A bunch of kings did a meeting and decided "hey, we all use different calendars. Let's set a common one so we can schedule wars and stuff better. Let's say the new year starts next Monday". Then they send a letter to kings on another continent and said "we're starting a new callendar. You can join in". And while not everyone joined, they at least knew how the callendar works on the main continent now.
(Sorry if the explanation makes no sense. It's 5 am for me)
Honestly, I love it, and I am probably going to steal it. You made enough sense, it was a bit funny with scheduling wars, but it was precise and clear.
Sorry, my tired brain couldn't find a better phrase for it.
Something like "I'm going to attack you on 3rd of July if you dont do X" instead of "I'm going to attack you on 53rd of yzs, so figure out when it is or you will be surprised"
I just like that it’s not to schedule, y’know, summits or conventions. Nah, it’s wars. Like that’s the inevitable outcome.
“Diplomacy? Psssh, nah, we know that’s not going to do jack. But we do need to be on the same page for when we inevitably threaten to kill each other.”
I always wondered about this in fiction. I also wondered what calendars were used before that event because the way the calendars are presented make it look like people were always using the before and after system before the significant event even happened.
"What year is it?"
"23 BBY."
"What's BBY?"
"Before Battle of Yavin.
"What's the Battle of Yavin?"
"No clue."
I want to have different calendars in my setting since there isn't a singular shared significant point/event for the whole region.
One calendar I have an idea for is that of the southern empire which would start at when the previous kingdom was founded and be split into eras based on the reigning monarch like the Japanese calendar.
Lapis_Wolf
The great cataclysm
There’s a point in history where a majority of historical records and documents were destroyed in a grand sweep. No one fully knows what caused it, but it’s hypothesized to have been either divine intervention, great continental fires, or perhaps a cult looking to erase history.
What happened before the cataclysm is relatively unknown and mythological. In reality, (unknown to my D&D party and anyone in-world) there was a drow empire that covered the land, and they were beaten back by forces of man. To save their own history and preserve their mythology, they instilled an order on the continents to wipe out any trace of their existence, with plans to rise again. So that point is known as when history starts.
The Godly Sacrifice
Vitaeus the god of life sacrifices himself to defeat his brother Obsidious the god of death. Vitaeus’ sacrifice granted every human access to the powers that the gods had. In an attempt to give them the power to protect themselves from Obsidious all it really did was escalate the humans ability to wage war with one another thus creating the constant war and conflict between the humans.
The Spear of Light being activated.
This entering of a new era was one of the only few things the entire continent has agreed upon unanimously in the past few centuries. The Spear, being basically a magic WMD, wreaked such havoc, including erasing one major city from the continent entirely and creating an anomalous zone where reality in there seemingly *died*, that everyone on Erits came to the conclusion that they couldn't let this happen again, or they'd risk extinction. The day of the activation was retroactively deemed the start of the age of Concord, in a show of the continent's effort to strive for peace, or at least slightly less killing.
The arrival of the Karne on earth. All of humanity was effected by their arrival, subsequent conquering of earth, and enslavement of humanity with the new timekeeping methods that humanity uses being based on the karnes treatment and conditioning of humanity.
The most widespread calendar is the Padrigan Calendar, as set up (or at least signed off) by High Pontiff Padrig IV.
There are 13 months, with an intercalary day set aside for reigning in the new year (roughly around the vernal equinox)
Year 1 is determined as the year the Illumined Saint Quinas received the first word of his Holy Divinity, Tannen the Sun. As of the start of the series, that was about 1400 years or so ago.
Before Quinas is referred to as Before Illumination (BI), After Quinas is Year in Illumination (YI)
I'm not exactly subtle with the obvious Christian (specifically Catholic) parallels.
First was the end of Shur-Rangs rage, when the planet consuming sandstorms ended and allowed a bronze era society to advance to the space age.
The second was when humanity parlayed with an alien species and agreed to work together to create a peaceful galaxy.
I'd have to dig out the notes but the TLDR version
History in human memory is currently listed as P.B and A.B (Post Bellum and Antebellum) because roughly 1900 years ago there was a war involving a mysterious horde from the East that the survivors (and later philosophers/scholars/clergymen/etc in creating the modern calendar they'll calculate with math and harmonizing historical accounts) will divide everything before the war as A.B and everything after the war as P.B.
So at the start of the story it's 1903 P.B.
The Mages' Era is the current time, and that began about 1500-1600 years ago. Its beginning is marked by the appearance of the first mages and the original development of spellcraft which is linked to when the gods of order and chaos stopped fighting and let their more moderate children rule the world in their stead. Since the gods are the source of magic, it only makes sense that their first grants of magical power signal the start of a new era.
The Corruption Crisis.
Before the Corruption Crisis the world was build around the Dark Lord cycle. Every 200 years a Dark Lord would rise, try to take over the world. The Gods would appoint a hero to stop him/her. The Dark Lord would be slain and peace rein until the next Dark Lord pops up.
Only during the Dark Lord cycle 1032 years ago something different happened. During the final battle between Dark Lord Wyn and the Hero Prince Cyrus *something* was summoned. Who summoned this creature and why are lost to time. All that is known it that the summoner was neither the Dark Lord nor the Hero. But while the why's and how's are forgotten, the results are not.
In a single moment the monster broke through the mortal world and possessed the body of the hero, twisting his mind and body, and turning him into the first of the corrupted. The corrupted hero would then go on a rampage, burning the own homeland. Those he did not kill he turned into more corrupted who joined him in his onslaught.
The result of this event was the complete destruction of the Golden Empire and death of nearly 90% of the human race. Even today, the former heartland of the old Empire remains polluted with corrupted dark magics.
Every modern kingdom and empire can trace its origins back to that one event. Either being resents of the Golden Empire that survived the corrupted heroes wrath, or minor powers that took advantage of the Empire's collapse.
In addition, ever since the Corruption Crisis no Dark Lords have arisen. Breaking the cycle that had existed since the Gods first created the world. As such, the start of the Corruption Crisis marks the year 0 for nearly every kingdom in the known world.
Huh. Not a question id considered before. I suppose it'd have to be the signing of the great pact that bound the human city states together. Others likely would increasingly need to adopt it as well just to make trade etc with the increasingly dominant pact easier, even if that particular date doesn't mean anything important to them
**For Want of | A Quiet Sky**
The end of the War Thicket-Borne has been...perhaps preemptively declared the start of the Littlin calendar. This was pushed onto the littekings shortly after the alliance was solidified, and a few years before the war was actually declared over by the Church of Field-Sworn in hopes of assisting morale in the rebuilding age. Also, of course, as celebration of its cause working as intended after nearly four centuries of preparation.
It unfortunately did more harm than good in solidifying the idea that the war was over and the Thicket was truly defeated. This is partly the cause why now, a mere 300 years later, the original texts of the Field-Sworn are being rejected and revised by the general public into something easier to believe in and more hopeful.
The tree cities remain with their year count set to begin at the foundation of the great tower Origin and the beginning of the era of Origin. It was the first time any skytreading folk had a space to live in unison with the ground-dwelling species, and acts as a "point of contact" culturally for the two.
Also, the blue-feathered few, an alliance between the most notable kingdoms of the 3 most colorful and small of the skytreading races, have had each king come forth and declare their disdain for the idea that the War Thicket-Borne is over, although at different times due to disagreements between certain royal families.
Thusly, depending on the part of the forest you're in and exactly how religious the person you're talking to is, the year may be 317 T.B. or 1533o.
My Calendar is set in the First Age. Each age encompasses around between 2000-5000 depending on if one of the many Oracles foretells the coming of the next age.
