Calendars

The Celadian Calendar

The civil calendar of the Celadian Empire, and the dominant calendar throughout the Celadian sphere of influence, has 364 days in a common (“full”) year, divided into eight months of 30 days and four months of 31 days. The names of the months may be abbreviated to their first letters, except Casvear which is abbreviated to V.

Since this produces a calendar year that is approximately ⅖ of a day too long, 31 Werimar is omitted (a “little” year) in the second and fourth years of each five-year cycle—that is, all years ending in 2, 4, 7, or 9 according to the Celadian epoch. This epoch counts years from the union of Celadia and Orodia to form the Celadian Empire; the Darkened Sun fell during the year 337.

Originally, Heirals was the first month of the year, and midsummer’s day varied between 1 and 2 Heirals (because of the full/little year cycle). However, the mean Celadian year is a few minutes short of the tropical year, so after over 330 years of use, the summer solstice had drifted by more than three days; it fell on 4 Heirals in the year 337.

At the fall of the Shadow King, the start of the new year was moved to Dawning Day, which formerly would have fallen on 6 Thamiras; rather than have the new year begin part-way into a month, Carufes in the year 337 was lengthened by five days. These reforms were not proclaimed until about nine months after Dawning Day, and so one must be careful when reading records dating from this period.

As a result of these reforms, the summer solstice in the year 338 was 30 Werimar. In the year 485, the seasonal error will cause the solstice to once again fall on 1 Heirals, for the first time since the year 72.