Calendars of the World

The world of Kournia has been turning for an inderminate count of years. The inhabitants of the world have created many calendars to track the passing of time; but two in particular have risen to global prominence.

[Atlantean] Calendar; or the Ages of Man
Perhaps the first recognised calendar that came into existence was that of Aramuk the Mighty. Aramuk forged the city-state of Aramasul, one of the many precursors of [Trickster Kindom]. Elevating himself to God-King, Aramuk proclaimed that with his acension to the divine throne, the First True Age of Man had begun, and the empire would endure forever more.

Perhaps inevitably, Aramasul and it's patron God-King had fallen by the year 216 of Aramuk's own calendar; but their method of counting years persisted.

When [Atlantis] first came into contact with the region where Aramasul once lay, they came to adopt a calendar based on Aramuk's. The sole difference was that the [Atlanteans] took as year 0 the date of the foundation of their own city (about the year 167 of Aramuk's calendar). For this reason, you will often see the year described by those outside of these two cultures as, for example, 2/146/313AM (describing year 146 [Atlantean] and year 313 [Trickster] in the Second Age of Man).

An Age of Man, according to this calendar, has no fixed period. Rather, each new Age is heralded by an Apocalyptic Event; with the count of years reseting to 0 at the start of each Age. Thus there is a year 123 of the First Age; a year 123 of the Second age; etc.

The collapse of [Atlantean] magic is taken as the start of the Second Age of Man. The [Atlantean] calendar currently marks the Fourth Age of Man, which began with the foundation of the [Mage-hunters]. If that is when we decide to mark its beginning.

Cycles of the World
A more recent calendar, developed in [Melting Pot Island], is known simply as the 'Cycles of the World'. Created primarily for academic purposes for those studying world history, this calendar is based on patterns of migration and settlement identified from the history of the world. By this count, the Ages of Man began only halfway through the Second Cycle.

Of the calendar systems of the world, this has become the most recognisable, and least contentious. The First Cycle refers to the movement of humans out of [Kataigithan] territory and into the [Plainswalker Civ] region, as well as across the oceans to the [Mongolian Civ] region. The Second Cycle generally refers to the founding of the first civilisations, the [Atlanteans] and the Aramacian, taking the Aramacian Year 1 as Year 61 of the Second Cycle. The reason for this date difference is that Aramacian history specifies that "one whole generation lived and died during the building of [their] great city", and it was not until this happened that their calendar began. After long debate, [Melting Pot Civ] historians settled on 60 as a generous age for an Aramacian male worker.

Academic debate currently centres over a dispute over which Cycle of the World we currently live in. Conservative historians place the year as XXX: Fifth CW, though there is growing sentiment to consider the current years as the beginning of a Sixth Cycle, as all known major landmasses of the world have now been settled. Other historians see this as the harbinger to a new Cycle, but not constitutive of its change entirely. Instead, they argue that the Sixth Cycle will be marked by a dramatic increase in wars of conquest as existing populations seek to displace each other.

Metagaming Note
All dates referred to in this Wiki will be in CW (Cycles of the World). Some, particularly those with regard to the Atlanteans, will also include the AM references.