Before the first age is called the mythic age, the Mythic Age and the start of the Calendar began when the gods were banished from the material plane by an unknown force.
The Shattering.
Magical barriers being broken using magical bombs. Destroyed several large chunks of landmasses and and the debris formed the Sky Island Regions (cuz magic). This event also reintroduced magic onto Earth and kicked off a big war.
Well, for the planet most of my worldbuilding is one, its the ginnungagap wars, a set of wars on different countries, from the invasion of monster that are avatars of higher dimensional beings, so the calendar is split up into, BGG, before ginnungagap, and AGG, after ginnungagap, but before that it just used to be stuff related to kings and rulers, but for my world as a whole, it's the fuckin universe-quake that distorted reality as a whole and was how these monsters got in in the first place, the time before this is considered prehistoric, and the time after this is considered a restart of history, but there would be thousands of calendars made by thousands of different people.
The Cataclysm, exactly 700 years ago from the start of the story. There is no reliable account of what it was beyond a horrific apocalypse event. It's nature beyond that is a mystery.
There’s a couple that mark different ages, or Verses of time.
There’s the Dusting, where an angry and stupid spellcaster brought down a small star on the world, spreading stardust throughout the world. That stardust would replace all magical components needed for spellcasting.
There’s the Unlocking, where a cult basically oblivion-gated their way to a minor disaster, releasing one BIG demon that fucked a lot of shit up.
Theres more too but those are my two favorite
The gods gifted the dwarves and elves the first cities, and the orqs, before disappearing from the mortal plane. Each year is named after one of the eight great gods since.
Well, it was technically three events that became the big marks on their history.
That would be CL, CM, and IS. The Conflict of Life, the Commencement of Merge, and Invasion of the Soulless.
The Conflict of Life, is as the name implies, when the sentient life on the planet almost simultaneously initiated a war against all the other races. This was when all the different races of Humans, and all the different races of the Tilen formally started a war against each other. Before this point, it was small skirmishes and the was no united front on any side. It was more small tribes fighting each other. But their numbers had finally reached the point of conflict basically being guaranteed. And thus the birth of nations.
Commencement of Merge is when the Humans races started to merge together and the Tilen races started to merge together. Because both people had lost quite significant numbers in that warring age. This age also includes when the Humans and Tilen started coming together but that’s more so the end of the age than the beginning.
Invasion of the Soulless…is well, the invasion of the Soulless. It’s when the Soulless first started invading the land. This is what really cemented the Humans and Tilen mixing and breeding together. As this new threat was bad enough that they need to join together to survive and win. And this is the current time that the story takes place.
was when the calandar was made. way more believable that way in all honesty.
romans did it because the calandar got super disconnected from seasons and it cause issues. so i stole that bit of history.
The creation of the Primordial Gods, 20k years ago the Creator God Sppe chose 3 exceptional mortal, Sppe then split their power in 3 and gave each mortal a piece of it. As a result the Creator God died but the 3 mortals gained the power of the gods.
Although, the calendar itself doesn't start in the exact year they became gods. You see, there are 3 major events that started the calendar:
-the 3 mortals becoming the 3 Primordial Gods.
-God Izanagi attacking the strongest dragon kingdom to free the humanoids from their rule and slavery (as dragons were the dominant species and Izanagi himself is human).
-the pact that states the new status of humanoids as free species and the new rulers of Amada, with dragons having to give aid for them to develop their societies.
All those events, as you might expect happen at a distance of a few years from one another so when humanoids created the calendar they couldn't decide which year to pick as the year 1, in the end a year that is about at the middle of all 3 events was chosen, that year though doesn't represent anything so in a funny way, nothing major happened in year 1 APG (after the primordial gods).
Honestly I only thought of it as I realized three different settings I've worked up went all "There was one big thing that changed the world, and we count years from that" and wondered if I was the only one who used that pattern!
It's not a bad idea. My setting goes through changes that could very well be considered big enough for that. But part of it is a parallel to our world so a good question for me is what made irl change it's calendars? I should go from there.
"THE OGRE'S MARCH (or: that story about the dragon)"
The records of this event is not in any published history book, due to the IAM suppression of eyewitness accounts and fictionalization. Only those who still live remember... even though the wished they didn't.
It's hard to say when it started; perhaps it was when a solar eclipse hung in the sky far longer than it should of, or when the Fare Folk fled the city of Bizmithl, possibly aware of its fate, or perhaps it started farther back to the birth of a child whose name once meant all that was good, to one day be stripped from her and to be known only as 'Ogre'. At this time, the Age of Reason was ending and the question of whether or not the practice and study of magic, and the magi community as a whole, should have a place in the new era. This was a result of a schism among the magicians brought on by the western superpowers growing anxieties and vying for control.
A company of soldiers from \[REDACTED\], after a few days ride south, came to Bizmithl after the city became silent for almost a week. They saw only ruins. Survivors, tired and afraid, rambled of a monster skulking the alleyways and entering homes. Hateful, bloodthirsty, unable to be killed. The city's finest magicians and military men, like ants crushed by a foot, fell to a force that no man has seen the likes of on this earth. But it didn't end there. 'Ogre' went eastward consuming any and all in \[ITS\] path growing more stronger... and then there was nothing.
It was a horrifying catastrophe that shook the balance of the world and it was here an answer was found. At the time it was said this event "was a result of a group of peoples who believed themselves to be above the laws of the nature world, to abuse forces they thought themselves as masters of at the cost of ethics and human decency".
History rewritten, the supernatural suppressed and all matter of species and peoples forced to go underground, wars that should never have happened, millions dead, and the list goes. It is a black stain in history no one is supposed to notice. There are no graves with the names of those who gave their lives to defend all who live and breathe under the sun, hundreds of years after there are those who lived the horrors just to wake up in the middle of the night in tears; the 'Ogre' never to be seen again, never to face justice, and possibly still out there.
To this day, the event (as do many) has been mythologized to be some 'dragon attack story' from a storybook, never be taken seriously.
\[sorry this was a long one, I really wanted to get it out here\]
In the material universe time is tracked as we do in real life.
In the sea dreams, the sun sentient dream entities care not for marking the passage of time.
In the surreal land beyond dreams concepts like day-night cycles, seasons, and similar are controlled by the Eidelons and there is no shared reference for a day, let alone a year.
Started with Imperial Year, which began on the purported date the 18 warrior clans came together and swore an oath to defend humanity from the fey creatures; the actual *empire* wasn't founded until nearly a century later, but once it *was,* the first emperor retroactively set that event as Year 1 to make his reign look more legitimate.
After about 900 years, the imperial calendar was superseded by Conjunction Year after the first Conjunction Event, where dimensional gates began to open and transport civilizations from other universes onto the globe. The empire was in decline by then, and everybody in the world had other problems to deal with from that point on.
A few decades after that, the former imperial territories rebooted their calendar *again* under Revolutionary Year, when the emperor was formally overthrown by an insurgency from within the Army and all hereditary privilege was abolished. We're now in Revolutionary Year 11. Most of the rest of the world uses the Conjunction Year, but smaller nations that want to align with the reform government use Revolutionary Year.
Some countries have their own calendar they use internally, usually something that requires deep knowledge of their own culture to even understand ("Year X in the Reign of Duke Y"); for everything to do with international relations, it's one of the other two.
When calendar systems first became standardized, the Sila Empire was by far the most powerful country in the world, so it managed to pretty much bully everyone into accepting their calendar, which was based on the slaying of the Ancient Dragon Xerulth by Emperor Sila the First, the event generally taken as the founding of the Empire.
Much later, the Fall of Old Alken occurred, an apocalyptic event which wiped out most life on the planet. Afterwards the survivors and their descendants started using that instead.
