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Calendar

"Twenty-two months for the twenty-two wounds. The lieutenants knew what they were marking. They just didn't tell us."
— a tarot-mage of the Open Hand, on the Free Calendar's deep structure

Cadwallon's reckoning of time. The Free Calendar is a 22-month year, an institution as old as the city — every fief, guild, and embassy works to it, and everyone in Cadwallon does it without thinking about why there are 22. The few who have thought about it are mostly worried.

The Year

  • 22 months. No coincidence: this matches Desire's 22 wounds, the 22 arcana, and the structure of the Dogs of War (21 lieutenants + Vanius). The Calendar is the city's quietest cosmological tell — the underlying number of Cadwallon is the number of the god beneath it. (see Mana & Magic)
  • Year-counting from the founding. 832 is Year 1 of the Free City. The current year is 1003 AF ("After the Founding"). Older Cadwë documents from the Cynwäll and Vanius eras use Imperial or Cynwäll dates that must be converted.
  • Original month names came from the 21 free companies of the Dogs of War (with the 22nd named for Vanius). Most of those names did not survive: under Duke Lothar the months were reformed into the modern set. Two of the original company-names are still occasionally heard in Cadwë idiom ("when the Steel Hearts march" = late autumn).

Known Festivals & Days

The full festival cycle is not catalogued here — these are the days that appear in current events and existing notes.

  • Day of Flowering — commemorates the Dogs of War deforesting the bewitched jungle of Lanever at the city's founding; the groves that grew back are honored on this day. The single most public holiday in the lower city.
  • Day of Ashes — annual day on which the Coiling Emissaries have appeared before the Duke every year since 999. Once unremarkable; now anticipated with dread by anyone briefed on what the Emissaries are. The Duke has not yet missed one. (see Duke Den Azhir)
  • The anniversary of Bloody Creek — not a city festival but a Akkyshan ritual day observed at Darkshore; slaves go missing in the days before. (see The Akkyshan Offensive)
  • Mardi's Truce renewal — held once a decade in Ghieronburg; private ceremony, the next renewal is approaching and Baron Mardi has requested Bernadil Ghiéron's personal attendance for the first time.

Calendar Use in This Wiki

  • Dates in note frontmatter and the Cadwallon/06 History/Timeline are given as plain four-digit years AF (e.g. 832, 956, 1003). No month/day precision unless specified.
  • The current campaign year is 1003 AF. Any "now" reference points here.
  • Pre-832 dates (Cynwäll era, Ophidian era, Golden Age) are best given in narrative form rather than numerical, because the Cynwäll calendar's epoch is uncertain to Cadwë scholars.

See Also

Beyond the PHB

Specific modern month names, day-counts per month, the leap structure, the Cynwäll/Imperial conversion tables, and the full festival cycle are not yet captured in this wiki. The PHB and Secrets Vol 1 likely have fragments; pull them in as the campaign references them.