Marking Time: The Old Lothanasi Religious Calendar

Background

The ancient Lothanasi religious calendar was the traditional calendar of the Midlands, Northlands, Sathmore and Quenardya before the Suielman conquest. It still sees use in Quenardya, but eventually the Suielman calendar became the predominant calendar..

The Lothanasi calendar is a lunar calendar, consisting of 13 moons of 28 days each (for a total of 364 days). Each moon is broken into three phases, or "weeks," of 9 days each; these are called the Birthing, the Fullness, and the Dying of the moon. The day after the end of the third phase is the day of the new moon; this day is called the Silence of the moon, and stands apart from the nine days of the standard "week." It is, essentially, a zeroth day, and the day after it begins the first phase of the next moon.

The Moons

Each moon has two names, the religious name (most often used by clerics and scholars, and in formal documents) and the common name (used by everyone else):

1. Wolf Moon (Kala'mesa)
2. Snow Moon (Vele'mesa)
3. Crow Moon (Dokor'mesa)
4. Egg Moon (Dvali'mesa)
5. Flower Moon (Kammo'mesa)
6. Rose Moon (Arte'mesa)
7. Thunder Moon (Yaji'mesa)
8. Red Moon (Wvelki'mesa)
9. Harvest Moon (Same'mesa)
10. Hunter's Moon (Daedra'mesa)
11. Frost Moon (Aedra'mesa)
12. Blue Moon (Wyrtha'mesa)
13. Long Nights Moon (Ilu'mesa)

Thus, according to Metamor reckoning, May 1st, the 121st day of the year, would be the Ninth Day of Birthing of the Flower Moon (or the 9th of Kammo'mesa). If someone asked you what day it was, you might casually answer "The ninth of Birthing" and leave the moon unstated, assuming that your listener could at least keep track of what moon it is.

In folk wisdom and astrology, the Birthing is considered a favorable time to begin a new venture, the Fullness is a time to celebrate what you have, and the Dying is a time to play it safe and take stock of where you are and where you are going. The Silence is either a day of fearful reflection or a time of wild celebration, depending on whether you happen to like the daedra lord who governs that particular night.

Holy Days

Each of the first nine moons wass associated with one of the nine Aedra Lords; which one should be obvious from the moon's religious name. The 14th day of each moon (the 5th of Fullness) is the full moon; this is the day of the moon that is most associated with its patron deity, and is considered that deity's holy day. Similarly, the Silence of each moon is holy to one of the Daedra Lords — the sibling and opposite number to whichever Aedra Lord is the patron of that moon. (The exception is Oblineth, whose holy day is observed on the Silence of the Blue Moon.) The Hunter's Moon is dedicated to the Daedra as a whole, and the Frost Moon to the Aedra as a whole; the Silence of the Hunter's Moon and the 14th of the Frost Moon are the two holiest days of the year for their respective halves of the Pantheon. The Blue Moon is dedicated to the Fates, who stand impartial between the Heavens and the Hells, and the Long Nights Moon is dedicated to the mysterious All-Father. Though the All-Father is generally considered to have been benevolent, He/She/It is remembered on the last Silence of the year, in commemoration of the Creator-god's own silence in dealing with mortal-kind.

In summary, the holy days are as follows:

Moon: 14th/Silence

1. Akkala/Tallakath
2. Velena/Suspira
3. Dokorath/Revonos
4. Dvalin/Agemnos
5. Kammoloth/Ba'al
6. Artela/Lilith
7. Yajiit/None
8. Wvelkim/Nocturna
9. Samekkh/Klepnos
10. none/Daedra'kema
11. Aedra'kema/none
12. The Fates/Oblineth
13. none/The All-Father

The Suielman Calendar

The Suielmans use a solar calendar much like that of the ancient Romans; its twelve months are generally given the same names as the twelve months of our calendar, for simplicity's sake. Odd-numbered months have 31 days, and even-numbered months have 30. Suielmans break the lunar cycle into 4 weeks of 7 days each, and do not have any concept equivalent to the Silence.

Author's Notes

Yes, this means that the Lothanasi calendar was 2 days shorter than the Sueilman Calendar- Librarian

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Source: email from RavenB Marking Time: The Old Lothanasi Religious Calendar