World Build-athon Part 1: Calendar, Days, Weather, and Farming · 7:16am Jan 1st, 2014
Hello folks. I've been working on putting more of the setting work I've done on paper.
The Equestrian Calendar
In the Calendar used by Ponyfolk in the setting of the Sword Coast, 365 day Solar years are broken up into four ninety-day seasons, twelve thirty-day (the final month of every year is 31 days) Lunar months (moons) and four days of passing between the seasons. Months are further broken up into roughly four seven-day weeks, like in our Gregorian Calendar. The names of months and the structure of the calendar are loosely based on the Calendar of Harptos from the Forgotten Realms.
The Months of Winter: Deepwinter, Coldclaw, and Sunsets
Day of Passing: Earthbaring or Winter Wrap Up (Spring Equinox)
The Months of Spring: Stormclaw, Melting, and Flowering
Day of Passing: Summer Sun Celebration (Summer Solstice)
The Months of Summer: Summertide, Highsun, and Fading
Day of Passing: Highharvest (Autumn Equinox)
The Months of Autumn: Leaffall, Rotting, and Nightfall
Day of Passing: Hearth's Warming (Winter Solstice)
The first two days of the week are commonly considered to be days of rest. The days of the week are as follows:
Sunday (Day of Celestia)
Moonday (Day of Luna)
Spearday (Day of War)
Coinday (Day of Trade)
Windday (Day of Clouds/Pegasi)
Earthday (Day of Gaia/Earth Ponies)
Skyday (Day of Stars/Unicorns)
Etymology note on day names:
Sunday, Moonday: Sunday, Monday, self explanatory.
Spearday: Tuesday, Twi’s Day. Roman equivalent: Mars (Twi, norse god of single combat. Mars, god of war).
Coinday: Wednesday, Odin’s Day. Roman equivalent: Mercury (Odin, norse god of poetry and magicians and war n’stuff. Mercury, god of trade and commerce. Don’t ask me how that works. I think the Romans were shoving a square peg in a round hole when trying to deal with the Saxons).
Windday: Thursday, Thor’s Day. Roman equivalent: Jupiter (Thor, Norse god of thunder and being a badass, like when he’s chilling with the Avengers. Jupiter, god of lightning and sky, except more of a dick like Zeus, since the Romans adopted the Greek gods. Still, both gods sound like pegasi).
Earthday: Friday, Frigg’s Day. Roman equivalent: Venus (Frigg, wife of Odin, name associated with earth, god of love, mothers, and prosperity. Venus, god of fertility and stuff. Frigg sounds earth pony-ish... as for Venus, fertility means a lot of things).
Skyday: Saturday, Saturn’s Day. (Weirdly, the Norse didn’t seem to name this one after a god and the old name roughly translated to “sun’s eve” until the Romans replaced it. Regardless, the Roman god Saturn is associated with calendar and time, which is unicorn-y).
Years and Eras
1st Era: Before time. The Tribal Days.
2nd Era: The Age of Gods. Years are measured negatively (like B.C.), with year 0 being the year the Shadow was defeated. No living pony, except for perhaps Celestia, knows how far back this Era goes.
3rd Era: The Age of Rebirth. Years are measured positively from the day the Shadow was defeated. Historians tend to believe the current year (944 in the story) is inaccurate, perhaps by two hundred years or more, due to the chaos of the Time of Troubles. By common standard, the Time of Troubles is assumed to have lasted for exactly one hundred years after the Shadow’s defeat.
Weather and Holidays
Most scholars and agricultural experts in Equestria agree that a cyclical balance of temperatures is required for both crops and wild plants to thrive. The reasons behind this cycle are often contested. Many stories exist. A couple of examples follow below:
Story 1: Back in the ancient tribal days before recorded history, the unicorns tilted the Celestial Dome and shortened the days to hinder their earth pony rivals, but when their own people began to starve, they tilted it back, often overcompensating and causing blistering heat. The foolish unicorns repeated this every year, each time hoping to gain an advantage, and each time failing. Eventually, they gave up, keeping the days even for the first time in centuries. The next year, a contingent of earth ponies arrived at the unicorns gates and demanded they make the days colder once more, for the earth ponies had adapted their crops to the cycle of fire and ice.
Story 2: Eons before the Time of Troubles, the earth beneath ponys’ hooves slowly became colder, until the rivers froze and nothing would grow. Immediately suspicious of the Aspect of Chaos, Celestia and Luna confronted Discord at the gates of Tartarus. “Discord, our ponies are freezing. Stop this at once!” Celestia and Luna said.
“Stop? But look at all the beautiful ice!” Discord said.
