Calendars of Telgard

There has existed in Telgard two global calendars since before the Race Wars. The Race Wars have very little known history; there are no dates or commonly known battles that occurred during that time and so all that anybody save the most dedicated scholars know is that there was a long, perhaps centuries-long time commonly called the Race Wars where the various races battled each other viciously and which battles settled the common boundary lines that are known today as the Kingdoms of Telgard.

After the Race Wars it was recognized that there needs must be a common Calendar created. With very few records surviving of the Race Wars an arbitrary date was set by a respected goblin scholar. The calendar was called Sineet Radseea, or "Since the Wars" in the old goblin tongue. SR 1 marks the first calendar year by this standard.

Though there were many great events since that time, it was the most important one that finally caused any change in the Calendar system. In SR 1600 began the first battles of the Scourge of the Dark Enemy, followed by twenty years of war unparallelled by anything any race had known previously. The plains of Korresh have dozens of scattered ruins in testament to the battles that were fought there.

In SR 1621, the Scourge was finally defeated, and in honour of the great victory and of the massive losses suffered by all races, the year was named AS 1, or "After the Scourge" in the Human tongue. The month, or moon-cycle, was named Victory.

The AS Calendar system is ruled by the Church of Telgard, and follows a path of ten-year cycles. Each cycle is named for a saint, a hero, a particularly revered monarch, or something similar. The Matr is the one who names each cycle, and it is said she receives the names through a vision.

Each year is broken down into moon-cycles. There are four moons in Telgard and they are only occasionally found together in the sky or completely absent from the sky. These occurrences happen at alternate dates: a no-moon cycle always follows an all-moon cycle, and vice versa. The first moon-cycle of the year is an all-moon cycle, known as Victory. There are eleven others:

Victory: all-moon cycle, Winter Solstice (mid-month)
Mourning: no-moon cycle
Rebirn: all-moon cycle
Nesting: no-moon cycle, Spring Equinox (mid-month)
Wyldling: all-moon cycle
Preyn: no-moon cycle
Solace: all-moon cycle, Summer Solstice (mid-month)
Burning: no-moon cycle
Brighten: all-moon cycle
Deln: no-moon cycle, Vernal Equinox (mid-month)
Gathern: all-moon cycle
Slumber: no-moon cycle

Rebirn, Nesting, and Wyldling are the months of the Spring season, which commonly begins the first of Rebirn and has the Spring Equinox as its height. Preyn, Solace, and Burning are the months of Summer, beginning the first of Preyn and having the Summer Solstice as its height. Brighten, Deln, and Gathern are the months of Autumn, beginning the first of Brighten and the Vernal Equinox as the height of the season. Slumber, Victory, and Mourning are the months of Winter, beginning the first of Slumber and the Winter Solstice as the height of the season.

Each moon-cycle is broken down into four weeks. Each week is ten days long. The names of the days of the week vary from Kingdom to Kingdom, but the tenth day is usually called Preparation in honour of Dargotten's journey, and is also usually the market-day.

Each day has a total of twenty candlemarks (or the time it takes for a burning candle to reach a mark enscribed on its length, commonly about an hour.)