> [!infobox|wikipedia] > # Calendar of Elandis > ###### Lore Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Type | Lore | > Category | Cosmology | > Domain | Time — days, months, moons, and seasons | > ###### Status > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Status | Active | The **Calendar of Elandis** is the universal system of timekeeping by which the world marks the passage of days, months, and years. Built on a 336-day year divided into twelve equal months and four elemental seasons, it mirrors the great ordering forces of [[The Pantheon]] in its very structure — and its two moons, **Sel** and **Sha**, trace interlocking cycles that anchor the holy days of the moon faith and carry a celestial truth the world has long forgotten. ## Overview The calendar governs every reckoning of time in [[Elandis]]: court dates and contract terms, holy observances and harvest schedules, the passage of seasons and the naming of years. Its structure is elegant and exact — 336 days arranged into twelve months of precisely 28 days each, each month in turn four complete weeks of seven days. No intercalary days or irregular adjustments disturb it: a given weekday falls on a given day of the month every month of every year, without exception. The current year count is **2507**, reckoned from a foundational epoch widely held to date from [[The Shattering]], some 2,500 years ago — though the full history of the calendar's adoption and the precise definition of Year 1 have not survived the intervening centuries. ## The Year and Its Seasons The twelve months are grouped into **four elemental seasons of three months each**, their names drawn from the same four elements that seat [[The Pantheon]]'s divine powers. | Season | Months | Days of Year | |---|---|---| | **Water** (Winter) | Water 1st — Water 3rd | 1–84 | | **Air** (Spring) | Air 1st — Air 3rd | 85–168 | | **Fire** (Summer) | Fire 1st — Fire 3rd | 169–252 | | **Earth** (Autumn) | Earth 1st — Earth 3rd | 253–336 | ### The Seven Days The seven weekdays each carry the name of one of the world's great forces — and in doing so they name, without most speakers knowing it, one of the [[The Pantheon|Seven Divines]]. | Day | Patron Divine | Sphere | |---|---|---| | **Starday** | [[Eldrin Starweaver]] | The Arcane | | **Sunday** | [[Seraphina Dawnbringer]] | The Sun | | **Moonday** | [[Elaris Moonsong]] | The Moon | | **Earthday** | [[Torgar Earthshaker]] | The Earth | | **Waterday** | [[Maris Wavecaller]] | The Water | | **Airday** | [[Gale Winddancer]] | The Air | | **Fireday** | [[Azara Flametongue]] | The Fire | Whether the days were named for the Divines, or the Divines inherited names already woven into the week's oldest structure, is a question the faith's theologians have never agreed on. ## The Two Moons Two moons hang in the sky of [[Elandis]]: the bright **Sel** and the dark **Sha**. Their names, now repeated by rote without reflection, were once the names of gods — [[Selûne]], the moon goddess, and her dark sister [[Shar]], the Lady of Vengeance. The world has forgotten this. When sailors and farmers look up and name what they see, they do not know they are speaking the names of divine powers; the connection has dissolved into common speech, leaving only the words behind. ### Sel — The Bright Moon Sel follows a **28-day cycle with no offset**, tracking the calendar month precisely. She is **new on the 1st of every month** and **full on the 15th** — twelve full moons in a year, one per month, each arriving on the same date without variation. Her rhythm is the most legible and most relied upon in common life. ### Sha — The Dark Moon Sha follows an **84-day cycle** (exactly three months), offset by 42 days from Sel. Her phases therefore run counter to her sister's in a fixed pattern: Sha is **new on the 15th** of the second month of each elemental season, and **full on the 1st** of each season's opening month. ### The Lunar Conjunctions The two cycles interlock at four fixed points each year, producing a pair of recurring conjunctions of celestial significance. **The Unshadowed** — On the **15th of the second month of each season** (the 15th of Water 2nd, Air 2nd, Fire 2nd, and Earth 2nd), Sel is full and Sha is new: the bright moon at her height, the dark moon entirely absent. These four nights a year are considered the most auspicious of the moon faith, given to ritual, the granting of favours, and the rite known as **the Pardon**. Among those who know [[Selûne]]'s true name, these are secretly her own nights. **The Dark Conjunction** — On the **1st of each season's first month** (Water 1st, Air 1st, Fire 1st, and