Session State

The following rules are confirmed and should be added to Writing Quality Standards on the next voice-reference emit:

The game present was previously recorded incorrectly as 656 AF / 353 NA. The correct figures are:

Conversion is exact: 303 AF = 0 NA. Add or subtract 303.

Four systems exist. Which a speaker uses is characterful.

NA — New Age — common contemporary calendar. Secular, practical. Anchored to the Fall at 0 NA. Game present: 584 NA.

AF — After Founding — used by scholars quoting Velasian records, and by Foundation clergy and New Velasian enclaves as a living calendar. Game present: 887 AF.

BNE — Before New Era — scholarly back-count from 0 NA for pre-Velasian dates. Velasian founding: 303 BNE. Miratur: ~403 BNE.

BF — Before Founding — appears in Velasian records only. Contemporary scholars use BNE instead.

Five seasons, twelve months of thirty days, 360-day year. Established by Velasian trigonometric measurement. The Velasians considered the perfection of the number proof of divine favor.

Seasons: Winter (3 months), Birthingmonths (2), Stirring (2), Summer (2), Fadingtime (3).

Months in order: Darkmath, Yuletide, Hrethath, Ewefyll, Milkmath, Dawnath, Weedmonth, Lithefyll, Holmath, Bloodfyll, Winterfyll, Solmath.

Year opens at Caligahn — the threshold between Solmath and Darkmath.

Gwyl — close of Ewefyll. The quickening. First life returning while winter holds.

Calmai — opening of Weedmonth. Summer’s door. The fire festival.

Calust — close of Holmath. The harvest opening. The bittersweet turn.

Caligahn — threshold of Solmath and Darkmath. Winter’s door. The year closing and opening simultaneously.

Names are Brythonic-derived common forms. Cwym, Celt, and Skeldic traditions have their own festival names. Month names are shared across all cultures — months carry no theological weight.

The Velasian calendar spread beyond empire through trade and administrative contact, not conquest. Festival days were nudged into alignment over generations. Most cultures no longer remember their festivals ever fell on different days.

Holdout communities — concentrated in Cwym and Celt mountain valleys — observe the Great Days as much as a week from the lowland standard. They are not making an error. The holdout calendar is a record of where Velasian influence stopped.

The Skelds use a conventional four-season year. Their festival names and seasonal structure are deferred for a later authoring pass.

The Foundations were established at 0 AF alongside the empire. They survived the Fall; the empire did not. Some Foundations fell at the Fall; a few new ones arose. The contemporary Foundation landscape is not identical to the Velasian original. Foundations range from 887 years of continuous operation to post-Fall institutions with 584 years or less.

The Velasian cultural program has been running for 887 years and accelerates without maintenance. The comfortable equilibrium of Velland is real, earned, and specific — and therefore worth losing. The nature of any external threat is not yet determined. Multiple vectors exist: technology, ideology, theology, or some combination. The possible return of Old Velasia is one horizon story arc among several. Whether the Velland Velasians were refugees carrying Old Velasian culture intact, or ideological dissidents who built something new in opposition to it, is deliberately ambiguous and should remain so.