The crescent sun is a luni-solar calendar. It is the calendar of the free peoples. Used in all the major realms, although the hungry empire has used a variety of calendars through the centuries, nearly all of them purely solar calendars.
The Crescent Sun imposes modifiers upon Incursions based on the date in the Bonelands when the incursion takes place. The modifiers vary from realm to realm and will be addressed as it becomes relevant. The ring exists outside time, and as such the Crescent Sun provides no influence on Incursions in the Ring.
The Crescent Sun is also the mechanism by which the Psychonauts will accumulate their vajra. On the first Incursion: Into the Ring, the Psychonauts will not need to earn vajra prior to running that first Incursion. However, on subsequent Incursions the Psychonauts will need to invest vajra in order to activate the Incursion.
- Learn about Vajra
- Learn about the Inner Eye
The Lunisolar Year
Wikipedia describes a Lunisolar Calendar as follows: “A lunisolar calendar is a calendar in many cultures whose date indicates both the moon phase and the time of the solar year.” The cycle of moon lasts a hair over twenty eight days, and is the most readily available natural cycle for a traditional culture to use as a medium length measurement. This presents a problem, as the solar year does not align cleanly with the lunar month. Hence modern calendars must either accept that they will not match the solar year, as the Islamic Calendar has done, or use a Solar year with arbitrary subdivisions as in the Gregorian and Modern Calendars. This is because lunisolar calendars have a varying number of days each year. Traditional Hebrew, Buddhist and many other older calendars are lunisolar calendars.
The main advantage of a lunisolar calendar is that any individual can calculate the year and match to the solar year without an outside authority.
The lunisolar calendar used here is a unique example. It has ten regular months, divided into five seasons: starting with Winter and proceeding through Rain, Spring, Summer, and Autumn, before hitting the Dark Months. The Dark Months are their own section, and not really proper seasons. The Dark Months are the time of the ascetic and a time to reset. The dark months are two months of variable length that realign the Solar and lunar years before the calendar resets. The Becoming Dark (the eleventh month) lasts from the end of the second month of August until the Winter Solstice. The last month, the Full Dark, lasts from the day following Winter Solstice until the next new moon. The first day following the new moon is the first day of the new year.
As such the free peoples plan much of their productive time around the five seasons with the consistent number of days. The Dark Times are typically reserved for rituals and celebrations and storytellin and feasting.
The Lunisolar Year Deconstructed
The Lunisolar Year is organized as follows:
Winter
- New Winter: 29 Days
- Cold Winter: 29 Days
Rain
- Cold Rain: 30 Days
- Fresh Rain: 29 Days
Spring
- New Spring: 30 Days
- Warm Spring: 29 Days
Summer
- Big Summer: 30 Days
- Small Summer: 29 Days
Autumn
- Harvest Autumn: 30 Days
- Long Autumn: 30 Days
Dark
- Becoming Dark: Until Winter Solstice
- Full Dark: Until Next New Moon
The months begin and end on the new moon. The number of days in a Season slowly increases to keep the months in sync with the lunar cycle. The time between new moons is 29.5 days. By starting with 29 days months and gradually increasing the frequency of 30 day months the months stay in sync with the new moon.
Using the Crescent Sun System
Charge Bonuses
The Charge bonus is how we encourage people to keep achieving and to make a habit out of their own successes. Each Vajra has a Threshold. Earning three Vajra of any type is considered a ‘Charge’. Players can build their charge by continually earning charge status month after month. The first month that a player charges a Vajra type, they earn 1 additional Vajra of that type. Each successive month that they earn the charge the charge pays out an additional Vajra to a maximum of 3 (ie. the sixth month that a player charges a Vajra type, they will still receive 3 Vajra, and so forth).
Theoretically, this means that a player could earn an additional 12 Vajra each month (3 Ether Vajra, 3 Air Vajra, 3 Water Vajra, and 3 Earth Vajra) by the third month if they are able to generate enough progress points to charge all Vajra types.
Vajra can be burned (as stated above) on a one to one basis to fill in blank progress point slots in any Vajra category in order to earn the Vajra necessary to maintain charges. This can be instrumental in allowing players to maintain their Charge Vajra on busy months so that they don’t lose their three bonus Vajra.
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Professor Harbinger's School for Villains 