Bull Stuart,  with Tom Calver,  Van Hallam,  Pip Rippon,  Kira Ranmoor,  Ward Moorhouse  

Hellsborough & The Dark Peak

Paranoid Adventure in the Rapacious Blood-Soaked Parallel World of Sheffield, S6

Today in The Dark Peak:  79.spit-hoverwing.14.19  

The Dark Peak Calendar

Hey, I'm no expert on this, but from what I can work out, The Dark Peak calendar, as far as I can ascertain anyway, is some sort of amalgamism of the ancient Mayan calendar and the still ancient, yet more contemporary, Chinese calendar.

Here's what I do know: In The Dark Peak, because of the murk and the lack of penetration of either sun or moonlight, the calendar — although still the same number of days in length at 365 — differs from our 12 months. There are 18 months in The Dark Peak (0–17), each month consisting of 20 days (0 to 19), plus 5 days known as "days without names" which are observed as days of feasting and merriment in honour of Dunlockslyn — much like our Christmas and New Years celebrations.

Also unlike your calendar, The Dark Peak calendar does not count years in an infinite sequence. Instead, years have names that are repeated every 60 years (this is similar to the Chinese system). Within each 60 year cycle, each year is assigned a name consisting of two components. The first component is based upon a weather stem of 10 elements:

  1. drizzle
  2. mizzle
  3. spit
  4. rain
  5. mist
  6. fog
  7. snow
  8. murk
  9. hail
  10. squall

Although the calendar is ascribed to by all denizens of The Dark Peak, the original nascenti words for describing weather systems are unpronounceable and the above are a best guess at the English equivalent.

The second component is a Bestial branch of 12 elements:

  1. gnawmard
  2. demonspawn
  3. ripperthroat
  4. longleg
  5. flufftail
  6. venomtooth
  7. hoverwing
  8. wooltard
  9. honker
  10. grizzler
  11. corvid
  12. rooter

Each component is used sequentially. The 1st year becomes drizzle-gnawmard, the 2nd mizzle-demonspawn, etc. When one component runs out, it restarts. The 60th year is squall-rooter.

After the first of the clown-xin wars, the year number was started afresh at zero — something like 4700 years ago. The Dark Peak is currently in the 79th sixty-year cycle.

The year spit-hoverwing, the 43rd year in the current 60-year cycle, started on 1 January 2026, so the designation for that day is: 79.spit-hoverwing.0.0.

The last day of the previous year (31-12-2025) was 79.mizzle-venomtooth.17.(4), with the (4) representing the 5th and last feast day.

The next few years will be:

  • 2027: rain-wooltard
  • 2028: mist-honker
  • 2029: fog-grizzler
  • 2030: snow-corvid
  • 2031: murk-rooter
  • 2032: hail-gnawmard
  • 2033: squall-demonspawn
  • 2034: drizzle-ripperthroat

Today's date in The Dark Peak is:

79.spit-hoverwing.14.19

Timeline of The Dark Peak

DEEP TIME

  • 66Ma - Destruction of the saurians
  • Empire of the wasps
  • Formation of The Hinge
  • Age of the Denizens

See also: The Dark Peak Origin Story

THE AGES OF THE MILTING

  • The Winged Age - the milting, descendants of the saurians and older than the illimitable cleavage, still fly; they are revered as angels, and write in semagrams
  • The Shedding - the milting lose their wings; they gather in cabals and think as one, a collective intelligence that is the forerunner of the hive mind
  • The First Drying - the old water goes out of the valleys, and the xin hordes first come up out of the south; seven hundred milting hold a cabal's door against them
  • The Long Murk - the murk lies so thick that the cabals keep their doors shut for a generation
  • The Second Drying
The milting count in ages, not years, and will talk about any of them for as long as anyone lets them. No two cabals quite agree on the order.

PRE-CALENDAR

  • Evidence of habitation around the crossroads and the valleys, c.12,800 years ago
  • Birth of the great lord B'enderclaw, revered deity of the nascenti
  • Birth of N'Sogoth, future leader of the vegahorn, Allen Syke, c1790's
  • Birth (or creation) of Ming Shalom

FOUNDATION ERA

  • 76.fog-venomtooth (1809) - earliest year in this timeline's detailed record; the calendar itself is far older, its year-count reset after the first clown-xin war roughly 4,700 years ago
  • 76.squall-longleg (1843) - Hellsborough is granted its municipal charter by the nascenti; the foundation of the town
  • 77.squall-venomtooth (1893) - Hellsborough is raised to a city by the Nascenti exchange
  • 77.fog-rooter (1899) - Tobias Calver, Tom's grandfather, is born in Sheffield
  • 77.mizzle-venomtooth (1905) - Van Hallam is born in Hellsborough, a slave
  • 77.fog-wooltard (1919) - Clown-xin wars (Chronicles 1), Van 14
  • 77.murk-grizzler (1921) - Woad war (Chronicles 2), Van 16
  • 78.drizzle-gnawmard (1924) - Chronicles 3, Van 19
  • 78.rain-longleg (1927) - Brecon Mashiesh born in the netherlands
  • 78.hail-honker (1932) - Ming Shalom starts operating in Hellsborough (birth date unknown, but already old)
  • 78.squall-grizzler (1933) - Farantees founded