“Fine, if you will not stop, we will make the days longer and melt your ice away!” Celestia said.
Angry, they turned away, and true to Celestia’s word, brought heat down from the sky until the earth thawed and all was green and growing. But, before long, the earth beneath ponys’ hooves slowly became warmer, until rivers boiled and all that was green burned. Once more, Celestia and Luna confronted Discord at the gates of Tarturus. “Discord, our ponies are burning. Stop this at once!” they said.
“Stop? But look at all the beautiful fire!” Discord said.
“Fine, if you will not stop, we will make the days shorter and purge your fire!” Luna said.
Angry, they turned away, and true to Luna’s word, sapped away the heat with a cold night sky until all was green and growing. But, before long, the earth beneath ponies hooves slowly became colder. This time, Celestia and Luna did not bother to confront Discord. Instead, they matched him, and the cycle has been turning ever since.
Regardless of the reasons, the length of days and nights varies, and the Sun travels closer to the horizon during the winter than it does during the summer. Around the Sword Coast, freezing temperatures become common around the middle of Nightfall at the end of Autumn. Earth ponies bring in their last harvest of the year, and on the winter solstice, ponies gather with the last of their perishable foods to celebrate Hearth’s Warming. They memorialize the end of the tribal days and bring community, understanding, and the virtues of friendship into their hearts so that the long cold winter is kept at bay.
Throughout winter, most farmers grow resilient plants to supplement their income and diet, typically vegetables and tubers. Earth pony hooves keep the frost at bay. Most fields are left fallow, keeping them rich for the next planting. Snow may be purchased, as a snowfall tends to make fields more productive after thawing, or is deposited by blizzards that sweep out from the Everfree Forest, off the Sea of Swords, and down from the Crystal Mountains. Ponies burn firewood, dirty sea coal, and plant and whale oil for warmth.
The snowstorms end before the first day of spring, the Spring Equinox. Communities clean up deposited snow, aid thawing, and clear fields for the first planting of the new year. Also, towns, especially those with active druidic circles, will tend to care for wildlife and surrounding forests, as they rely on the local ecology to keep fields clear of insect pests during the summer and the wood to stay warm in the winter.
During spring, storms are common. Without pegasi, excessive rain will cause flooding and the lost of the first harvest. Communities typically give a portion of their harvest to the militaristic nation-state of Cloudsdale to keep the storms at bay. By the middle of the month of Melting, even nights are above freezing, and flowers begin to bloom. Before the Summer Celebration, farmers take in their first harvest of the year.
On the day of the Summer Solstice, ponies celebrate Celestia’s wisdom, the long days, and the joy of life. They feast on the fruits of the first harvest, dance, and drink from dawn until dusk. The warm days of summer follow, though sporadic storms still form over the Everfree Forest. Farmers work hard to ensure their fields are growing before the heat of the month of Highsun arrives. By the end of the month of Fading, they reap the largest harvest of the year, provided they could afford sufficient rainfall to keep the soil moist.
On the Autumn Equinox, ponies celebrate the bounty of the large harvest with the grandest feast of the year, Highharvest. After the feast, farmers tend their crops, ensuring the third harvest of the year. Throughout Autumn, weather tends to be mellow. However, disease threatens crops, and even when pegasus support is not needed, some harvests are lost.
Farming
Earth pony farmers are extremely efficient by our standards, provided they have the weather they require. With farming techniques we would consider archaic, a relatively small number of farmers provide enough food to support large cities with a relatively small amount of ariable land. In our world, using the same archaic techniques, it would take much more land and many more farmers to sustain dense cities like Manehattan and Canterlot.
Still, while there are a number of artisans and merchants in towns like Ponyville, the majority of citizens are farmers. Despite producing enough food to feed many, many ponies, a typical farming family does not own land. While landlords usually provide weather management, they take most of the harvest as rent, leaving enough for the family to eat and have a small income. However, landlords typically expect the same amount of crops in rent every year, regardless of conditions. In bad years, it is the farmers that go hungry.
Landowning farmers, like the Apple Family, generally fare better. By not having to pay rent, they’re able to build up wealth in good years and effectively manage savings. Landowning farmers often hire workers, typically young, unmarried ponies looking for an opportunity to build up some wealth. Farm work is solid, as room and board for the worker is almost always included with pay, but does not provide enough income to raise or house a family.
Very nice. Reads very logically and definitely clears up the calender nicely (to be fair, I still have trouble with the FR calendar sometimes, and I've been using/running in that world for a decade and a half.)
useful, I certainly wouldn't have typed this much about farming!