem has already been solved for us. Take a read here:

Da Wiki - Physics (The Felaryan Sky) wrote:

According to Yarblek, the rift in the skies of Felarya shifts nearly as much as the world itself and observant people will notice that the stars and moons change sometimes, albeit rarely. For example, once in a while, Felarya will experience a Silvery Night. The rift in the sky actually aligns itself with a random star in the universe to use to heat Felarya. Something in the dimensional chemistry of Felarya itself actually controls, to a degree, where the dimension of Felarya will connect to real-space. This is why the rift in the sky always connects to certain sized stars and at a certain distance from them. This keeps Felarya at roughly the same temperature. The same principle applies to the night cycle. The rift will connect to certain sized moons, at a certain distance to maintain Felarya’s tidal cycle and so on. This control in the dimensional chemistry of Felarya could also explain why it seems that only human inhabited worlds get connected to Felarya.

Ergo, something about Felarya regulates to an extent what skies it connects to, so it's not completely random. We can also from this that a full day in Felarya is also relatively the same each time, since let's be honest, living in a world with wildly varying lengths to its days and nights would do quite a number to your sleep schedule.

I don't get your idea at all, but like I said, there's no need for it. The Physics entry pretty much already got us covered by implying that days and nights are relatively the same length.

Now that I think about it, I think Kelerm could make better use of sun-powered clocks than Negav would since it lives right next to the desert.  It would give Kelerm a central identity of its own, a society that worships the sun and uses it for all sorts of things, like a power source for some devices. To them, a full day begins when the sun rises and ends when it sets, which would go perfectly with the idea of a clock that resets at sunrise.  It would also reinforce the Othemites as the butt monkeys of Felarya by having completely missed a gold mine of easy converts.  What do you think?

In any case, I fail to see what's so wrong with the line itself.  Sure, now that I look at it again, the line "they waited 30 days and 30 nights" could be changed to sound a little more fanciful, but since there's already something about Felarya that regulate what kind of skies they align themselves with to keep the tides and climates from getting messed up, I don't see why we can't assume it also regulates how long a full day lasts.  It sounds like something it would do.

http://felarya.com/wiki/index.php?title=Physics

Everything you said has already been accounted for. There is no random tidal cycle in Felarya. And as for Felarya having "random" hours, that's not a hard fact, only conjecture. Karbo could very well decide that days in Felarya have a constant number of hours, making more modern calendars and clocks viable.

My problem is, if we can just say that the day-night cycle is somewhat consistent because it's regulated by the supernatural forces governing Felarya, why did we even need to come up with this whole crop-based calendar idea in the first place? I think saying that defeats the purpose of everything we've worked towards in this thread, which is why I don't like it.

I also don't like it because it seems like the Elves skipped some steps in the creation of something as grandiose as a calnedar. How did they just magically know that exactly 30 days and 30 nights equalled a twelvth of the plant's growth cycle? And for that matter, how'd they know it took a year to grow in the first place when a "year" wasn't even a thing yet?

It's simple when you think about it.  First of all, because Felarya's sky is ever-changing, even if it's regulated in a way to keep a tidal cycle, climate, and day and night consistent, things like managing the passage of time using the phases of the moon, constellations, or any other kind of astral object, is impossible.  That's why it needed to be something that was completely independent from those.

As for how the elves figured out how to grow the plant, again, it's simple if you think about it.  During the early days of the empire, or maybe even before that, it doesn't matter, we can assume that the elves grew their crops the same way we used to.  That is, they planted just one big field at once during "Spring", then waited several months until the big "Fall" harvest, and kept doing that every year.

However, somewhere down the line, farmers discovered that the Sarafaras had an unusually consistent growth cycle compared to other plants.  Seeds that were planted at the same time would almost always reach full maturity with very marginal discrepancies between each other.  Seeing how consistent the plant was in its growth cycle, and how it had nothing to do with the phases of the moon and whatnot, they decided to use it as the basis for their calendar.

They decided that a year was the amount of time it took from a Sarafaras seed being first planted to being ripe for harvesting.  Like Ilceren pointed, they probably counted the days "from dawn to dawn, no matter how long it took", until they got a concrete number.  Using this data, they divided that number by twelve to coincide with twelve of the deities they worshiped and began overhauling their farming technique into the one Xion first proposed.

As for months being further divided into three "weeks" of ten days?  Personally, I think their idea of how long a year and a month was had become so ingrained (pun totally intended) in their culture as the generations rolled by that they eventually decided to divide the months into decals so that elves could have an easier time planning out each days of their lives.

See, here's the thing: I am of the opinion that everything you just wrote should be information given in the article that Karbo quoted above. None of that stuff should be implied, or something we assume.

And... you'd be right! It should be written as part of the entry, albeit a tad more eloquently.

Incidentally, on the subject of the Sarafaras, I thought of something. What if those plants actually required little sunlight or water to grow, and instead subsisted primarily from the magic energy from the soil? Would it serve as a decent justification as to why the plant is able grow at such a consistent rate despite bad weather like droughts, floods, or excessively overcast days?

Not necessarily.  I mean, sure, it would certainly weaken the effects of the healing soil, but mostly only in the farming fields.  Besides, since all plants in Felarya are ingrained in the soil, wouldn't it make sense that all or at least most of them evolved to make use of that energy in some capacity?  And if that were the case, then wouldn't highly forested areas, which incidentally is most of the known map, be one big magic dead zones too?

Plants aside, I personally think that the Elven Empire would have been the kind of civilization to impose its rules on others it annexes, what with elves usually believing themselves to be superior to others, especially when it comes to plants, and Felarya's elves being no exception.  Not only that, but your idea that they took notes from civilizations from civilizations they conquered feels less like they discovered something about the Sarafaras and used it as the basis of their calendar, and more like they decided to make a month 30 days long and a year 12 months long on a whim, which severely reduces the significance of the Sarafaras.