Free Peoples Calendar

[ReverendDangles]

I was reading some of the Malign Portents short stories this morning. Beyond the Walls is broken up into dated entries which intrigued me for some reason.
I felt like getting into the weeds and seeing what I could infer from this; so I made a calendar based off the entry dates (attached).
What I gleaned from this story is:

1. The story takes place in the City of Heldelium.
      Not sure what realm but, given the naming convention, it could possibly be Azyr.
      
2. We know there are two months: Azy'rs Gleaming and Golden Harvests, in that order.
     Given the name of the first month, I feel the Realm of Azyr is a safe assumption.
     The second month implies it could be during the time of year that crops are harvested which is October-November.
     So this could mean the story takes place in the fall.
    
3. Five days are mentioned by name in the story: Moonsday, Starsday, Cometsday, Voidsday, and Sigmarsday.
      
4. There are three entries of Starsday in the story: 10th, 24th and 31st.
      The 10th and 24th are 14 days apart and the 31st is 7 days. So it looks like their calendar follows a 7 day week.

5. If we assume the 31st is the last day in Azyr's Gleaming, the next entry in the story, Voidsday (2nd), would be 14 days from the previously mentioned Voidsday.
      This shows that Azyr's Gleaming has 31 days and confirms the 7 day week.
      
6. With this in mind, we can extrapolate more days and populate the calendar.
    Starsday (3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th, and 31st)
    Voidsday (5th, 12th, 19th, 26th, and 2nd)
    Cometsday (6th, 13th, 20th, and 27th)
    Moonsday (7th, 14th, 21st and 28th)
    
7. From this, we see that Voidsday, Cometsday, and Moonsday are always in that order.

My assumptions all line up with the story except for the last two entries. It says both Voidsday and Cometsday are on the 2nd. Maybe it was a typo and Cometsday was supposed to be the 3rd; or maybe it happened at midnight. Not sure.

For me, this excercise has painted a more vivid picture of what the town is going through.
I now imagine an chilly autumn scene with gray, dreary clouds. The author trying to defend the city while refugees come in to be safe from the undead. Townsfolk locking themselves inside their homes. The city is running low on food because the farms that should be sending crops (because it's harvest time) are being raided. Anvils of Heldenhammer dragging people out of the pubs because they are spreading stories of what they've seen or heard is happening outside the city. The overall fear of the townsfolk growing as the story progresses.

I hope someone else finds this useful. To me, this adds more depth to the lore which is what I think people are wanting. I think it would be interesting to see more of these little details build upon each other as the AoS lore progresses.

Azyr Calendar.xlsx

 

UPDATE:
I forgot to mention Sigmarsday. It's on the 28th which is also Moonsday. My thinking is that it might be a special day that they observe; or possibly what they call the last Moonsday of the month?

[BunkhouseBuster]

I just read that story myself, and thought this was a really cool bit of world building that they threw into the stories.  A young trooper wanting to get his commission (officer level rank) and get married, what a Devoted of Sigmar cult can do when misdirected, and a calendar system that is used by a city.  The calendar in particular is a pretty cool bit of info, and really helps everything feel a bit more lived in and not just "another city falling to the enemy".

38 minutes ago, ReverendDangles said:

My assumptions all line up with the story except for the last two entries. It says both Voidsday and Cometsday are on the 2nd. Maybe it was a typo and Cometsday was supposed to be the 3rd; or maybe it happened at midnight. Not sure.

Interesting point here.  I wonder if it was a simple mistake, or it may have been by design.  Perhaps instead of a typo, rather it is:

• The calendar system they use updates the date at midnight, and the day at dawn?  Or vice versa?  Instead of our convention of midnight being the measure of a new calendar day
• The young trooper writing these entries was getting delirious and made a mistake as his home is crumbling around him?
• Perhaps it was a full year between the last two entries?  The 7-day week fits the other patterns, and if you look at our calendar, not every day lands on the same days (for example, how many holidays and birthdays do we hope land on a Friday each year?).  If the year's length is not evenly divisible by 7 (like our own), then we could easily see a similar occurrence in other calendars.

Just my thoughts on it.  Cool thread, and nice job looking into it further!

[ReverendDangles]

Quote

Perhaps it was a full year between the last two entries?  The 7-day week fits the other patterns, and if you look at our calendar, not every day lands on the same days (for example, how many holidays and birthdays do we hope land on a Friday each year?).  If the year's length is not evenly divisible by 7 (like our own), then we could easily see a similar occurrence in other calendars.

That's a good point! It doesn't mention anything about years so it's entirely possible. It could mean that it took a full year for the city to fall because they just refused to give up, even though food and morale had been running low.

Oh! I completely forgot to mention Sigmarsday in the post. I'm going to add it now.

[Menkeroth]

Interesting read, thanks! I didn't know GW had mentioned such minor details, they certainly add flavor. 

[flemingmma]

could be 8 days in the week, would make sense with the lore

[ReverendDangles]

On 3/21/2018 at 10:22 PM, flemingmma said:

could be 8 days in the week, would make sense with the lore

Potentially. The rest of the days seem to repeat every 7 though. Since it fell on a Moonsday, it could be something related to the moon. Perhaps Sigmar's day is celebrated on a full moon? Or when a comet makes it's periodic trip across the sky?

[Melcavuk]

Having not read the story myself are you sure Azyrs Gleaming and Golden Harvest are months and not seasons? I only ask as that could account for the varying day gaps and sound alot like Summer and Autumn (Azyr being the sun shining in summer, and harvest in Autumn)

[ReverendDangles]

They could be seasons but it seems very coincidental that the days mentioned in the story all line up and repeat every 7 days. Now they could have structured their calendar around the seasons; hence the names. Golden Harvest definitely sounds like the time of year when farmers would gather their crops which is in Autumn.

It would be interesting to hear the author's opinions on this.