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:

drizzle
mizzle
spit
rain
mist
fog
snow
murk
hail
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:

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.13.19

Timeline of The Dark Peak

DEEP TIME

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

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 annihilates the Gabbleratchets (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.drizzle-flufftail (2024) - Chronicles 3

THE FUTURE

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

Scerm book one, available free in epub format

COMING SOON

Foked core rules and scenario 1 - Three Murkneets Dark

NEW

NEW

NEW

Civic Unrest book one, available free in epub format