On Sunday I mentioned that I was going to go over the calendar of Through the Fire, and possibly some other stuff. I’m going to start with the calendar, and we’ll see where things go from there.

In the world of Senkar, the months are based on a lunar calendar, one similar to our own, but not identical. In the real world, a lunar cycle is a bit over 29 days, just for reference. In Senkar a full lunar cycle is exactly 28 days, and they have 13 months (or 14 if you count Midwinter Night, but more on that in a bit). This gives the year 364 days in a full year, plus Midwinter Night gives 365, to match the real world approximately, and each month starts on the day of the new moon.

The names of the months, starting from the equivalent of January, are as follows.

• Iceheart
• Whitesong
• First Melting
• Springmist
• Blooming
• Silver Torrents
• Summer’s Forge
• Copper Skies
• Fall’s Advent
• First Frost
• Winter Winds
• Silversong
• Winterheart

In The Avatar’s Flames, you might recall that Ruethwyn was born in Copper Skies, which I believe is the only mention of the calendar in the series aside from Midwinter Night (which is located between Winterheart and Iceheart). Still, you might wonder how the calendar would be accurate, considering that Midwinter Night would throw things off by a day every year.

The answer is partially that the world of Senkar is supposed to be steeped in magic, and the lunar cycle is part of that. Midwinter Night has its own phases of the moon, and it goes through them over the course of 28 years. Of course, this means that the night has a lot of magic (sometimes spirits of ancestors appear), it’s favored for magical rituals, and every 365 years is a particularly powerful night of magic.

I freely admit my calendar is odd, but enjoy making things kind of odd in this way.

Alright, I was thinking about doing some other stuff, but I’ll stop there for the time being.