Sources for month/day names and inspiration

[ChimericDream]

I am getting ready to start my first campaign in my setting, and it will be set in the history of the "current" version of the world. Since the players will be writing the history to a certain extent, I've begun working on the calendar for my setting. However, I want to come up with different names for the months and days, and I've sort of hit a block. Does anyone have suggestions for ways to come up with these?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Well you could blatently rip off the jewish calender, the chinese calender or another real world one... For my game world I used a lunar calender with month names based on weather and other factors (Harvest Moon, Hunter Moon, Frost Moon, Long Night Moon, etc.) I don't think I bothered to name the days of the week....

 

[JustKim]

I am getting ready to start my first campaign in my setting, and it will be set in the history of the "current" version of the world. Since the players will be writing the history to a certain extent, I've begun working on the calendar for my setting. However, I want to come up with different names for the months and days, and I've sort of hit a block. Does anyone have suggestions for ways to come up with these?

Thanks in advance.

My suggestion is not to do this. When we play in Eberron, FR or another setting with a setting calendar, we ignore it completely. It doesn't really add much but it does remove a common knowledge base we all take for granted. When you use a setting calendar, your players will be flipping through books trying to figure out what you're saying when any kind of date comes up. Because the words are meaningless, they are quickly forgotten. It just causes confusion.

IMHO there are customizations you should make to a homebrew and customizations you should not make. If you change the system of numbers from base 10 to base 12, it may be distinct, but you will derail the game whenever a number comes up. What's the point?

 

[Tewligan]

I'm with JustKim on this one. If the DM tells me it's December in the campaign, I know right away that it's probably snowing, icy, and maybe it's about that time of year for the dreaded Ice Mage to get up to his shenanigans or something. If he tells me it's the month of Coldmoon or something, I need to think out of character for a moment or two, unless I have so much spare time in real life that I can go back and forth between real and imaginary months that easily (which I don't). It's better, IMO, to keep the calendar as one solid touchpoint in a world that's otherwise pretty unfamiliar.

 

[Evilhalfling]

I use a homemade calendar and it works fine, it has 9 months, all named after gods. To help the players keep track I always say things like its the 39th of Mystan, just after mid-winter. As I have been running this world for six years, (906 yrs game time) some of the gods have died, but the months remain

Each month has a holiday as well - Memorial Day for the god of war, Feast of Fools for the (missing) goddess of lies, Sale of Iutar for the god of Trade. the holidays are on the 21st of each month (just to make things easier to remember)

I tend to not mention the days of the week, but I would advise against renaming them, L.E. Modstet did this in one of his series, and even after 6 books, it still annoys me.

 

[ivocaliban]

One possible solution would be to use the language prefix and suffix tables in any of the Races books or possibly the Draconomicon. These charts have dozens of descriptive words and phrases that can be pieced together for names of anything, not just people. There's also the added benefit that you've already got the translations into another language if you want a bit more complexity.

For example: In Races of the Wild the charts of Elven names could produce something like Shedaesel meaning "Time of the White Mountain" (She = Time, Dae = White, Sel = Mountain) for a winter month such as December or January.



As for myself, I'm using a version of the Wilderlands calendar (Balkozkinar's Corrected Commoners Calendar). The months have evocative names like Maggotfeast and Gloomfrost and I've made out my own set of fifty or so holidays based on important deities and seasonal changes.

 

[Arkhandus]

Probably drawn from a major religion's, nation's, or culture's laws, habits, deities, or legends. Days might be named after saints, or famous heroes of the past, or famous kings, or acts/deeds of significance in the area's main religious text, or something else.

The Julian calendar's months are named after Roman emperors and something else I don't recall. The days of the week are largely drawn from Norse designations, for whatever reason (probably the mixing of anglo-saxons into other places after the Vikings settled down); Wednesday = Woden's (aka Odin's) Day, Thursday = Thor's Day, Friday = Frey's Day, etc.

I think the Chinese calendar's months are named after the Chinese zodiac animals, isn't it? (I don't recall) :\

In my Rhunaria homebrew, there's a calendar named the Common Measure, used by traders and most humans, halflings, gnomes, and a few other races, based on the year when independance was gained from the old regime that had control over the region. Days are just pidjin designations, months are named after some significant quality or habit of the season. The names of days, in order, are Dayun (day-oon), Daytu (day-too), Dayri (day-ree), Dayir (day-yeer), Dayev (day-yevv), Dayas (day-iss), and Dayan (day-enn). As I said, just pidjin names the humans and halflings of different accents cobbled together for lack of agreement on other names (obviously, they're butcherings of the words one through seven, appended to 'day'). The eight months of the Common Measure, in order from 1st to 8th, beginning of spring to end of winter, are Fallow, Seeding, Suncrest, Heatwrath, Harvester, Gatherfast, Cloudblight, and Culling. Feel free to use the same if it suits your fancy.

The Elven, Dwarven, Tashi, Rizan, and other calendars are more complex and I haven't finished all the work on detailing them yet.