Earth 1st), Sha is full and Sel is entirely dark: the dark moon ascendant, the bright moon gone. These four nights carry no public observance — [[Shar]] has no open faith in [[Elandis]] — but they do not go unremarked by those few who know what to look for. ## Holy Days ### The Solstices and Equinoxes The four great turning points of the year each fall on the 15th of the second month of their season — the exact midpoint of Water, Air, Fire, and Earth. All four coincide with an Unshadowed night, when Sel is full and Sha is entirely absent. **Solstice of Water** — the **15th of Water 2nd**, the year's longest night and the height of winter. Bonfires and gathered light against the dark are the common observance; in [[Lighthaven]], the occasion is marked by [[Emberlight Vigil]] — the town's great annual festival, in which the [[Emberspire]] blazes gold at midnight while smaller braziers ring its base, a commemoration of the town's survival through another year on the edge of the [[Darkwood]]. The Emberspire blazes against a sky already bright with Sel at her full, the two lights answering each other across the dark. **Equinox of Air** — the **15th of Air 2nd**, when day and night stand equal and the world tips toward summer. A quieter observance than the solstices, marked by the opening of trade roads after winter and the beginning of the planting season across [[Elandis]]. **Solstice of Fire** — the **15th of Fire 2nd**, the year's longest day and the height of summer. Marked with open-air festivals and, in the sept-cities, dawn rites in honour of [[Seraphina Dawnbringer]], whose sphere is never more fully manifest than at the sun's peak. It is a day of abundance, generosity, and public festivity, and the one day of the year when even the smallest roadside shrine to the Dawnbringer is guaranteed to be lit and tended. **Equinox of Earth** — the **15th of Earth 2nd**, when day and night stand equal again and the world tips toward winter. A harvest observance across most of [[Elandis]], tied to giving thanks and settling debts before the cold months close in. ### The Moon Faith's Holy Days The rhythm of Sel's cycle organises devotional life for those who honour the moon goddess — a faith whose worshippers keep the rites without, for the most part, knowing the full truth behind them. - **Silvernight** — the **15th of every month**, when Sel is full. The ordinary moon-night of prayer and quiet observance, kept by the devout across the world. - **The Unshadowed** — four times a year, on the **15th of each second elemental month**. The faith's highest holy nights: the full bright moon with Sha absent, given to ritual, special favours, and the **Pardon** — a rite of formal forgiveness offered on these nights alone. - **The Dark Conjunction** *(no public name)* — four times a year, on the **1st of each first elemental month**: Sha full, Sel dark. No temple names these nights or holds public rites for them. Those who follow [[Shar]] in secret regard them as the Lady of Vengeance's hour. ## In Memory & Belief The Calendar of Elandis is so thoroughly embedded in the life of the world that it is not experienced as a belief or a system but simply as reality — the way time works, the way the moons move, the way the seasons turn. Its elemental structure echoes [[The Pantheon]]'s ordering of the cosmos, but most who live by it have never paused to notice the echo; the months are named, the names are old, and no further explanation seems necessary. The moons are observed as all moons are — they rise, they change, they are named. That their names once belonged to gods is knowledge that has not merely been lost but has been *smoothed away*, leaving no rough edge to snag a question on. A farmer who calls the bright moon Sel and the dark one Sha is not suppressing a theological memory; he is simply using the word everyone uses. The truth sleeps beneath common speech, waiting for someone to ask why the moons have names at all. ## Trivia - Each elemental season spans exactly **84 days** — the same period as Sha's full orbital cycle. Sha completes precisely one cycle per season: new at the season's midpoint, full at its opening night, new again at the next. The calendar's elemental seasons and the dark moon's rhythm are the same rhythm, whether by design or by a coincidence so perfect it may as well be design. - The year of **336 days** is simultaneously twelve Sel-cycles and four Sha-cycles, meaning the calendar is in perfect resonance with *both* moons at once — a structure that would require knowing both orbital periods in advance, and yet the calendar's origin has never been clearly documented.