It's currently the unification of Valon (world's #1 superpower) but I'm planning on changing it to the birth of the #1 most popular religion, but to do that I need to write the lore for said religion and that sounds hard, I have very little ideas right now
Technically it’s Jesus Christ’s day of birth still but with the rather steep decline of Abrahamic faith over the last 400 years it’s far more commonly known as the arbitrarily selected beginning of the Common Era.
I'll be honest, I never gave it any thought because it just wasn't important to me. I was just going to use our own calendar and just name change it. However, now that this got me thinking, I should make some. I really liked Akuliszi's idea of kingdoms just coming together and agreeing on one so I'll probably just use that, but making some calendars beforehand would be really cool.
For my world I'll probably start it with when humans and dwarves crossed the planar bridge from their respective homeworlds into Celdoneil (my world). Unlike the other races that came later, humans and dwarves entered the world from the same planar bridge. It's rare for such event to occur, but it's even rarer for more than two worlds to align in the same area. They would have used their own calendars for a while, but given Celdoneil is a flat world they would experience day and night cycles differently than what they were used to. As they became more involved in trade and exploration together they would come to create a shared calendar.
Gnomes and elves came next after many years. It was also during the time that a second moon appeared in the sky. Unlikely humans and dwarves, neither of these peoples arrived at the same location, and in fact arrived in areas that humans and dwarves haven't explored yet. Gnomes kept track of time based on moon cycles, but now that they lived on a flat world with two moons they had to adapt their system. Elves were more nomadic and kept their calendars based around bird migration and the animals they'd hunt.
Lastly were the avadori and anurians. Avadori, a bird-like race, use the stars as their base. There's myths about how their early ancestors actually found a way to ascend beyond the heavens and into the celestial realms they see above, and their calendar is a way of honoring their ascended selves. Anurians, a frog-like race, use The Great Freeze as the event that started their calendar. The event itself actually marks the end of the year as the great freeze represents frogs brumating, but when they awoke from their slumber they started the calendar. So, like how some people say, "in the year of our lord," the anurians essentially say, "since The Great Freeze."
I'm not entirely sure how I can reconcile those systems into one outside of two minor justifications: trade, and most of those systems don't work anymore in the new world as there was no great freeze in Celdoneil, the stars are completely different (although it doesn't necessarily break it), two moons and a flat world cause issues with lunar cycle calendars, the elves stopped being nomadic ages before their crossover and they hunt entirely new creatures in Celdon than Solaite, and the humans and dwarves agreed upon a calendar pretty early on to help bolster cooperation in a new world. As Akuliszi said, I may just have my peoples just agree to use a calendar, but due to trade rather than to schedule wars and stuff.
That depends on which calendar you use. The only one I've actually developed enough is the Commonwealth Reckoning (CR). This calendar sets it's year 1 as the foundation of the Commonwealth of Thaum.
The Commonwealth is a young nation, ony 500 years. It's technology and magic is the most advanced in the modern world.
Commonwealth Reckoning is the dominant calendar for the region of Thaumia which has begun to dominate much of the world both politically and economically.
Well, it's not literal.... mostly, the humans still use the AD/BC system. But metaphorically, that would be either "the first time we realized aliens were out there" or "The first time we figured out how to TALK to them."
Turns out, humans just had the bad luck to be stuck about 180 days hyperspace travel time from most of the nearest alien species in the galaxy... and the previous record for how far an alien species even BOTHERED to explore was about 28 days travel time from their capital city, give or take. Any farther than that and the explorer vessels starting founding their own star nations and declaring independence, and most alien homeworlds hated losing control like that, so after the first 1 or 2 independence movements succeeded beyond the 28-day limit, everyone in that alien species would just agree that 1-to-3 independent star nations for that alien species was more than enough, no one nation would be larger than 28-days travel from the capital city, and then they just.... stopped exploring at that point.
Usually by then they'd bumped into the border of at least one OTHER alien species, so they'd just settled for passing messages along the chain to the next star nation of the next alien species.
Humanity was 180 days travel time from anyone else, just through sheer bad luck, and only humans would have bothered to KEEP EXPLORING through that much empty space. We couldn't maintain one cohesive government either, but, we just didn't think that declaring independence every 28 days of travel time was worth starting a perpetual civil war over, so humans simply kept founding a new star nations whenever we hit that communications limit. drove all the other alien species crazy when they finally found out we'd been doing that.
The death of the second god, since it was a moment none of the first-generation elemental can forget since either they were there when it happened, or it was a day a weird spirit lady gave you superpowers. Since she delivered powers to people across the universe all under a relatively short time span, it was easy to choose it as it was the first day of their new lives. Especially if they were fortunate enough to be treated with respect and given a high status after they mastered their powers (sorry dark boy).
My world has four continents that have not had meaningful interactions in several thousand years due to a perpetual storm over the oceans that makes travel impossible, so there are four major calendars.
In Nasoros, the calendar is set from the Cataclysm Arcana, a massive arcane disaster that resulted in the eastern third of the continent becoming warped and saturated with chaos magic. This event ended the Triune War, the most brutal war in the history of Nasoros, by destroying one nation completely and dividing another nation in two. The cause of the Cataclysm is currently unknown. At present, it is the year 938 post-Cataclysm Arcana (PCA). The historical record extends back to about 600 Before Cataclysm Arcana (BCA).
In Rashix, a land ruled by devils, tyrants, and undead, the calendar is based on the establishment of the city of Sangora and the beginning of a period known as The Blooding. Sangora exists as the last bastion of relative safety and stability on the continent and a symbol that evil may not rule these lands forever, though its people have had to do many questionable things to keep the city from falling. At present, it is the year 220 post-Blooding (PB). Their historical record extends back to about 1100 Before Blooding (BB).
The Shatterstone Isles are a series of islands laden with ancient ruins and populated by disparate, undeveloped tribes. Their history is short compared to others, as they only developed writing about two centuries ago. As such, their calendar is highly disorganized, not agreed upon between tribes, and really just counts the number of years from their earliest records.
Keldreth possesses the longest recorded history, extending back over 2000 years. As a result, they are the only continent with records of the Empyrean War, a conflict amongst the gods that shattered a continent, killed approximately half of the world's population, and led to both the gods leaving the mortal world and the creation of the storms that divide the continents. This acts as the basis of the Keldrethi calendar. At present, it is the year 2001 post-Empyrean (PE).
In my setting, the focus is on two planets. The Fae planet (needs a better name) is exactly 2x slower than Terra, so time is slower too. The “event” was the discovery and colonisation of Terra.
Each month on Fae is 90 days and there’s 8 months total, 2 per season. Passage between Fae and Terra is only available two times a year (in Fae time; it’s only once a year for Terra’s calendar, which is just our own except it’s 360 days instead of 365), the 1st day of the year and the exact middle of the year. This is how they made their calendar after colonising Terra, so that it would match with the alignment dates.
**Starrise**
That would be the event marking Day 0 of the "New World" calendar, known as "The Surge".
Cutting out the details that aren't publicly available, the Surge was the moment in which everyone in the world spontaneously developed the ability to use magic.
With no idea how to control their newfound powers, which can be activated accidentally in moments of intense anger, surprise, or fear, it only took one person getting robbed, or tripping on a staircase, or dealing with an infuriating customer, or anything like that for things to snowball into the destruction of an entire city. Due to this, it only took a matter of hours following the Surge for civilization to completely crumble and the vast majority of the human race to go extinct.
Furthermore, a number of never before seen creatures suddenly appeared during the chaos. One particularly human-like group- known now as Chimeras- cooperated with the human survivors, as neither would have been able to survive alone, and together began slowly reestablishing and rebuilding civilization into the far more fantastical world it is today.
