>Speaking of calendars, Saravan Peacock delurks (hi, welcome!) and mentions a
>Far Point Stead Calendar in "Questlines" (aargh, something else to track down
>after finally getting GRaOY and FS); if memory serves, didn't that wind up
>getting posted to the digest at some point -- the author being John Hughes?
> Maybe Michael Raaterova? If I'm right, does anyone remember what digest
>that appeared in by any chance?
(First some comments to Saravan on her initiation ideas: good stuff!)
The Far Point Stead Calendar in Questlines was written by John, with nonimportant input from me. It first appeared on the digest a long time ago, and it was available for ftp as a separate document (i don't know if it still is).
I did some other stuff in Questlines partially applicable to the calendar, namely some Far Point rituals.
Regarding ritual calendars i think David Dunham has one, but i might be wrong. I have also posted substantial bits of my own (orlanthi) ritual calendar on the digest. I don't remember which issues. My calendar is eternally a work in progress, especially since i can't make up my mind about the Gloranthan Year and its Rune Weeks and five seasons and holy days.
The basic idea about my ritual calendar is that the year is constituted by seasonal communal rituals and festivals, and that cult holy days also have a societal function. Asrelia's HHD, frex, is traditionally the day to repay debts and take loans and make economical agreements. Most communal rituals, such as Walking the Boundaries, First Ploughing and the Tribal Moot, are also holy days to some deity or other or even several deities.
The big problem is to decide if the Gloranthan year consists of the usual four seasons (spring/sea; summer/fire; autumn/earth; winter/dark) and an extra, non-RW, storm season, or if the gloranthan year follow the traditional seasonal progression, but split up in five parts.
Another, intertwined, problem is whether the Runes of the calendar have actual impact and actually shape the year or are just nifty, though ultimately arbitrary, ways of keeping track of time.
If the gloranthan year have RW solstices and equinoxes, as Received Wisdom seems to imply, i think the runic year is nothing more than a descriptive system and we can work out the ritual calendar from RW examples. If the five runic seasons actually have impact, we would probably have to create a fifth seasonal phenomenon to go with the equinoxes and solstices. Personally i find that it would be too much work figuring that one out - it is after all a game setting and i want to keep it reasonably simple.
As i tend toward assuming that the runic calendar is descriptive and that the gloranthan year is analoguous with the RW year, i offer the following as food for thought:
For the orlanthi year i think there are six major communal festivals during a year, the most important being the two New Year Sacred Time weeks around the vernal equinox, and the Sacred Week centered on the autumnal equinox. The other four are the week-long festival equivalents of imbolc, beltane, lugnasad and samain. I don't think midsummer and midwinter are communal festivals as the orlanthi are out warring or raiding during the summer, and stay indoors during winter.
Sacred Time is of course sacred to all deities, as the world is forged anew, but this is when Lhankor Mhy, Voria, Gustbran, Eurmal and Humakt celebrate their HHDs. The beltane festival or Tree Week incorporates HHDs of Odayla, Uleria and Heler. The lugnasad festival or Harvest Week has HHDs of Elmal, the Grain Goddess and Barntar. It could also be the time for the tribal moot. Sacred Week incorporates Ernalda's and Maran Gor's HHD, and is another candidate for the tribal moot. The samain festival or Smallfire Week is sacred to Mahome, Asrelia, Gustbran and Ty Kora Tek. Sometime during the winter the Ghosting and Gagarth's Wild Hunt commences, lasting until Orlanth defeats the darkness during his HHD. The imbolc Thunder Week incorporates Orlanth's and Stormbull's HHD.
The festival weeks (by 'week' i don't mean precisely seven days - it can be less or more depending on location of the festival and the culture) are the time for markets, seasonal rituals and communal ceremonies. There are lots of other communal ceremonies and rituals, like cult HDs, during the year, but they tend to be much shorter, rarely lasting more than a day or a night.
(Talking of cult HDs: i doubt that all deities have the same number of HDs. Marginal deities may even have only one HD - their HHD. Central deities like Ernalda and Orlanth could have up to ten HDs per year. This may seem unfair to PCs belong to culturally marginal cults like Donandar and Gustbran, but that's the way i run it.)
Even though midsummer and midwinter aren't major festivals, stead/communal rituals are still performed during these times. The Wild Market (trading with the uz of skyfall lake) takes place after midwinter.
This is a tentative proposal with one major problem - it disregards most of the published stuff that is related to the Gloranthan Year, and it sucks the Runic Calendar almost dry of life.
I will now prepare myself to be shot to pieces for this thorough Mikeing (to coin a self-important verb on the verge of hubris) of the Gloranthan calendar.
End of Glorantha Digest V3 #62
WWW material at http://hops.wharton.upenn.edu/~loren/rolegame.html
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