The Forgotten Realms Calendar and Holidays

[Wids]

The Calendar of Harptos is the calendar of the Forgotten Realms.

It's easy to reconcile the Calendar of Harptos with our own Gregorian Calendar, as the Calendar features twelve months with 30 days each, the same four three-month seasons and equinoxes and solstices which correspond to our own; add two days to February and subtract a day from those seven 31-day months and the two calendars would match almost exactly.  Shieldmeet (the Forgotten Realms' version of Leap Year) takes place in midsummer instead of the end of winter, but that's just about it for the differences.

The in-game Neverwinter Nights calendar and chronometer identifies the months by numbers and not by names.  It too uses a twelve-month year, and as I recall, each of its months ends on Day 30 as well.

Either way, it's evidently safe to reconcile the two calendars like so:

January = Hammer (Deepwinter) = Month 1
February = Alturiak (The Claw of Winter) = Month 2
March = Ches (The Claw of the Sunsets) = Month 3
April = Tarsakh (The Claw of the Storms)  = Month 4
May = Mirtul (The Melting) = Month 5
June = Kythorn (The Time of Flowers) = Month 6
July = Flamerule (Summertide) = Month 7
August = Eleasias (Highsun) = Month 8
September = Eleint (The Fading) = Month 9
October = Marpenoth (Leafall) = Month 10
November = Uktar (The Rotting) = Month 11
December = Nightal (The Drawing Down) = Month 12

Wids' Possibly Incomplete List of Forgotten Realms Holidays

Common Holidays:
Greengrass (Tarsakh 30 - Mirtul 1)
Shieldmeet (Flamerule 31, once every four years)
Highharvestide (Eleint 30 - Marpenoth 1)
Feast of the Moon (Uktar 30 - Nightal 1)
Midwinter (Hammer 30 - Alturiak 1)


Holidays in Waterdeep (...which isn't all that far from Neverwinter...):
Fleetswake (Ches 21 - Ches 30)
Fair Seas Festival (Ches 30, for those who honor Umberlee)
Trolltide (Kythorn 1)
Lliira's Night (Flamerule 7, for those who honor Lliira)
Ahghairon's Day (Eleasias 1)
Auril's Blesstide (whenever the first frost of Winter comes)


Abbathor's Holy Days:
(any day of the solar eclipse)

Aerdrie Faenya's Holy Days:
Dance of Swirling Swords (Ches 19 and Eleint 21, the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes)

Angharradh's Holy Days:
Shieldmeet ("Cinnaeloscor" to the elves) and the Melding of the Three (Flamerule 31, once every four years)

Auril's Holy Days:
Midwinter Night (Hammer 30 - Alturiak 1)
Last Storm (Ches 19)
The Coming (Nightal 20, the Winter Solstice)
Alban Arthan (the night of Nightal 20, the Winter Solstice)

Baravar Cloakshadow's Holy Days
The Cloaking (any night of the new moon)

Berronar Truesilver's Holy Days:
Midwinter Day (Hammer 30)
Midsummer Night (Flamerule 30 - Eleasias 1)

Corellon Larethian's Holy Days:
Shieldmeet (Flamerule 31, once every four years)

Deep Duerra's Holy Days:
The Rallying (Midwinter Eve, Hammer 29)
The Melding (Mirtul 5)

Eldath's Holy Days:
The Greening / Greengrass (Tarsakh 30 - Mirtul 1)

Garl Glittergold's Holy Days:
Communion of Laughter (the 13th day of each month)

Hanali Celanil's Holy Days:
Secrets of the Heart (any night of the full moon)

Haela Brightaxe's Holy Days:
Greengrass and Time of Spawning (Tarsakh 30 - Mirtul 1)
Axe Held High (date unspecified)
Commemoration of the Fallen and Feast of the Moon (Uktar 30 - Nightal 1)

Ilneval's Holy Days:
Greengrass (Tarsakh 30 - Mirtul 1)

Kelemvor's Holy Days:
Feast of the Moon (Uktar 30 - Nightal 1)

Lurue's Holy Days
Midsummer's Eve (Flamerule 30, apparently)
Feast of the Moon (Uktar 30 - Nightal 1)

Malar's Holy Days
High Hunt (each Equinox and each Solstice)
Feast of Stags (anytime during a harsh winter)

Moradin's Holy Days:
Dwarffather's Blessing (or whatever they call it) (Hammer 1)

The Red Knight's Holy Days:
Midwinter Day (Hammer 30)
The Queen's Gambit (Tarsakh 1)

Rillifane Rallathil's Holy Days:
The Budding (Ches 19, the Spring Equinox)
The Transformation (Eleint 21, the Autumn Equinox)

Sharindlar's Holy Days:
Greengrass (Tarsakh 30 - Mirtul 1)
Midsummer Night (Flamerule 30 - Eleasias 1)

Siamorphe's Holy Days:
Divine Revelry (date unspecified here; let me know if you find it anywhere)

Tempus' Holy Days:
Feast of the Moon (Uktar 30 - Nightal 1)

Umberlee's Holy Days:
First Tide (celebrated whenever the ice breaks up in a harbor.  Chaotic deities apparently aren't too big on specifying dates for their holy days....)

