Calendar lore: how Saskan cultures keep time

Saskantinon doesn't have one calendar — it has six, and none of them agree with each other. Two are solar calendars, kept by the two great civil cultures (Fatunik and Terpin), anchored to the seasons the way our own calendars are. Four more are lunar calendars, each kept by a smaller culture that counts its years by watching a single moon instead of the sun. This page is a guide to all six, plus the smaller units of time — watches, weeks, ages, and the occasional leap — that dress up a date in each culture's own voice.

Solar vs. lunar, in plain terms

A solar calendar's "month" has nothing to do with the moon — its year is simply divided into twelve named stretches, with a short extra "festival" month tucked in to keep the count tidy. Its length is fixed to the true solar year, the same one that drives the seasons.

A lunar calendar's "month" is one real lunar cycle — new moon to new moon — for whichever moon that culture has adopted as its own timekeeper. Because every moon in the Saskan sky orbits at its own pace, each lunar calendar's month (and therefore its year) runs at a different length, and none of the four lunar calendars line up with each other, or with the solar year, without periodic correction.

The two solar calendars

Fatunik — the Reckoning of Fatune

Fatunik is the dominant culture's calendar. Its year has twelve named months of thirty days each (Solenne, Maradd, Harvenn, Ombren, Frenna, Vossul, Halveth, Iskren, Tarnel, Verel, Blomwen, Aurech), plus a short intercalary month called Gleaming that opens the year. Days fall into five-day weeks called a kell, with each day individually named (Sune, Aweth, Morrin, Velden, Hesk). The Fatunik day begins at sunrise.

Years aren't just numbered — they're placed within a named Age. Three Ages are recorded so far: the Age of Embers, the Age of the Open Hand, and currently the Bright Age. A full Fatunik date reads like this (a real date, for the story's present moment):

Velden, the 6th kell of Tarnel, Year 1782 of the Bright Age

Leap rule: every fourth year, Gleaming grows from five days to six to keep pace with the true solar year — except on a century year, which skips the extra day, except again on every fourth century, which restores it. (Saskan readers will recognize this as the same shape of rule our own world uses for leap years, just renamed for the Reckoning of Fatune.)

Terpin — the Long Count of Terpa

Terpin is an older culture (long-lived sentient tortoises) with its own solar calendar, structured the same way as Fatunik's — twelve thirty-day months (Omarra, Tessith, Belunna, Sorvath, Numael, Hovath, Methsa, Yumber, Korreth, Vannath, Esoph, Tulmarr) plus an intercalary month called Brennald — but counted differently. Weeks are ten days long, called a deshan (Adda, Bessen, Corwen, Dovan, Emarn, Fells, Gessa, Hurneth, Issal, Lonn), and the day begins at midnight rather than sunrise. Terpin also reckons its years by Age (the First Watching, the Age of Stone, and currently the Deepening). A real Terpin date for the same moment as above:

Bessen, the 1st deshan of Omarra, Year 2271 of the Deepening

Leap rule: instead of a one-day adjustment every few years, Terpin makes one big correction at long intervals. Every 132nd year, Brennald swells from five days to thirty-seven — a Long Year — and Terpins call that whole 132-year span a Shell. Once every 4620 years (35 Shells), the correction is a touch smaller (thirty-six days instead of thirty-seven — a Super-Long Year) rather than the usual Long Year. A Terpin date is often cited together with its Shell, e.g. "Shell 7, Turn 47."

The four lunar calendars

Beyond the two solar cultures, four more peoples — mostly smaller, animal-totem "sint" cultures — keep their own calendars by a single moon. Each has adopted a different moon as central to its own count, and the four don't structurally agree with each other, let alone with the solar calendars:

• Untamed and Warren reckon in cycles that reset: a long Round (called a Reave for Untamed, a Wend for Warren) that periodically starts over to stay roughly aligned with the true year, with a turn number counted within the current Round.
• Hearth keeps no years, turns, or months at all — just an ever-rising count of how many times its moon has completed a full cycle since the count began.
• Terpin Lunar is the odd one out: rather than resetting, it shares Terpin's own continuous, Age-based year count — the same Ages as Terpin's solar calendar above.