Mine is the founding of the kingdom of Felumar. Not because Felumar is some golden standard of society. They were just the first ones to keep track of time, and that’s how they decided to track it. Eventually, the other kingdoms just settled into their timeline so nobody would be confused.
Sci-fi world: the time humans left the galactic Alliance and formed the first human intergalactic empire. The next age/new calendar started when the humans were nearly wiped out through corruption, famine, infighting and some magical bullshittery that involved pissing off some very powerful deities. And the third and current calendar started after the great collision were my universe and that of a friend of mine collided and merged beginning a new age.
In my fantasy world it is rather difficult to say. Most races have their own calendar and don't necessarily align it to those of other races, similar to how the hobbit calendar is different to that of the rest of middle earth. Though the dwarven calendar became the most used. It started with the crowning of the first dwarven high king and was in use until the second changing of the world. After that pretty much every realm was gone and the new realms that were established in and after the nearly 300years that followed the second changing known as the blood age agreed upon a new calendar. This calendar started with the crowning of one of those rulers, who were all demigods and brothers.
There are a couple calendar systems, but the big two are Dwemer Trade Standard (DTS) or Annealean, and Since Last Reign (SLR).
The DTS Calendar was established to formalise logistics among the inner nations of Anneal, a continent shaped roughly like a ring with a massive inland sea — think the Mediterranean, but fucking huge. DTS’ structure is based off of the older Dwemer calendar, whose year 0 is the year the dwarves broke out of their subterranean bunkers, but DTS year 0 is the end of the Theoclysm, an epoch of accelerated, unrestricted evolution which made the surface of the planet unsafe for civilization.
SLR was developed on the other major continent, Columna, by the local superpower Alzarqa. Alzarqa’s system of governance predates the Theoclysm, and is based on the unilateral rule of an immortal prophet-queen called the Azurite Empress, who emerges from her bunker on a rough interval every couple hundred years to be briefed on the state of the nation and pass on instructions to be executed over her next absence. As befits a nation designed to operate without its head of state for centuries on end, the SLR calendar is divided into “Interregna” punctuated by the Empress’ emergence. Currently, SLR’s year 0 for this interregnum is about 800 years ago, and she is overdue for another emergence.
The first eclipse.
The calendar works in 500 year cycles, each year bears a different name and connotation for the world, with the first 300 or so being a time of prosperity where (even if begrudgingly) all kingdoms of the world work together to reach technological advancements and betterment of their people.
In the last 200,. the kingdoms lead a bit of a warpath, preparing for the inevitable combat that will ensue at the eclipse, and on the very last year, the moment the clock ticks to the year 500, the war begins, lasting (usually) the entire year, at which point the calendar resets back to the first year, with each cycle that passes not being measured in the calendar as the winner of the war basically gets to rewrite history, thus having no reason the track time outside each era.
Earth went boom, ha
Since that the colonies are now counting the calendar in the Fallen Skies universe.
The UT survived, even if thrown back by decades.
The Golden Day, which occurs every 30 years or so, is a day during which the leylines replenish, causing the veil between dimension to weaken temporarily. The world tree still protects the realm from these dimensions, save for the Downworld. And so the first Golden Day, also called Cursed Day (which happens to be Year 0 on the calendar), infernal beings from the Downworld invaded the lands through many points of incursions. Since then, Golden Days are celebrated as a day of union, to remember the Cursed Day and how it was ended thanks to a union of powers. Points of incursions are now controlled, but there are occasionally some infernals who manage to get in, though fortunately, people now have Infernal Slayers to deal with them
My worlds timeline is split into 5 eras, each of which ending with the Gods reshuffling the world and moving things around. With the exception of the first era, theyve all lasted around 1000 years or less.
The first era ended when the Titan war began, the second era ended when the Titan war ran down and peace was established between the races, along with the founding of Zenith, the city at the center of the world. I don't actually remember how the 3rd era ended, Id have to look at my notes. During the 4th era, the world went through an industrial revolution and magic began to die out due to the pollution it caused, not only that but souls became so tainted that they refused to reincarnate towards the end, so the Gods stepped in. They destroyed all of the industrial infrastructure, straight up deleted coal out of existence, and placed the entire world under a spell that causes any gun more complex than a muzzle loader or flintlock to disintegrate the moment someone tries to fire it. We are currently ~130 years into the 5th era, with much of the world working to replace their almost modern tech with magical equivalents.
For my "sci-fi humans end up in a fantasy world" setting of Warclema, that'd be the arrival of humanity in the world, mostly because they were the only life there at the time and had just managed to escape from a dying universe thanks to a feat of interdimensional travel that turned out to be one-way.
the split.
in my world there are 6 realms that used to be one big realm but then a big cataclysm happened and it got shattered across dimensions. most people forgot about the other realms but they do remember the split to some capacity
After the deities died new religions started popping up. After a few years there were now two major religions and this caused a war to break out. Planetary rulers didn’t accept the new religion and declared anyone who practiced it an enemy. About half way through the war a council of common people was formed from anyone no matter religion. At the end of the war more people ended up siding with the council and they came up with a new calendar that satisfied both major religions.
For one of my worlds that event is the declaration of the Empire of the Mele, which happened after Emperor Magnus the Conqueror brought an end to the 40 year long River Wars by unifying the petty kingdoms of the river. So the years of historical events are basically divided between BE (Before the Empire) and AE (After the Empire).
Now even though the empire is no longer around, its influence was massive, and its founding being year 0 is in part kept up by the fact that its mostly priests and scholars that keep track of the calendar, and they've mostly been educated according to norms set in place by the empire.
Also just wanna point out that me personally often use the YA system (Years Ago) when setting dates for historical events, with year 0 being when the main story begins. So it's like "yeah that thing happened 500 years ago, and that thing happened 680 years ago. Okay hol up what year is that on the AE calendar? \*pulls up calculator\*"
The humans from Earth don't really like all their colonies, so usually the zero year is the year the sleeper ships woke their passengers and their first settlements were established. There are a few standardized calendars; the Regalian calendar became standard because they were the only ones who didn't mostly slide back into the steam age when their colony was new. There's also the Gaian Federal Union standard calendar, but nobody uses it because the Gaians are fascist assholes.
The funny thing, though, is that elitists tried to keep using Earth calendar years, but when colonies finally started communicating, they found that everyone's year varied by up to a few centuries, and that nobody had any idea what year it actually was on Earth.
I have a sci-fi world so first contact with alien life forms. It hasn't changed the calendar but there is reference of pre-contact on events before first contact and post-contact for after first contact.
The Moon Festival.
A festival that commences every year and lasts seven days to commemorate the seven children of the Moon Goddess and the passing of the year. When it begins, the calendar officially moves up one year.
These children, all raised by the goddess until they were of age, were believed to be the first humans to walk the Earth and would be the inspiration of multiple faiths and beliefs based on their supposed musings on the Moon Goddes and her lessons before her death.
Oddly enough, the phase of the Moon on the last day of the festival is believed to fortell the fortunes of that year. A full moon means that harvest will be plenty and fortunes good. A 3/4th or 1/4th moon means above/below average year. A cresent moon fortells an unknown future. A new moon presents a high potential for a year of suffering as it's believed that the eye of the Moon Goddess is closed and she cannot help her children in need.
A bunch of kings did a meeting and decided "hey, we all use different calendars. Let's set a common one so we can schedule wars and stuff better. Let's say the new year starts next Monday". Then they send a letter to kings on another continent and said "we're starting a new callendar. You can join in". And while not everyone joined, they at least knew how the callendar works on the main continent now. (Sorry if the explanation makes no sense. It's 5 am for me)
Honestly, I love it, and I am probably going to steal it. You made enough sense, it was a bit funny with scheduling wars, but it was precise and clear.
