Time & the Calendar¶

"You want the baker? Come back when the sun's up. You want the baker drunk and honest? Come back when it's down. Same woman, different hour - that's the whole secret of this town." - Old Petra, who sells maps near the Market gate

The world of Ghelmyon keeps its own clock, and it keeps moving whether you do or not. Walk somewhere, talk to someone, swing a sword, sleep a night - time passes, and when it passes enough, the world turns over: shops open and close, guards change watch, and the woman you wanted to question goes home to bed. This article is the reference for how that clock works the day, the week, the year, the festivals, the Waning, and the reason a town never holds still for you.

If this is your very first day, start with First day in Ghelmyon and come back here when you want the full picture.

At a glance¶


Day is split into	Seven phases - Dawn, Morning, Midday, Afternoon, Dusk, Evening, Night
The four "main" phases	Morning, Afternoon, Evening, Night - the long, stable bands of a day
The "changing" phases	Dawn, Midday, Dusk - short twilight in-betweens
Time advances by	Doing things - travel, talk, fight, craft, rest all spend it
A week is	Seven named days - Moonday through Darkday
A year is	Four months / four seasons - Spring → Summer → Autumn → Winter
The Waning	A recurring world-wide event - candles flicker, magic stirs
NPCs move	Each phase, on a schedule - home, work, leisure, sleep
Check the time	`/calendar` for the date, `/today` for what's special now

How a day passes - phases, not hours¶

Ghelmyon doesn't tick away in minutes you have to watch. It moves in phases - broad bands of the day, each with its own light, mood, and crowd. There are seven of them, in order:

Dawn → Morning → Midday → Afternoon → Dusk → Evening → Night

They aren't all the same length. Four of them are the main phases - the long, settled stretches where most of life happens:

Morning - the town wakes and opens. Shops unbar, stalls go up, the day's work begins.
Afternoon - the longest band of all, the busy working heart of the day.
Evening - work winds down; taverns and pleasure houses fill; people unwind.
Night - the long dark. Most honest folk are home asleep; the streets belong to the watch, and to those with reason to be out.

Between them sit three short changing phases - Dawn, Midday, and Dusk - the twilight in-betweens when the world is shifting from one main band to the next. They pass quickly.

You don't set the clock. Time advances when you act. Walking to another district, holding a conversation, fighting a round, crafting at a bench, tending a wound, resting - each of these spends time, and enough of it rolls you into the next phase. Rest or sleep advances time fastest of all, which is how you skip from a dead Night to a busy Morning when you've nothing better to do in the dark.

When the phases run all the way past Night, the day ticks over and a new one begins at Dawn.

Why nobody is ever where you left them¶

This is the single most important thing to understand about Ghelmyon, and the thing new players trip over most: people have lives, and they live them on a schedule.

Every townsperson has a daily routine tied to the phases. The baker is at her stall through Morning and Afternoon, drinking at the tavern come Evening, and asleep in her cottage at Night. The guard walks his beat by day and stands the gate at dusk. The priest keeps the temple from the first prayer to the last.

So when you go looking for someone:

They move by phase. Each main phase, an NPC is somewhere doing something - at work, at a place of leisure, or home asleep. Catch the baker at her stall, not her cottage, in the Afternoon.
They go home to sleep. Come Night, the working world empties out and most NPCs return to their own beds. A shop you found bustling at Midday will be shuttered and dark after Dusk.
The right hour is part of the puzzle. Some people are only reachable - or only talkative - at certain phases. A merchant is all business at the counter; the same merchant, three ales in at the tavern that evening, is a far looser tongue. If you can't find someone, you're often just looking at the wrong phase.

A few things bend the routine:

Restday (see below) lightens everyone's day - shops close, people relax, the rhythm goes slack.
Personality and mood nudge it. A restless soul wanders; a devout one slips off to the temple more than the template says.
Special days and events - festivals, the Waning, a death in the family - can pull someone clean off their usual track.

Practical upshot: if a door is shut or a stall is bare, don't assume the place is broken. Note the phase, do something else for a while, and come back when the world has turned. Half of finding people in Ghelmyon is showing up at the right hour.

