----- Original Message -----
From: Robert A. Howard
Subject: GM: A new calender
> I'm thinking of creating a new calendar for the world my new group is
going through, and thought I'd ask the advice of the Masters :) on what
they'd do to make it different.
>
> I don't need to have a 365 day year, for one thing. :) I was thinking of 8
holy days, for the Solstices and the mid-points between the Solstices (for
instance, Halloween).
>
> What would you do for such a calendar, and how many days would you chose?
>
> Rob
Gods, now THAT'S a can of worms. So much for the latest dormant stage.
The calendar is going to depend upon Lots-O-Things. Is it solar (like the
Gregorian calendar currently in use) or lunar (like the Islamic or Chinese)?
Or is it some crossbreed (the Mayan calendar, which I won't even BEGIN to go
into)? Or something else entirely?
Length probably should hover around where it is realworld, if only because
it makes life much easier. (If you really want 120-day years, well...)
(This will have practical considerations--a basically "Earthlike" setting
will probably have the same orbital distance, and thus a similar orbital
period. While that does presume something like real-world orbital mechanics
at work, you can always come up with similar excuses in other setups...)
Months tend to be grouped by season (early, middle, late) and named
appropriately. If you want your festival days outside the formal months,
that works fairly well, one for the start of each season with three months
between, plus perhaps some extras tossed in depending on details. You also
need to decide where the year begins, which will depend on the culture (as
will the solar/lunar distinction). Feel free to be arbitrary; after all,
it is in the real world! It's likely to wind up at the start of a season,
usually spring or winter, but not always, especially for an agrarian
society. If it's an old "Imperial" calendar, though, it could well start
from the anniversary of some ancient overlord's ascent to power.
Number of months is mostly arbitrary too, depending. Lunar calendars will
have one month for each lunar cycle (which may not fit neatly with the
seasons, and gets really ugly if you have multiple moons to deal with).
It's even possible to have more than one set of months, perhaps one civil
and one religious, with the cycles only coming together every so often (like
what many cultures with traditional lunar calendars deal with in the real
world, or the precise and complex structures used in Mesoamerica).
My advice: Do yourself and your players a favor and keep it simple. Fewer
headaches that way.
---Doc---
GURPS fan - GMAST-L Old One (once banished)
Philosopher - Alternate Historian - General Crank
email: bravado@mindspring.com
web: http://www.mindspring.com//~bravado
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