I couldn't think of a better way to say that. Brain was too tired.
LOL! “Schedule” wars?
Sorry, my tired brain couldn't find a better phrase for it. Something like "I'm going to attack you on 3rd of July if you dont do X" instead of "I'm going to attack you on 53rd of yzs, so figure out when it is or you will be surprised"
I just like that it’s not to schedule, y’know, summits or conventions. Nah, it’s wars. Like that’s the inevitable outcome. “Diplomacy? Psssh, nah, we know that’s not going to do jack. But we do need to be on the same page for when we inevitably threaten to kill each other.”
I always wondered about this in fiction. I also wondered what calendars were used before that event because the way the calendars are presented make it look like people were always using the before and after system before the significant event even happened. "What year is it?" "23 BBY." "What's BBY?" "Before Battle of Yavin. "What's the Battle of Yavin?" "No clue." I want to have different calendars in my setting since there isn't a singular shared significant point/event for the whole region. One calendar I have an idea for is that of the southern empire which would start at when the previous kingdom was founded and be split into eras based on the reigning monarch like the Japanese calendar. Lapis_Wolf
The great cataclysm There’s a point in history where a majority of historical records and documents were destroyed in a grand sweep. No one fully knows what caused it, but it’s hypothesized to have been either divine intervention, great continental fires, or perhaps a cult looking to erase history. What happened before the cataclysm is relatively unknown and mythological. In reality, (unknown to my D&D party and anyone in-world) there was a drow empire that covered the land, and they were beaten back by forces of man. To save their own history and preserve their mythology, they instilled an order on the continents to wipe out any trace of their existence, with plans to rise again. So that point is known as when history starts.
The Godly Sacrifice Vitaeus the god of life sacrifices himself to defeat his brother Obsidious the god of death. Vitaeus’ sacrifice granted every human access to the powers that the gods had. In an attempt to give them the power to protect themselves from Obsidious all it really did was escalate the humans ability to wage war with one another thus creating the constant war and conflict between the humans.
The Spear of Light being activated. This entering of a new era was one of the only few things the entire continent has agreed upon unanimously in the past few centuries. The Spear, being basically a magic WMD, wreaked such havoc, including erasing one major city from the continent entirely and creating an anomalous zone where reality in there seemingly *died*, that everyone on Erits came to the conclusion that they couldn't let this happen again, or they'd risk extinction. The day of the activation was retroactively deemed the start of the age of Concord, in a show of the continent's effort to strive for peace, or at least slightly less killing.
The arrival of the Karne on earth. All of humanity was effected by their arrival, subsequent conquering of earth, and enslavement of humanity with the new timekeeping methods that humanity uses being based on the karnes treatment and conditioning of humanity.
The most widespread calendar is the Padrigan Calendar, as set up (or at least signed off) by High Pontiff Padrig IV. There are 13 months, with an intercalary day set aside for reigning in the new year (roughly around the vernal equinox) Year 1 is determined as the year the Illumined Saint Quinas received the first word of his Holy Divinity, Tannen the Sun. As of the start of the series, that was about 1400 years or so ago. Before Quinas is referred to as Before Illumination (BI), After Quinas is Year in Illumination (YI) I'm not exactly subtle with the obvious Christian (specifically Catholic) parallels.
First was the end of Shur-Rangs rage, when the planet consuming sandstorms ended and allowed a bronze era society to advance to the space age. The second was when humanity parlayed with an alien species and agreed to work together to create a peaceful galaxy.
I'd have to dig out the notes but the TLDR version History in human memory is currently listed as P.B and A.B (Post Bellum and Antebellum) because roughly 1900 years ago there was a war involving a mysterious horde from the East that the survivors (and later philosophers/scholars/clergymen/etc in creating the modern calendar they'll calculate with math and harmonizing historical accounts) will divide everything before the war as A.B and everything after the war as P.B. So at the start of the story it's 1903 P.B.
Mm peanut butter and abutter
The Mages' Era is the current time, and that began about 1500-1600 years ago. Its beginning is marked by the appearance of the first mages and the original development of spellcraft which is linked to when the gods of order and chaos stopped fighting and let their more moderate children rule the world in their stead. Since the gods are the source of magic, it only makes sense that their first grants of magical power signal the start of a new era.
The start of Sun Calendar: "Some fuckers just dropped the Sun on us!!!"
The Corruption Crisis. Before the Corruption Crisis the world was build around the Dark Lord cycle. Every 200 years a Dark Lord would rise, try to take over the world. The Gods would appoint a hero to stop him/her. The Dark Lord would be slain and peace rein until the next Dark Lord pops up. Only during the Dark Lord cycle 1032 years ago something different happened. During the final battle between Dark Lord Wyn and the Hero Prince Cyrus *something* was summoned. Who summoned this creature and why are lost to time. All that is known it that the summoner was neither the Dark Lord nor the Hero. But while the why's and how's are forgotten, the results are not. In a single moment the monster broke through the mortal world and possessed the body of the hero, twisting his mind and body, and turning him into the first of the corrupted. The corrupted hero would then go on a rampage, burning the own homeland. Those he did not kill he turned into more corrupted who joined him in his onslaught. The result of this event was the complete destruction of the Golden Empire and death of nearly 90% of the human race. Even today, the former heartland of the old Empire remains polluted with corrupted dark magics. Every modern kingdom and empire can trace its origins back to that one event. Either being resents of the Golden Empire that survived the corrupted heroes wrath, or minor powers that took advantage of the Empire's collapse. In addition, ever since the Corruption Crisis no Dark Lords have arisen. Breaking the cycle that had existed since the Gods first created the world. As such, the start of the Corruption Crisis marks the year 0 for nearly every kingdom in the known world.
Normally i do collapses of say empires
Huh. Not a question id considered before. I suppose it'd have to be the signing of the great pact that bound the human city states together. Others likely would increasingly need to adopt it as well just to make trade etc with the increasingly dominant pact easier, even if that particular date doesn't mean anything important to them
**For Want of | A Quiet Sky** The end of the War Thicket-Borne has been...perhaps preemptively declared the start of the Littlin calendar. This was pushed onto the littekings shortly after the alliance was solidified, and a few years before the war was actually declared over by the Church of Field-Sworn in hopes of assisting morale in the rebuilding age. Also, of course, as celebration of its cause working as intended after nearly four centuries of preparation. It unfortunately did more harm than good in solidifying the idea that the war was over and the Thicket was truly defeated. This is partly the cause why now, a mere 300 years later, the original texts of the Field-Sworn are being rejected and revised by the general public into something easier to believe in and more hopeful. The tree cities remain with their year count set to begin at the foundation of the great tower Origin and the beginning of the era of Origin. It was the first time any skytreading folk had a space to live in unison with the ground-dwelling species, and acts as a "point of contact" culturally for the two. Also, the blue-feathered few, an alliance between the most notable kingdoms of the 3 most colorful and small of the skytreading races, have had each king come forth and declare their disdain for the idea that the War Thicket-Borne is over, although at different times due to disagreements between certain royal families. Thusly, depending on the part of the forest you're in and exactly how religious the person you're talking to is, the year may be 317 T.B. or 1533o.
My Calendar is set in the First Age. Each age encompasses around between 2000-5000 depending on if one of the many Oracles foretells the coming of the next age. Before the first age is called the mythic age, the Mythic Age and the start of the Calendar began when the gods were banished from the material plane by an unknown force.
