Q: Why is time important?
A: In this campaign time between sessions is 1:1 with real time. If you play in session A and then wait 15 days to play in Session B, that would mean that in Sidhranor it has been at least 15 days for your character. In a session, time is not considered 1:1 to account for a variety of things such as travel time.
Q: Why is time 1:1 between sessions?
A: Because it helps the world keep pace with the players and is surprisingly intuitive once you get to understand it. One reason for this real-time approach is the logistical challenge of tracking in-game time separately from real-world time. Players delve into dungeons, explore wilderness areas, and engaged in various adventures. Keeping a completely separate in-game calendar between sessions and tracking the passage of time in detail could become cumbersome and distract from the flow of the game.
Additionally, the 1:1 time ratio simplified resource management and the logistics of character activities between sessions. For example, if a session ended with the characters in a dungeon, the assumption was that the characters spent a week (or however much real-world time passed between sessions) in the dungeon, dealing with resting, healing, and any other necessary activities.
Additionally, some effects in the game system take a long time to resolve, needing weeks of healing or respite isn't uncommon, and 1:1 time tracking helps accomodate this quirk especially with the discord bot.
The most common reckoning of time in Sidhranor divides the year into twelve months of seven-day weeks and a total of 350 days. Each Month corresponds to the cycle of the two moons of Sidhranor; Lugis and Lina. The current year is 998.
Each week has seven days, named as follows: Prayday, Awnsday, Rainday, Kingsday, Foolsday, Kinsday, & Dozeday.
Each month usually has between three and four standard weeks, except for Newfeste which consists
only for a single week that always begins on Prayday. The Months of the Year table shows the months, their place in the procession of the seasons, their lengths, and the names and dates of their holidays.
Primarily of note to farmers and those with occult practices.
Winter solstice: 1st of Newfeste.
Spring equinox: 30th of Mistfeste.
Summer solstice: 18th of Sunfeste.
Autumnal equinox: 19th of Harfeste.
Many local festivities are celebrated across Sidhranor’s isolated communities, but the following dates are observed within the Lodonia region. Even broader holidays celebrated throughout the entirety of Sidhranor are often interpreted differently among the regions.
New Coloured Winds (Week of Newfeste): Taking place during the entirety of the week of Newfeste in the temperate winter. Residents of Lodonia celebrate the arrival of the new year by coming together as a community to craft colorful and elaborate wind vanes and ribbons to decorate their community with. Each color corresponds to a wish they have for the new year, and it is thus seen as disrespectful to remove a person’s wind vanes before their death. Many wind vanes have multiple colors and are a tapestry of prayers for the year to come.
White: Hoping for love
Blue: Hoping for fortune
Green: Hoping for Good Health
Red: Hoping for a new beginning
Yellow/Orange: Hoping for Happiness.
The Riverside Run (21st of Floodfeste): A fairly short and spiritual holiday locally celebrated in Lodonia to venerate the Eldricainna, The River Run is usually celebrated by riverside praying during the day. But during the evening, youths will participate in a race alongside the river. They place a sentimental bauble attached to a floatation device at the mouth of the river just before the rapids and then race their item and their peers along the riverside.
Crone’s Day (13th of Mistfeste): Another local holiday is Crone’s Day, celebrated in the middle of Mistfeste when fog is most likely to gather. During the wee hours of the morning, the people of Lodonia gather and dress themselves in elaborate costumes meant to resemble a scary crone. They then venture outside their homes and wander the streets of Lodonia, ambushing anyone who isn’t wearing a crone suit and reciting a poem. If the person who is ambushed is unable to recite the response poem quickly or clearly enough, they must give the crone a gold piece or sweet. Occasionally, a Crone might recite an additional verse and expect another in response, which may lead to a lengthy battle of words. During the middle of the day, everyone dressed as crones gathers outside Lodonia and attempts to scare off any fog that has gathered until dinner time.
Alvus’ Day of Revelry (5th of Sunfeste): Based on an old fable, on this day, the people of the community gather together in the morning and deliberate while constructing at least one strawman. They fill the strawman with sewage and foul smelling things, and it is called the Crudder. By midday they would have decided to dedicate the Crudder to at least one person in the village who they’ve decided had been notorious during the last year. They then hang the Crudder in the public squares. The town would then feast and drink for the rest of the day. At the end of the day the dummy Crudder is burned on a brilliant bonfire. Wars have been fought when a community decides to declare a local lord the Crudder.
Lughlina (19th of Harfeste): Taking place during the harvest season and the autumnal equinox is Lughlina. Lughlina is marked by the two moons of Sidhranor, Lugh and Lina, disappearing from the night sky, and a third brighter moon taking its place. Lughlina is celebrated with sports, music, and traditions related to courtship. It is a tradition to form trial marriages on Lughlina, married couples remain in matrimony until the next Lughlina, where they can decide to call off the marriage without spiritual consequence or declare it a legitimate marriage.
The highest elevations tend to snow over, but Lodonia rarely gets snow, and when they do; it is rarely deep. instead the ground and the soil used for farming tends to freeze and become unworkable. The lake and river themselves seldom freeze, and remain somewhat temperate all year long. During the ground freeze, most people in Lodonia take up a secondary trade or activity to earn money early in the next year before returning to busy agricultural work.
Spring is a mixed blessing within Lodonia as the warming weathers both herald beauty and destruction. The ground warms up and the rolling fields and grasslands become a bed of dazzling colors from the many flowers that take root. But the season also brings with it chill mists, deadly fierce floods and heavy rainfalls that can destroy crops or claim lives.
The summers of Lodonia tend to be dry and temperate, but become hot and humid near the lake or the vast marshes to the east. Summer’s long days are usually occupied by hard labor tilling fields, with only Dozeday to rest and Prayday devoted to spiritual duties.
Lodonia is known for fairly gentle winds, but during autumn these brisk winds pick up from the sea and turn Lodonia into a flurry of colors as the gusts blow through the multicolored wind vanes. The shivering winds are accompanied by interminable drizzle, and merciless downpours.
The hours of sunrise and sunset may be useful on occasion especially in relation to PC’s setting up camp.
It is sometimes useful to be able to randomly determine a day of the year. The following procedure may be used:
1. Month: Roll 1d12 on the Random Date table.
2. Day of month: Roll the die indicated in the table for the rolled month (not all months have the same number of days).
These weird dice can be mimicked as follows:
d30: Roll a d6 and a d10: if the d6 comes up 3–4, add 10 to the d10 roll, if the d6 comes up 5–6, add 20 to the d10 roll.
d36: Roll a d6 and a d12: if the d6 comes up 3–4, add 12 to the d12 roll, if the d6 comes up 5–6, add 24 to the d12 roll.