One interpretive note: each lunar calendar's "week" config gives its moon a slightly different name from the one used everywhere else in the app (Sella/"Selha", Shunna/"Shunsa", Jembor/"Old Jem"). The per-moon lore notes in the body config support these as deliberate cultural nicknames — Sella is noted as "sacred to rabbits," Jembor as "linked to solar omens and lore of fate," consistent with each culture's own name for its moon — but this page is treating that as an inference, not a confirmed design fact. Flag it if that's wrong.

The Untamed Reckoning

Kept by the Untamed — a rabbit-wolf-sint alliance — around the moon Sella ("Selha" in their own speech, the newest of the lunar calendars and the brightest moon in the sky). A year ("Range") is twelve of Sella's cycles, with months named Varro, Dakka, Skell, Brunt, Olvar, Threx, Maug, Sarn, Vekk, Drumm, Hask, Volkar. There's no fixed week; instead each day falls into one of four named lunar phases (the Dark, the Rising, the Full, the Falling). A real Untamed date for the same moment as above:

the Rising, day 14 of Threx, Range 49 of the Reave 19

The Warren Count

Kept by the Rabbit-sints around the moon Shunna ("Shunsa", a brisk, fertile moon whose 21-month year runs close enough to a solar year that it drifts only slowly). Months: Tum, Fenn, Lilla, Pripp, Sennel, Mossa, Dell, Brackel, Hopsel, Clovel, Nibb, Sprigg, Bramm, Quill, Furze, Loma, Vetch, Sedda, Gorra, Pell, Mirn — twenty-one in all, a year ("Litter") longer than any other calendar's. Phases: the Dark, the Swelling, the Full, the Fading. A real Warren date for the same moment as above:

the Dark, day 4 of Hopsel, Litter 24 of the Wend 18

The Hearth Count

Kept by the Dog-sints around the moon Jembor ("Old Jem," linked in their lore to omens and fate). The simplest calendar of all: no months, no turns, no Age, not even a week — just which of three visible phases the moon is in (the waxing, the full, the waning) and an ever-rising count of how many times Old Jem has completed a full "turning." A real Hearth date for the same moment as above:

the full, the 29th day of Old Jem's 10204th turning

The Terpin Lunar Count

Kept by the Terpin culture alongside their solar calendar, but tracking an imaginary moon they call the Mean Moon — the mathematical average of all eight real moons' cycles, "an idealized moon belonging to none." Twelve months (Praal, Suneth, Olreth, Mehven, Corsa, Druin, Lasseth, Ombrul, Tevan, Nurra, Esseth, Volmarr), four computed quarters (First Quarter through Fourth Quarter — computed rather than observed, since no real moon moves this way), and — uniquely among the lunar calendars — the same continuous Age-based year count as Terpin's solar calendar. A real Terpin Lunar date for the same moment as above:

Fourth Quarter, day 28 of Praal, Year 2176 of the Deepening

Telling time within a day

Below the day, Saskan lore divides time into progressively finer units: a watch (six per day, about four hours each), a shur (twelve per day, about two hours), a satava (a finer scholarly/ritual unit, sixty per day), a keyt (ten per shur, about twelve minutes), and a wayt (a quarter-keyt, the finest named unit). Watches are named rather than numbered (First Watch through Sixth Watch), and the displayed format strings the three most commonly used together, e.g. (both real, for the same moment used throughout this page):

Fatunik: First Watch . shur 2 : keyt 10
Terpin:  Third Watch . shur 5 : keyt 10

The two cultures don't even start their clocks at the same moment: Fatunik's day begins at sunrise, Terpin's at midnight — so the same instant can fall in a different watch for each, exactly as shown above.

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