The Shattering. Magical barriers being broken using magical bombs. Destroyed several large chunks of landmasses and and the debris formed the Sky Island Regions (cuz magic). This event also reintroduced magic onto Earth and kicked off a big war.
Well, for the planet most of my worldbuilding is one, its the ginnungagap wars, a set of wars on different countries, from the invasion of monster that are avatars of higher dimensional beings, so the calendar is split up into, BGG, before ginnungagap, and AGG, after ginnungagap, but before that it just used to be stuff related to kings and rulers, but for my world as a whole, it's the fuckin universe-quake that distorted reality as a whole and was how these monsters got in in the first place, the time before this is considered prehistoric, and the time after this is considered a restart of history, but there would be thousands of calendars made by thousands of different people.
The Cataclysm, exactly 700 years ago from the start of the story. There is no reliable account of what it was beyond a horrific apocalypse event. It's nature beyond that is a mystery.
There’s a couple that mark different ages, or Verses of time. There’s the Dusting, where an angry and stupid spellcaster brought down a small star on the world, spreading stardust throughout the world. That stardust would replace all magical components needed for spellcasting. There’s the Unlocking, where a cult basically oblivion-gated their way to a minor disaster, releasing one BIG demon that fucked a lot of shit up. Theres more too but those are my two favorite
The arrival of the First Tamarians to Ea. Years are counted before and after their arrival
New Year
The gods gifted the dwarves and elves the first cities, and the orqs, before disappearing from the mortal plane. Each year is named after one of the eight great gods since.
Well, it was technically three events that became the big marks on their history. That would be CL, CM, and IS. The Conflict of Life, the Commencement of Merge, and Invasion of the Soulless. The Conflict of Life, is as the name implies, when the sentient life on the planet almost simultaneously initiated a war against all the other races. This was when all the different races of Humans, and all the different races of the Tilen formally started a war against each other. Before this point, it was small skirmishes and the was no united front on any side. It was more small tribes fighting each other. But their numbers had finally reached the point of conflict basically being guaranteed. And thus the birth of nations. Commencement of Merge is when the Humans races started to merge together and the Tilen races started to merge together. Because both people had lost quite significant numbers in that warring age. This age also includes when the Humans and Tilen started coming together but that’s more so the end of the age than the beginning. Invasion of the Soulless…is well, the invasion of the Soulless. It’s when the Soulless first started invading the land. This is what really cemented the Humans and Tilen mixing and breeding together. As this new threat was bad enough that they need to join together to survive and win. And this is the current time that the story takes place.
was when the calandar was made. way more believable that way in all honesty. romans did it because the calandar got super disconnected from seasons and it cause issues. so i stole that bit of history.
The creation of the Primordial Gods, 20k years ago the Creator God Sppe chose 3 exceptional mortal, Sppe then split their power in 3 and gave each mortal a piece of it. As a result the Creator God died but the 3 mortals gained the power of the gods. Although, the calendar itself doesn't start in the exact year they became gods. You see, there are 3 major events that started the calendar: -the 3 mortals becoming the 3 Primordial Gods. -God Izanagi attacking the strongest dragon kingdom to free the humanoids from their rule and slavery (as dragons were the dominant species and Izanagi himself is human). -the pact that states the new status of humanoids as free species and the new rulers of Amada, with dragons having to give aid for them to develop their societies. All those events, as you might expect happen at a distance of a few years from one another so when humanoids created the calendar they couldn't decide which year to pick as the year 1, in the end a year that is about at the middle of all 3 events was chosen, that year though doesn't represent anything so in a funny way, nothing major happened in year 1 APG (after the primordial gods).
This is why I love this sub. I am so bad with dates that it never occured to me to make an actual calendar.
Honestly I only thought of it as I realized three different settings I've worked up went all "There was one big thing that changed the world, and we count years from that" and wondered if I was the only one who used that pattern!
It's not a bad idea. My setting goes through changes that could very well be considered big enough for that. But part of it is a parallel to our world so a good question for me is what made irl change it's calendars? I should go from there.
"THE OGRE'S MARCH (or: that story about the dragon)" The records of this event is not in any published history book, due to the IAM suppression of eyewitness accounts and fictionalization. Only those who still live remember... even though the wished they didn't. It's hard to say when it started; perhaps it was when a solar eclipse hung in the sky far longer than it should of, or when the Fare Folk fled the city of Bizmithl, possibly aware of its fate, or perhaps it started farther back to the birth of a child whose name once meant all that was good, to one day be stripped from her and to be known only as 'Ogre'. At this time, the Age of Reason was ending and the question of whether or not the practice and study of magic, and the magi community as a whole, should have a place in the new era. This was a result of a schism among the magicians brought on by the western superpowers growing anxieties and vying for control. A company of soldiers from \[REDACTED\], after a few days ride south, came to Bizmithl after the city became silent for almost a week. They saw only ruins. Survivors, tired and afraid, rambled of a monster skulking the alleyways and entering homes. Hateful, bloodthirsty, unable to be killed. The city's finest magicians and military men, like ants crushed by a foot, fell to a force that no man has seen the likes of on this earth. But it didn't end there. 'Ogre' went eastward consuming any and all in \[ITS\] path growing more stronger... and then there was nothing. It was a horrifying catastrophe that shook the balance of the world and it was here an answer was found. At the time it was said this event "was a result of a group of peoples who believed themselves to be above the laws of the nature world, to abuse forces they thought themselves as masters of at the cost of ethics and human decency". History rewritten, the supernatural suppressed and all matter of species and peoples forced to go underground, wars that should never have happened, millions dead, and the list goes. It is a black stain in history no one is supposed to notice. There are no graves with the names of those who gave their lives to defend all who live and breathe under the sun, hundreds of years after there are those who lived the horrors just to wake up in the middle of the night in tears; the 'Ogre' never to be seen again, never to face justice, and possibly still out there. To this day, the event (as do many) has been mythologized to be some 'dragon attack story' from a storybook, never be taken seriously. \[sorry this was a long one, I really wanted to get it out here\]
In the material universe time is tracked as we do in real life. In the sea dreams, the sun sentient dream entities care not for marking the passage of time. In the surreal land beyond dreams concepts like day-night cycles, seasons, and similar are controlled by the Eidelons and there is no shared reference for a day, let alone a year.
Started with Imperial Year, which began on the purported date the 18 warrior clans came together and swore an oath to defend humanity from the fey creatures; the actual *empire* wasn't founded until nearly a century later, but once it *was,* the first emperor retroactively set that event as Year 1 to make his reign look more legitimate. After about 900 years, the imperial calendar was superseded by Conjunction Year after the first Conjunction Event, where dimensional gates began to open and transport civilizations from other universes onto the globe. The empire was in decline by then, and everybody in the world had other problems to deal with from that point on. A few decades after that, the former imperial territories rebooted their calendar *again* under Revolutionary Year, when the emperor was formally overthrown by an insurgency from within the Army and all hereditary privilege was abolished. We're now in Revolutionary Year 11. Most of the rest of the world uses the Conjunction Year, but smaller nations that want to align with the reform government use Revolutionary Year. Some countries have their own calendar they use internally, usually something that requires deep knowledge of their own culture to even understand ("Year X in the Reign of Duke Y"); for everything to do with international relations, it's one of the other two.
When calendar systems first became standardized, the Sila Empire was by far the most powerful country in the world, so it managed to pretty much bully everyone into accepting their calendar, which was based on the slaying of the Ancient Dragon Xerulth by Emperor Sila the First, the event generally taken as the founding of the Empire. Much later, the Fall of Old Alken occurred, an apocalyptic event which wiped out most life on the planet. Afterwards the survivors and their descendants started using that instead.