The week - seven named days¶

A week runs seven days, each with its own name and feel:

Moonday · Towerday · Marketday · Fieldday · Forgeday · Restday · Darkday

Two of them you'll plan around:

Marketday - the town's busiest trading day. Stalls are full, crowds are thick, and prices tend to favour a buyer. The day to shop, sell, and lose yourself in a crowd.
Restday - the town's day off. Many shops close or keep short hours, and townsfolk break their usual routines to rest, worship, or idle. Good for catching people relaxed; bad for getting much bought.

The other days - Moonday, Towerday, Fieldday, Forgeday, Darkday - are ordinary working days, but the world notices them in small ways, and so should you.

The year - four months, four seasons¶

The calendar turns through four months, one per season:

Month	Season
Thawmoon	Spring - the thaw, the first markets, planting
Solstice	Summer - the long days, festivals, the high sun
Harvestfall	Autumn - the harvest, the gathering-in
Frostmarch	Winter - the cold, the dark, the firewood months

A full date reads like "Marketday, 15 Thawmoon, Year 1" - day of the week, day of the month, month, year. Type /calendar any time to see exactly where on the wheel you stand.

Seasons aren't just scenery. The cold months drive up the price of firewood and pack the taverns; the warm months bring out the festivals and the road-traffic. The world dresses for the season it's in.

Festivals & the moon¶

Scattered across the year are fixed festivals - special dates the whole town observes. Some bring cheaper goods and free drink; some pack the temples; some lift everyone's mood; some stir up stranger things after dark. They're marked on the calendar, so you can see them coming: /today tells you whether today is special, and the calendar flags the festivals on the horizon. A festival is the best day to be liked, the worst day to be unnoticed.

Overhead, the moon runs its own cycle through its phases - new, waxing, full, waning. A full moon floods the night with silver light (good for seeing, bad for hiding) and stirs up the restless dead and worse. A new moon brings deep dark - poor for seeing, excellent for anyone who'd rather not be seen. Most nights fall somewhere between, but it's worth a glance at the sky before you plan a night's mischief.

The Waning¶

Roughly once a month, the world holds its breath. The candles in the inn flicker though there's no wind. Dogs howl, cats bolt for the door, horses pull at their tethers. Metal hums with a low note some people feel and some don't. People sleep badly - or sleep vividly, dreaming of places they've never been.

That's the Waning - a recurring, world-wide event that runs for a stretch of days and then passes. It is not a fight, not a deadline, not a fail state. Nothing hunts you because of it and no quest expires for it. It's the rhythm of the place itself, and the game rewards players who notice it over players who try to push through it.

During a Waning:

Magic stirs - the world feels charged; some spells and effects carry a little further.
Dreams sharpen - sleeping through one, especially at an inn near the heart of town, can leave you with fragments worth remembering. Some threads only surface this way.
The town reacts - temples fill, certain districts go quiet or go loud, and a handful of unusual folk (a fortune-teller, a trance-prone artisan) have things to say they never say on an ordinary night. Talk to them.
The wilds get restless - sewer creatures and far-off beasts are agitated, and the edges of things feel less certain. A poor night for a deep dungeon run or a long expedition far from town.

The Waning recurs, and as your story goes on the interval tightens and the signs grow stronger - what felt like a curious once-a-month mood early on becomes something the whole town is muttering about later. There are answers to what you're feeling, but the game gives them up to observation and to specific arcs you'll find on your own, not on a schedule.

For a fuller, first-time walk through one, see Your first Waning.

Quick reference - working with the clock¶

You want to…	Do this
See the date / day / season	`/calendar`
Know if today is special	`/today` - festivals, the moon, a Waning
Find a shopkeeper open	Come by in Morning or Afternoon
Catch someone off-guard / talkative	Try the tavern in the Evening
Find someone at home	Look at Night, when work lets out
Shop in a full market	Marketday, in daylight
Catch the town relaxed	Restday (but expect closed shops)
Skip ahead to a better hour	Rest or sleep to advance the phases
Move and hide unseen	A new moon night helps; a full moon hurts
Get the most from a Waning	Sleep near town centre; talk to the odd folk