Hellsborough & The Dark Peak

Discovering the unexplored parallel world of Sheffield, S6 -- Hellsborough and The Dark Peak

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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 on 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 meriment 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, as follows:

  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 and those who inhabit the crosslands -- indeed, all those who follow the law of Dunlockslyn -- the original nascenti words for describing weather systems are unpronounceable and the above are a best guess at the English equivalent -- the nascenti have hundreds of words for describing the weather system, and many of these differences in the weather are indiscernable to humans.

The second component is a Bestial branch, consisting of a further 12 elements:

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

Each of the two components is used sequentially. Thus, the 1st year of the 60-year cycle becomes drizzle-gnawmard, the 2nd year is mizzle-demonspawn, the 3rd year is spit-ripperthroat, etc.. When we reach the end of a component, we start from the beginning: The 10th year is squall-grizzler, the 11th year is drizzle-corvid (restarting the Weather stem), the 12th year is mizzle-rooter, and the 13th year is spit-gnawmard (restarting the Bestial branch). Finally, the 60th year becomes squall-rooter.

This way of naming years within a 60-year cycle goes back many eons, back to around eleven million years ago. A similar naming of days and months fell into disuse many a time passed.

After the first of the clown-xin wars, when the nascenti came to power in Hellsborough and the eastern part of The Dark Peak, and when the reign of their first nascenti emperor began (according to milting semagrams I have observed), the year number was started afresh at zero -- something like 4700 years ago. That means that The Dark Peak is currently in the 79th sixty-year cycle.

The year drizzle-flufftail, the 41st year in the current 60-year cycle, started on 1 January 2024, so the designation for that day is: 79.drizzle-flufftail.0.0.

The last day of the previous year (31-12-2023) was 79.squall-longleg.17.(4), with the (4) representing the 5th and last feast day, where the numbering begins from zero.

The Next few years will be:

  • 2025: mizzle-venomtooth
  • 2026: spit-hoverwing
  • 2027: rain-wooltard
  • 2028: mist-honker
  • 2029: fog-grizzler
  • 2030: snow-corvid
  • 2031: murk-rooter
  • 2032: hail-gnawmard

Today's date is:

79.drizzle-flufftail.9.3

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