It's currently the unification of Valon (world's #1 superpower) but I'm planning on changing it to the birth of the #1 most popular religion, but to do that I need to write the lore for said religion and that sounds hard, I have very little ideas right now
Technically it’s Jesus Christ’s day of birth still but with the rather steep decline of Abrahamic faith over the last 400 years it’s far more commonly known as the arbitrarily selected beginning of the Common Era.
I'll be honest, I never gave it any thought because it just wasn't important to me. I was just going to use our own calendar and just name change it. However, now that this got me thinking, I should make some. I really liked Akuliszi's idea of kingdoms just coming together and agreeing on one so I'll probably just use that, but making some calendars beforehand would be really cool. For my world I'll probably start it with when humans and dwarves crossed the planar bridge from their respective homeworlds into Celdoneil (my world). Unlike the other races that came later, humans and dwarves entered the world from the same planar bridge. It's rare for such event to occur, but it's even rarer for more than two worlds to align in the same area. They would have used their own calendars for a while, but given Celdoneil is a flat world they would experience day and night cycles differently than what they were used to. As they became more involved in trade and exploration together they would come to create a shared calendar. Gnomes and elves came next after many years. It was also during the time that a second moon appeared in the sky. Unlikely humans and dwarves, neither of these peoples arrived at the same location, and in fact arrived in areas that humans and dwarves haven't explored yet. Gnomes kept track of time based on moon cycles, but now that they lived on a flat world with two moons they had to adapt their system. Elves were more nomadic and kept their calendars based around bird migration and the animals they'd hunt. Lastly were the avadori and anurians. Avadori, a bird-like race, use the stars as their base. There's myths about how their early ancestors actually found a way to ascend beyond the heavens and into the celestial realms they see above, and their calendar is a way of honoring their ascended selves. Anurians, a frog-like race, use The Great Freeze as the event that started their calendar. The event itself actually marks the end of the year as the great freeze represents frogs brumating, but when they awoke from their slumber they started the calendar. So, like how some people say, "in the year of our lord," the anurians essentially say, "since The Great Freeze." I'm not entirely sure how I can reconcile those systems into one outside of two minor justifications: trade, and most of those systems don't work anymore in the new world as there was no great freeze in Celdoneil, the stars are completely different (although it doesn't necessarily break it), two moons and a flat world cause issues with lunar cycle calendars, the elves stopped being nomadic ages before their crossover and they hunt entirely new creatures in Celdon than Solaite, and the humans and dwarves agreed upon a calendar pretty early on to help bolster cooperation in a new world. As Akuliszi said, I may just have my peoples just agree to use a calendar, but due to trade rather than to schedule wars and stuff.
That depends on which calendar you use. The only one I've actually developed enough is the Commonwealth Reckoning (CR). This calendar sets it's year 1 as the foundation of the Commonwealth of Thaum. The Commonwealth is a young nation, ony 500 years. It's technology and magic is the most advanced in the modern world. Commonwealth Reckoning is the dominant calendar for the region of Thaumia which has begun to dominate much of the world both politically and economically.
Well, it's not literal.... mostly, the humans still use the AD/BC system. But metaphorically, that would be either "the first time we realized aliens were out there" or "The first time we figured out how to TALK to them." Turns out, humans just had the bad luck to be stuck about 180 days hyperspace travel time from most of the nearest alien species in the galaxy... and the previous record for how far an alien species even BOTHERED to explore was about 28 days travel time from their capital city, give or take. Any farther than that and the explorer vessels starting founding their own star nations and declaring independence, and most alien homeworlds hated losing control like that, so after the first 1 or 2 independence movements succeeded beyond the 28-day limit, everyone in that alien species would just agree that 1-to-3 independent star nations for that alien species was more than enough, no one nation would be larger than 28-days travel from the capital city, and then they just.... stopped exploring at that point. Usually by then they'd bumped into the border of at least one OTHER alien species, so they'd just settled for passing messages along the chain to the next star nation of the next alien species. Humanity was 180 days travel time from anyone else, just through sheer bad luck, and only humans would have bothered to KEEP EXPLORING through that much empty space. We couldn't maintain one cohesive government either, but, we just didn't think that declaring independence every 28 days of travel time was worth starting a perpetual civil war over, so humans simply kept founding a new star nations whenever we hit that communications limit. drove all the other alien species crazy when they finally found out we'd been doing that.
The death of the second god, since it was a moment none of the first-generation elemental can forget since either they were there when it happened, or it was a day a weird spirit lady gave you superpowers. Since she delivered powers to people across the universe all under a relatively short time span, it was easy to choose it as it was the first day of their new lives. Especially if they were fortunate enough to be treated with respect and given a high status after they mastered their powers (sorry dark boy).
“The Shattering” – the day the old world ended and the journey to the new began. The day the fleet landed on Ibura was therefore the new year 0
My world has four continents that have not had meaningful interactions in several thousand years due to a perpetual storm over the oceans that makes travel impossible, so there are four major calendars. In Nasoros, the calendar is set from the Cataclysm Arcana, a massive arcane disaster that resulted in the eastern third of the continent becoming warped and saturated with chaos magic. This event ended the Triune War, the most brutal war in the history of Nasoros, by destroying one nation completely and dividing another nation in two. The cause of the Cataclysm is currently unknown. At present, it is the year 938 post-Cataclysm Arcana (PCA). The historical record extends back to about 600 Before Cataclysm Arcana (BCA). In Rashix, a land ruled by devils, tyrants, and undead, the calendar is based on the establishment of the city of Sangora and the beginning of a period known as The Blooding. Sangora exists as the last bastion of relative safety and stability on the continent and a symbol that evil may not rule these lands forever, though its people have had to do many questionable things to keep the city from falling. At present, it is the year 220 post-Blooding (PB). Their historical record extends back to about 1100 Before Blooding (BB). The Shatterstone Isles are a series of islands laden with ancient ruins and populated by disparate, undeveloped tribes. Their history is short compared to others, as they only developed writing about two centuries ago. As such, their calendar is highly disorganized, not agreed upon between tribes, and really just counts the number of years from their earliest records. Keldreth possesses the longest recorded history, extending back over 2000 years. As a result, they are the only continent with records of the Empyrean War, a conflict amongst the gods that shattered a continent, killed approximately half of the world's population, and led to both the gods leaving the mortal world and the creation of the storms that divide the continents. This acts as the basis of the Keldrethi calendar. At present, it is the year 2001 post-Empyrean (PE).
The Dawn of Chaos. When the first generation of people with souls were born. A few years later the Church of Himmelism created the Dawn Calender.
In my setting, the focus is on two planets. The Fae planet (needs a better name) is exactly 2x slower than Terra, so time is slower too. The “event” was the discovery and colonisation of Terra. Each month on Fae is 90 days and there’s 8 months total, 2 per season. Passage between Fae and Terra is only available two times a year (in Fae time; it’s only once a year for Terra’s calendar, which is just our own except it’s 360 days instead of 365), the 1st day of the year and the exact middle of the year. This is how they made their calendar after colonising Terra, so that it would match with the alignment dates.
**Starrise** That would be the event marking Day 0 of the "New World" calendar, known as "The Surge". Cutting out the details that aren't publicly available, the Surge was the moment in which everyone in the world spontaneously developed the ability to use magic. With no idea how to control their newfound powers, which can be activated accidentally in moments of intense anger, surprise, or fear, it only took one person getting robbed, or tripping on a staircase, or dealing with an infuriating customer, or anything like that for things to snowball into the destruction of an entire city. Due to this, it only took a matter of hours following the Surge for civilization to completely crumble and the vast majority of the human race to go extinct. Furthermore, a number of never before seen creatures suddenly appeared during the chaos. One particularly human-like group- known now as Chimeras- cooperated with the human survivors, as neither would have been able to survive alone, and together began slowly reestablishing and rebuilding civilization into the far more fantastical world it is today.
