Duskwall Calendar

Blades in the Dark
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I’ve been thinking about the calendar in Duskwall, and I’ve got some questions. Now some of these my fall under the ‘Don’t expect scientific realism’ warning, but sometimes I just can’t help myself…

We know that a year in Blades has six months, each having ten weeks, each lasting six days. There are three main seasons, which correspond to two months each. Every day, the remnants of the sun rise and then set again 12 hours later, and dawn comes another 12 hours after that.

Is each day exactly 24 hours long? Is there no seasonal variation, with longer days and shorter nights in Suran and Ulsivet (the closest Duskwall gets to a summer)? If there is some variation through the year, how are the hours measured? Does the day always start with the first hour and night with the hour of Honour, but the daylight hours are longer in summer and the night time ones longer in winter? Or does dawn shift earlier in the day, so that at the end of Suran, a day might last from the hour of Chains until Song?

What causes the seasons? If it’s not axial tilt, as in our own world, is it distance to the sun? That seems unlikely, given that it doesn’t provide much heat anyway - but if not that, then what?

Is the year in Duskwall (and presumably across the Empire and the world (though maybe not…?)) exactly 360 days? Is there anything like a leap year? Indeed, are the holidays of Arkenvorn, Unison, Doskvorn and Gratitude days within the months, or are they like Lithe in Middle-Earth, extra days that fit in between the months - so the year is actually 364 days long?

If that last one is the case, how does the fact that Unison is a relatively new holiday (since the end of the Unity War was only two years ago) affect things? Did it replace an older holiday… or is the year getting longer?

And given that the moon is getting closer each year, is it moving through the sky faster? Do this and the other factors above affect navigation out on the Void Sea?

As I said, I know we’re operating under fantasy rules and I’m not expecting there to be fixed, consistent answers to any of these questions. But for me, they’re interesting things to consider when exploring the setting.

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Short answer - questions to explore at your own table.

Longer addition - I’ve posed questions to the subReddit about the setting and things that might need some further examination. The responses have either been, 1) don’t overthink this, or 2) explore it as you see fit. Every fictional setting is going to have its inconsistencies, but I understand that they can bug some people.

However, you have the opportunity to correct this, explore this, or disregard it in your own game. This aspect of Blades - that the base concept of Blades and Doskvol - can be so similar on the surface, yet so different at each table is what I enjoy about it.

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My current Blades game is with astrophysicists, biophysicists, and computer scientists. A few moments into session 0 I had to ban physics and bio talk at the table.

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“Ummm…Doskvol is in a ring world and all the solar wackiness is signs of it breaking down. Too bad you guys are working with Victorian era technology and don’t have the foggiest in-character idea about what’s going on :smiling_imp:”

If you like this idea, check out Gene Wolfe’s Book of the Long Sun. I stole it from there.

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I would love to play Scum & Villainy with y’all!

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Funny, I was thinking an Alderson Disk made more sense than a Ringworld. I’ve not heard of that book - I will have to check it out.

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Absolutely agree - there are and can be no actual answers, I was just wondering if and how other groups had answered the questions.

I do like the idea of a constructed world with a non-standard shape. Coincidentally, the wiki article on the Alderson Disk makes reference to the cosm of Aysle in Torg - I just got a reminder e-mail about the Torg Kickstarter!

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