Calendar

Timekeeping in Aetheris

The calendar the Luminary Court calls its own is, in most of its bones, considerably older than the Court. The names of the days, the months, the seasons, these were in use long before the empire formalised them, stamped its approval on them, and started printing them in official documents. Most common folk have no strong feelings about this. They know the months because they know when to plant, when to sail, when to expect the cold. The names are shorthand for that, same as they’ve always been.

The dwarves, for what it’s worth, apparently thought the whole thing through very carefully. Whether they’d recognise what’s been done with it since is another question.

Seasonal Structure

Season	Name	Months	Character
Spring	Awakening	Springtide, Sunshower, Greenleaf	Renewal, growth, rain, cautious optimism.
Summer	Suncrest	Bloomtide, Hearthwarm, Frostfall	Heat, abundance, long days, last chances.
Autumn	Fadeleaf	Shadowfall, Dusktide, Eventide	Harvest, memory, the slow turn toward dark.
Winter	Starveil	Snowcloak, Moondrift, Starglow	Stillness, dreams, endurance, year’s end.

Awakening - Half of what goes in the ground in Springtide doesn’t take. The soil’s cold, the days are still short, and everyone’s a bit optimistic for their own good. By Greenleaf it’s properly underway - Verdantia’s orders are rushed off their feet and the constellation charts come back out of storage.

Suncrest - The easy season. Helia’s at her strongest, the sailors who’ve been stuck in port since Frostfall finally get moving, and the Bloomtide festivals are the best of the year by some margin. Even the Discordant tend to behave themselves in Suncrest, which is either a good sign or a suspicious one.

Fadeleaf - Erebos’s priests earn their keep in Fadeleaf. The remembrance work, the harvest thanks, the quiet preparation for what’s coming. It’s not grim exactly - resigned is closer. Folk who’ve seen enough Starveil seasons gave up pretending autumn is pleasant a while back.

Starveil - Hard for most people, good for seers and anyone who does their best thinking in the dark. The nights are long and the sky is clear and Astraia’s constellations are vivid enough that even people who don’t care about stars tend to notice. Everyone else is counting the weeks to Springtide.

Year structure

Twelve months of 28 days each. 336 days per year, 48 weeks. The dwarves appear to have calibrated this against the lunar cycles with some care, each month ends with a full moon, rotating through Lunestria and Crescentia across the year.

Whether this was intentional design or the calendar was shaped to fit what was already there is one of those questions scholars argue about at length without getting anywhere. Serenis runs on her own six-week cycle regardless, and lands where she lands. Starglow is the one night all three align. That’s the Triune Alignment, and it only happens when Serenis’s cycle cooperates.

Months of the Year

Month	Season	Season Name	Character
Springtide	Spring	Awakening	The land wakes up. Rains, mud, the first green. Farmers are optimistic.
Sunshower	Spring	Awakening	Sun and rain together. Unpredictable. Zephyros gets the blame.
Greenleaf	Spring	Awakening	Everything in leaf. Good for travel and planting. The roads dry out.
Bloomtide	Summer	Suncrest	Peak of flowering. Festivals, weddings, celebrations. Everyone’s in a decent mood.
Hearthwarm	Summer	Suncrest	Deep summer heat. Towns slow down in the afternoon. Communities pull together.
Frostfall	Summer	Suncrest	Still hot, but something shifts. Merchants hurry last voyages before autumn.
Shadowfall	Autumn	Fadeleaf	Leaves turn. Shadows lengthen. The mood shifts with the light.
Dusktide	Autumn	Fadeleaf	Cooling fast. The light wanes early. Erebos’s priests start earning their keep.
Eventide	Autumn	Fadeleaf	Final harvests. Gratitude and remembrance. The year starts to close in.
Snowcloak	Winter	Starveil	First snowfall. The world goes quiet. Durandel’s orders open their doors.
Moondrift	Winter	Starveil	Long nights. Lunestria full. Omens strongest. Seers do good business.
Starglow	Winter	Starveil	Stars at their brightest. The year ends. The Triune Alignment closes it out.

Days of the week

Seven days, repeating. Every month starts on a Gatesday without exception. That rule holds across almost every culture in Aetheris, including ones that have no particular respect for the Luminary Court and wouldn’t follow its lead on anything else.

The day names come from the Dawnhewn Age. The dwarves established the seven-day week, named the days, set the rule that every month begins on a Gatesday, and built that framework into enough of the world’s infrastructure that it outlasted their withdrawal by millennia without anyone having to maintain it. The Luminary Court inherited the names and kept them because there was no sensible alternative. What the names originally meant to the dwarves, and whether the meanings attached to them now bear any resemblance to the original intent, is genuinely unknown. The cultural meanings vary enormously across Aetheris. That variation doesn’t bother most people. The names stick regardless.

Day	Character
Gatesday	First day of every month. Named for the cosmic Gates. No formal executions, no declarations of war. It’s held up for centuries - whether out of genuine reverence or just an understanding that starting months with bloodshed is bad for business is debated.
Moonday	Quiet day. Favoured for planning, private meetings, things that don’t need witnesses. Oneiroa’s faithful observe a dawn silence.
Starday	Travel and stories. Caravans prefer to depart on Stardays. Astraia’s constellations are said to be most legible this night.
Rootday	Work. Head-down, get-on-with-it day. Artisans, farmers, archivists. Tempus’s orders record births, deaths and agreements on Rootday by preference.
Emberday	Rest and community. Hearth fires kept burning all day in Cindros’s honour (for those that care). Most towns hold their market on Emberday.
Glassedday	Reflection. Durandel’s orders hold open vigils. People settle debts and old arguments. Chill winds, historically.
Sylvasday	Celebration. Music, festivals, dancing. Verdantia’s groves host gatherings. The end of the working week, for those who keep one.