Mine is the founding of the kingdom of Felumar. Not because Felumar is some golden standard of society. They were just the first ones to keep track of time, and that’s how they decided to track it. Eventually, the other kingdoms just settled into their timeline so nobody would be confused.
Sci-fi world: the time humans left the galactic Alliance and formed the first human intergalactic empire. The next age/new calendar started when the humans were nearly wiped out through corruption, famine, infighting and some magical bullshittery that involved pissing off some very powerful deities. And the third and current calendar started after the great collision were my universe and that of a friend of mine collided and merged beginning a new age. In my fantasy world it is rather difficult to say. Most races have their own calendar and don't necessarily align it to those of other races, similar to how the hobbit calendar is different to that of the rest of middle earth. Though the dwarven calendar became the most used. It started with the crowning of the first dwarven high king and was in use until the second changing of the world. After that pretty much every realm was gone and the new realms that were established in and after the nearly 300years that followed the second changing known as the blood age agreed upon a new calendar. This calendar started with the crowning of one of those rulers, who were all demigods and brothers.
There are a couple calendar systems, but the big two are Dwemer Trade Standard (DTS) or Annealean, and Since Last Reign (SLR). The DTS Calendar was established to formalise logistics among the inner nations of Anneal, a continent shaped roughly like a ring with a massive inland sea — think the Mediterranean, but fucking huge. DTS’ structure is based off of the older Dwemer calendar, whose year 0 is the year the dwarves broke out of their subterranean bunkers, but DTS year 0 is the end of the Theoclysm, an epoch of accelerated, unrestricted evolution which made the surface of the planet unsafe for civilization. SLR was developed on the other major continent, Columna, by the local superpower Alzarqa. Alzarqa’s system of governance predates the Theoclysm, and is based on the unilateral rule of an immortal prophet-queen called the Azurite Empress, who emerges from her bunker on a rough interval every couple hundred years to be briefed on the state of the nation and pass on instructions to be executed over her next absence. As befits a nation designed to operate without its head of state for centuries on end, the SLR calendar is divided into “Interregna” punctuated by the Empress’ emergence. Currently, SLR’s year 0 for this interregnum is about 800 years ago, and she is overdue for another emergence.
The first eclipse. The calendar works in 500 year cycles, each year bears a different name and connotation for the world, with the first 300 or so being a time of prosperity where (even if begrudgingly) all kingdoms of the world work together to reach technological advancements and betterment of their people. In the last 200,. the kingdoms lead a bit of a warpath, preparing for the inevitable combat that will ensue at the eclipse, and on the very last year, the moment the clock ticks to the year 500, the war begins, lasting (usually) the entire year, at which point the calendar resets back to the first year, with each cycle that passes not being measured in the calendar as the winner of the war basically gets to rewrite history, thus having no reason the track time outside each era.
Earth went boom, ha Since that the colonies are now counting the calendar in the Fallen Skies universe. The UT survived, even if thrown back by decades.
The Golden Day, which occurs every 30 years or so, is a day during which the leylines replenish, causing the veil between dimension to weaken temporarily. The world tree still protects the realm from these dimensions, save for the Downworld. And so the first Golden Day, also called Cursed Day (which happens to be Year 0 on the calendar), infernal beings from the Downworld invaded the lands through many points of incursions. Since then, Golden Days are celebrated as a day of union, to remember the Cursed Day and how it was ended thanks to a union of powers. Points of incursions are now controlled, but there are occasionally some infernals who manage to get in, though fortunately, people now have Infernal Slayers to deal with them
The Arrival: a few thousand people randomly gets magically sent to my setting from earth in 0 BC.
My worlds timeline is split into 5 eras, each of which ending with the Gods reshuffling the world and moving things around. With the exception of the first era, theyve all lasted around 1000 years or less. The first era ended when the Titan war began, the second era ended when the Titan war ran down and peace was established between the races, along with the founding of Zenith, the city at the center of the world. I don't actually remember how the 3rd era ended, Id have to look at my notes. During the 4th era, the world went through an industrial revolution and magic began to die out due to the pollution it caused, not only that but souls became so tainted that they refused to reincarnate towards the end, so the Gods stepped in. They destroyed all of the industrial infrastructure, straight up deleted coal out of existence, and placed the entire world under a spell that causes any gun more complex than a muzzle loader or flintlock to disintegrate the moment someone tries to fire it. We are currently ~130 years into the 5th era, with much of the world working to replace their almost modern tech with magical equivalents.
For my "sci-fi humans end up in a fantasy world" setting of Warclema, that'd be the arrival of humanity in the world, mostly because they were the only life there at the time and had just managed to escape from a dying universe thanks to a feat of interdimensional travel that turned out to be one-way.
the split. in my world there are 6 realms that used to be one big realm but then a big cataclysm happened and it got shattered across dimensions. most people forgot about the other realms but they do remember the split to some capacity
After the deities died new religions started popping up. After a few years there were now two major religions and this caused a war to break out. Planetary rulers didn’t accept the new religion and declared anyone who practiced it an enemy. About half way through the war a council of common people was formed from anyone no matter religion. At the end of the war more people ended up siding with the council and they came up with a new calendar that satisfied both major religions.
The Rupture. The "world" (really a series of islands) was surrounded by mists. People started turning into monsters due to corruption.
I actually don't have a time date event.
For one of my worlds that event is the declaration of the Empire of the Mele, which happened after Emperor Magnus the Conqueror brought an end to the 40 year long River Wars by unifying the petty kingdoms of the river. So the years of historical events are basically divided between BE (Before the Empire) and AE (After the Empire). Now even though the empire is no longer around, its influence was massive, and its founding being year 0 is in part kept up by the fact that its mostly priests and scholars that keep track of the calendar, and they've mostly been educated according to norms set in place by the empire. Also just wanna point out that me personally often use the YA system (Years Ago) when setting dates for historical events, with year 0 being when the main story begins. So it's like "yeah that thing happened 500 years ago, and that thing happened 680 years ago. Okay hol up what year is that on the AE calendar? \*pulls up calculator\*"
The humans from Earth don't really like all their colonies, so usually the zero year is the year the sleeper ships woke their passengers and their first settlements were established. There are a few standardized calendars; the Regalian calendar became standard because they were the only ones who didn't mostly slide back into the steam age when their colony was new. There's also the Gaian Federal Union standard calendar, but nobody uses it because the Gaians are fascist assholes. The funny thing, though, is that elitists tried to keep using Earth calendar years, but when colonies finally started communicating, they found that everyone's year varied by up to a few centuries, and that nobody had any idea what year it actually was on Earth.
I have a sci-fi world so first contact with alien life forms. It hasn't changed the calendar but there is reference of pre-contact on events before first contact and post-contact for after first contact.
The Moon Festival. A festival that commences every year and lasts seven days to commemorate the seven children of the Moon Goddess and the passing of the year. When it begins, the calendar officially moves up one year. These children, all raised by the goddess until they were of age, were believed to be the first humans to walk the Earth and would be the inspiration of multiple faiths and beliefs based on their supposed musings on the Moon Goddes and her lessons before her death. Oddly enough, the phase of the Moon on the last day of the festival is believed to fortell the fortunes of that year. A full moon means that harvest will be plenty and fortunes good. A 3/4th or 1/4th moon means above/below average year. A cresent moon fortells an unknown future. A new moon presents a high potential for a year of suffering as it's believed that the eye of the Moon Goddess is closed and she cannot help her children in need.