THE GOLDEN AGE

  • 78.spit-gnawmard (1936) - the start of capitalist Hellsborough and the dawn of the Golden Age; the humans are running riot and the nascenti are "feeding" them with every innovation they can come up with
  • 78.rain-rooter (1947) - Boggy Lomas made, the first human-nascenti hybrid ("Genesis")
  • 78.hail-flufftail (1952) - Thomas Calver is born in Sheffield

DECLINE & THE NETHERLANDER REVOLTS

  • 78.fog-rooter (1959) - Brecon Mashiesh and his netherlander revolt
  • 78.snow-gnawmard (1960) - End of the Golden Age, as the DPDC socialists get in and start wasting ¢hits; the Holme Lane massacre, when Brecon Mashiesh the netherlander plundered Farantees
  • 78.murk-demonspawn (1961) - The harrying of the netherlands: the exacids put down the netherlanders, and Brecon Mashiesh is publicly flogged
  • 78.mizzle-venomtooth (1965) - Mold is born in the netherlands
  • 78.snow-corvid (1970) - Thomas Calver starts work for Sheffield City Council
  • 78.fog-wooltard (1979) - Phil Cargill and the start of "the off-takes" (February) - the golden age is long gone, and the socialist nascenti need immigrants; as netherlanders are not interested, some are enticed from the off-world to become the new jellyheads. Thomas Calver comes to Hellsborough, aged 27 (June / Fecunder)

THE TROUBLES & THE RISE OF THE VEGAHORN

  • 79.hail-honker (1992) - Pip Rippon is born in the Hicks (Lincolnshire)
  • 79.hail-honker (1992) - Gutterball (Lomas 45, Mold 27)
  • 79.squall-grizzler (1993) - Sophie Hinchcliffe is born in Hellsborough
  • 79.mizzle-rooter (1995) - the 1st flag and the formation of the netherlander alliance; the 1st uprising; the start of "The Troubles"
  • 79.rain-demonspawn (1997) - the nascenti faction the vegahorn form in reaction to the netherlander encroachment on Hellsborough
  • 79.spit-corvid (2006) - "the conversation"
  • 79.rain-rooter (2007) - the vegahorn coup and the Dawn of the Jellyheads; Sophie Hinchcliffe becomes CEO of DPDC and drives the gabbleratchets out of Hellsborough; they survive in The Dark Peak (Lomas 60)
  • 79.mist-gnawmard (2008) - Dani Hinchcliffe is born in Hellsborough
  • 79.snow-ripperthroat (2010) - the 2nd flag
  • 79.hail-flufftail (2012) - the 3rd flag
  • 79.squall-venomtooth (2013) - the 4th, 5th and 6th flags; the squabbles
  • 79.rain-grizzler (2017) - Ward Moorhouse is born in Hellsborough
  • 79.fog-rooter (2019) - the 7th flag
  • 79.murk-demonspawn (2021) - Pip Rippon first arrives in Hellsborough; the formation of the bitter finger
  • 79.hail-ripperthroat (2022) - Chronicles 1; the beatification of the martyr Nigel of Outibridge, after the weakening of The Hinge
  • 79.squall-longleg (2023) - Chronicles 2 (Van 118, Boggy 76, Mold 58, Sophie 30, Dani 15)
  • 79.squall-longleg (2023) - Below the Murkline 1: A Life In Death
  • 79.squall-longleg (2023) - Below the Murkline 2: The Edge, some months after A Life In Death
  • 79.drizzle-flufftail (2024) - Chronicles 3
  • 79.spit-hoverwing (2026) - The Remembered Dead (Kira Ranmoor, Book 1); the 7th flag, seven years old, is the longest truce the netherlander clans have kept

THE FUTURE

  • 80.fog-venomtooth (2049) - Scerm (Ward Moorhouse, 32)

FOKED, A Roleplaying Game for 1+ Players cover NEW
A Life In Death cover NEW
The Edge cover COMING SOON
Scerm, Book 1 cover COMING SOON
Got Some Fruit, Murker? cover NEW
The Curated Guide to Hellsborough and The Dark Peak cover REVISED & UPDATED

All the books