The Calender

I realized before starting the adventure officially, I need a calendar. Sure, I could use the official one from Faerun or any other in the Forgotten Realms, but this is also a writing tool and I want to be able to have my own sense of time without a certain publishing company sending a goon squad (unless its Fezzick and Inigo) after me. I also don't want to use the human calendar because that is boring and I kind of want to one up Tolkein (please don't haunt me).

Here is a quick and dirty calendar on the world of Elde. We will assume all races follow the same calendar because I am kind of lazy.

This is a lunar calendar and like the Gregorian calendar, there are 12 moons per year. These will be kind of ramshackle until I iron the deets out. The calendar, in itself, is simple. It starts in the spring and ends in the winter and is measured when plants start to wake up from their annual winter nap.

The naming scheme isn't based in traditional months that folks on this plane may understand but more so in phases.

I will make a table here to show the Erdian calendar and Gregorian to show the months and their counterparts.

Erdian	Gregorian
First Blade	March
Rain Fall	April
First Calf (north)/Seedtide (south)	May
Summer's Awakening (north)/Seeding(south)	June
Summer's Wrath	July
First Harvest	August
Leaf's Turn	September
Last Harvest	October
Feasting	November
Holly Wreaths	December
Frost's Blanket	January
Frostmelt	February

The months follow phases of the seasons, universally. There are some differences especially when it comes to First Calf and Summer's Awakening (which are just because the northern points of Erde have more livestock en masse and the south has more crops. I am not referring to climate or anything relative to that. Its a universal phenomena that on the various continents throughout have their northern and southern regions specializing, something about utilizing trade instead of exhausting resources from each community). Of course, you have smaller communities that are more self reliant than the larger settlements and don't follow the same tradition while tending to their own needs. But that is for a post on culture, I will leave that out here for the time being.

The year, on the other hand, is tricky to track. One can tell their age by tracking the moons but what year it is in Erde is highly contested because each individual culture measures their years differently, usually based around huge societal events. For example. in the Kingdom of Lapoach it is 47 ATC (after the council), meaning it has been 47 years after the abolishment of the monarchy in favor of a council. In Scheck, it is a little more broad as it is 385 YAF (years after founding) to commemorate how much time has passed after the founding of the Duchy of Scheck, when it broke off from Lapoach to gain independence.

For trade & interpersonal purposes, and use of outlaying communities that do not belong to a particular Duchy, Barony, or Kingdom, the terminology used is After the Treaty (AT), signifying the signing of the treaty by the major kingdoms/duchies/baronies to keep a common calendar for the sake of trade. Currently on the continent of Lenckro, it is 150 AT.

Currently, Lancatixican Denckash is standing at the gates of the seat of Lapoach, also called Lapoach on the 1st day of the First Blade at 8 in the morning. Yes, the clock stays the same, for the most part.

Happy adventuring!