TimeInAutochthon
Contents
Introduction/Explanation
In the Sidebar on page 24 of E:tAuto under the heading Time, it says that Autochthonians use the same calender as the Old Realm.
I happen to have a problem with this. I think that, in most cases, the Autochthonians are too pragmatic to keep something that doesn't work and Creation's calender doesn't work for Autochthonia. Creation's calender was designed to help farmers know when to do stuff on their farms, let people know when to worship certain gods, figure out their horoscopes, etc. Well, the Autochthonians don't know what farmers are, worship a completely different set of gods, have different ways to divining the future, etc. So, they need a different calender. In an effort to devise this calender I have come up with the following:
Base Assumptions
An Autobot calender should conform to the following rules:
- Days should be 25 hours long and be divided into 5 shifts (as stated in the book)
- Years should be roughly the same length as years in creation (to establish parity with creation time and keep that rough 5,000 figure the same)
- Minutes and Hours should be the same length as in creation (this effort would be way too complex otherwise)
Calculations
One year in Creation is 425 days long with each day being 24 hours long. This results in one year in creation being 10200 hours long. So, an autochthonian year should be about the same number of hours long. 10200/25 results in 408 days. Since 400 is pretty close, and it's a nice round number, I decided to go with 400 days as my year length (for those who prefer 408 days see the section under 'Shift Change of the Gods').
Now that we have the year length decided, we need to decide on the number of months and their length. 400 is evenly divisible by 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 16, and, 25. 8 stands out as there are 8 major autochthonian sub-gods. The problem with using 8 is that it results in 50 day months which are rather clunky (but easy to add back in if you want). So, I will be using 16 months of 25 days each, with each of the sub-gods having authority over two months.
So, using 25 day months, it becomes logical to to divide them into 5 weeks of 5 days each, with each week and day corresponding to one of the 5 non-smoke elements. (I figure that the calender reform either took place back when the Pole of Smoke was just Autochthon's recycling center or they excluded smoke from their calender as it is an undesireable product.)
Each day is 25 hours long and divided up into 5 shifts corresponding to the 5 non-smoke elements, as stated in E:tAuto. (Use the following order for shift names: Metal, Crystal, Lightning, Oil, Steam.)
Finished Calender
So lets see what our final calender looks like:
Domadamod - Recycling
Acending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Decending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Noi - Innovation
Acending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Decending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Kadmek - Planning
Acending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Decending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Runel - Order
Acending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Decending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Kek'Tungsssha - Craft
Acending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Decending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Debok Moom - War
Acending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Decending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Mog - Just Punishment
Acending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Decending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Ku - Death
Acending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Decending
M C L O S
M 1 2 3 4 5
C 6 7 8 9 10
L 11 12 13 14 15
O 16 17 18 19 20
S 21 22 23 24 25
Shift Change of the Gods
For those who want a 408 day calender, I suggest using this system. Add one extra day to the end of each decending month (probably a day of smoke). This day is overseen by both the outgoing god and the incoming god so that there is no time when at least one god is watching over everything.
Comments
So, what does everyone think? Have I made any errors? Is this stupid? Should I show what some of the other calenders would look like? -- BrilliantRain
- Doesn't Creation work on a 25 hour day as well?
--DarkWolff
- Never explicitly stated but I've always figured they did.--MF
- What about Calibration? I would think that when they said it fundementally worked the same in Creation, then there should be a Calibration. Heck, even the word fits in E:Auto imo. You could say that Autocthonia is doing a system Defrag during that period of time. - Savare
- Pretty cool. Something I like is that it fits some as the Mayan/Aztec themes that the Autochthonians have to their asthetic (A lot of the artwork is Aztec-ish). Something cool about htere bieng a dual element for each day is that you can have a whole horoscope thing that might help determine who someone was. Double Metal, Oil with Steam Descendant, stuff like that. It probably doesn't do much to people's everyday lives, but there might be some mythology ot it.
- I'm a fan of making the eight extra days Calibration myself. There is talk of such a period in the book, and as noted above, it could be a sorta system-wide upkeep thing that causes some things to go weird for the mortals about. Its also nifty in that you can have an eight-day festival thing for the Theomacracy to put on, and whatnot.
- As for the shifts, I wouldn't mind saying htey are the same as in the book, myself. It adds a nifty little anachronism that weirds foreigners, and will also odd-out Autochthonians when they find out that some of those things actually mean something, like wood being a substance, isntead of a random shift name.
- And stuff. Blaque
