Galefridish calendar

The Galefridish calendar is the calendar used in most of the world. It was introduced in 893 GD by Lucis Sol Emmelina. as a modification of the Nerathi calendar for both religious reasons as well as agricultural reasons.

In the Galefridish calendar, the year consists of 360 days, divided into twelve months of 30 days each. Each month is further subdivided into "rides" of ten days each.

History
The Galefridish calendar is a modification of the Nerathi calendar, which was, itself, a reform of the Turathi calendar.

The Turathi Calendar
The Turathi calendar was an observational lunar calendar whose months began from the first signs of a new crescent moon. A lunar cycle lasts roughly 20 days, and it was observed that roughly 18 such cycles elapsed between successive spring equinoxes. A Turathi year would begin on the first day after the spring equinox and last roughly 360 days composed of 18 months of varying days.

Given there are 20 major deities, the fact that 20 days were typically in a month was seen as divine providence, and every day was named after a god. These days were as follows: These names began as "Bahamut's Day" or "Day of Avandra," but were shortened and standardized over time. "Dan" in the language of the time meant "day," and "den" meant "night." It was common for the worship of evil deities to take place at night, thus the decision to name some "days" and some "nights." While the Raven Queen is not evil, her worship takes place at night.

The first day of a month would always be Bahamudan, and the 20th was Raveden. However, every few months would only have 19 days in its cycle, and thus Raveden would be skipped.

Year 0 in the Turathi calendar equtes to -799 GD, the year of formation of the Empire of Bael Turath.

The Nerathi Calendar.
The Nerathi calendar was a reform of the Turathi calendar. It took effect on 454 GD by imperial edict. It was designed with the aid of some of the greatest minds of the time - expert astronomers and mathematicians - who wished to correct what they deemed to be the biggest problem with the Turathi calendar: the lack of consistency in the number of days in a year.

They calculated that the time between spring equinoxes is precisely 360 days and that the lunar cycle lasts 20.31 days, meaning 17.73 lunar cycles elapse per year. This lack of synchronicity between the lunar cycle and the spring equinox was the cause of the problem, and so the Nerathi decided to move away from the idea of a lunar calendar.

However, they did not wish to cause too much of a disruption to the established ways, while still clearly dissociating the month from the lunar cycle, and thus settled on a calendar that consisted of nine months of 40 days each - thus affording each month two cycles of the pantheon. These cycles were named the Ridans, or Ritual Cycles.

They named the months as follows: The start of the year would be the spring equinox.Year 0 in the Nerathi calendar equates to 0 GD, the year of the fall of the Empire of Bael Turath.

The Galefridish Calendar
The Kingdom of Galefridus was founded with strict religious tenets in worship of Pelor, who opposes evil. Since the times of the Empire of Nerath, worship of evil deities had already been banned, and the Galefrides decided to further this ban on evil deities by no longer having days named after them.

This cut the number of days in a Ridan down to 11 at first; however, because this left the Raven Queen as the only deity of night-worship as opposed to day-worship, and because she was a rival of Pelor, her day was also stricken from the calendar. The Nerathi calendar also had some irregularities with seasonal lengths, and so it was determined that a year would consist of 12 months - four per season - of 30 days each. Each month would be divided into three Ridans of ten days, which came to be called "rides" as the definition of the original Nerathi word became lost to the common folk.

Further, it was established that the first day of the year would be the winter solstice rather than the spring equinox, since the winter solstice marks the longest night of the year, and thus Pelor's power would begin awakening on the next day before growing to full power in summer.