Urogalan's Holy Days:
Earthrising (any night of the full moon)

Valkur's Holy Days:
The Shattering (Ches 19 or any other day in early spring; the date tends to vary.)

Yurtrus' Holy Days:
(Any night of the full moon)


This also leads to my next two questions:

• On which day of each month does the Full Moon fall?  Not only would this affect lycanthropes, but it also figures into some of the holy days and ceremonies listed above.

• What is the current year in this setting?  This could be important for several reasons:

1) Determining when the next Shieldmeet is.  Noted Shieldmeets have occured--or will occur--in the years 1348, 1352, 1356, 1360, 1364, 1368 and 1372 DR.

2) Determining how much time is left before the Spellplague happens (assuming that 4th Edition hasn't been blackballed here as it has been with several other servers...and believe me, I like to pretend that 4E never existed too).  As far as I can figure, Mystra is still around and magic still works as it should, so the Spellplague probably hasn't taken place yet.  (For all you Cyric worshippers, this also means that Cyric hasn't been imprisoned in the Supreme Throne yet.  So you get some good news too.)

3) Determining whether or not certain deities (including Mystra and Savras) have already been slain or otherwise reduced to dead powers.  This would be very important to followers of such deities as Mask, Gorm Gulthyn, Haela Brightaxe, Deep Duerra and most of the drow elf pantheon (including  Eilistraee, Kiaransalee, Selvetarm, Vhaeraun and Zinzerena).

Thank you.  Discuss if you will. 

[Darkzealot]

As far as I recall the year the spell plague occurred in canon has already passed on our server, but essentially simply didn't happen. Consider it an alternative parallel universe P=. Mystra and Savras are still about, Cyric is not imprisoned.

[Wids]

That works. 

So which year is it, anyway?  Is it time for Shieldmeet yet? 

[Darkzealot]

Year of the walking tree, 1421. P= According to the rest menu in server.

[Sakes]

And just as an aside, LOTN is an alternate timeline, so major events in the DnD world did not happen. So for example, half of the Gods were not wiped out by horrible writing and the Spellplague never happened.  We want major events to be the result of players rather than the official novels.

[Wids]

Year of the walking tree, 1421. P= According to the rest menu in server.

I think I've seen that information shift here and there, though...the Year of the Walking Trees for one log-in, the Year of the Dark Goddess or whatever for another.

I started doing in-game stuff for the holidays back when I was on Pirate Isles about two years ago; the end of April was coming and the server had a "real-time date progression = in-game date progression" standard, so I said, "Cool, it's almost time for Greengrass."  So my main character (Serrica, my Waterdhavian Cleric of Umberlee) just filled her inventory with roses, food and booze.  Come April 30th, I logged on with her and proceeded to cover Palaggar with roses and give roses to whatever other PCs she came across.  Then everyone ended up sitting around the town's firepit, eating, getting drunk and telling stories.  All of the involved players loved it and laughed about it, and Dorkling (the Head DM) gave Serrica a nice chunk of XP and me some words of encouragement.  So then I'd do little things for various other holidays (whenever I wasn't too busy to log on on the right dates), some of the other players came to expect that of me and it all came back to help me out when Serrica was poised to make her big masterstroke on the Highharvestide of the next year, after a lengthy process where the Church of Umberlee had tasked her with finding a lost Umberlant shrine, she found it, beat back the tribe of harpies who had defiled it for Ardat the Unavowed, moved the shrine to a safer shoal (thanks to several undead harpies whom she had killed and reanimated herself) and played a huge sociopolitical game with both towns and most of the other PCs; unfortunately, Dorkling had quit his post as admin and Head DM by then, and his successor was remarkably apathetic with the players.  So the plan fizzled and the party ship never left port, alas.  Serrica eventually got to build her temple (after I sent in the built area, the new Head DM threw out most of what made the temple good and I still had to bug him before he put it in the module), so it wasn't remotely as satisfying a conclusion for a character who made it to Level 17 on a server where you're doing very well if you make it to Level 12.  But at least the old DMs and the other players liked the festivals. 

So how long do we have until the next Shieldmeet?  Because I've never thrown a Shieldmeet party, and that might be pretty cool. 

And just as an aside, LOTN is an alternate timeline, so major events in the DnD world did not happen. So for example, half of the Gods were not wiped out by horrible writing and the Spellplague never happened.  We want major events to be the result of players rather than the official novels.

Ah, good. 

But unfortunately, Cyric's literary ascent from Mary Sue to Greater Deity involved the death of Myrkul and the (possible) death of Leira.  Are Myrkul and Leira still alive in this setting?

*played a Leiran on the Thay server for a while.  Leirans are fun!*

[Sakes]

Hmm.  It's a good question.

The time of troubles definitely happened, but the time split would have been shortly after that.  If I recall she was killed shortly after the time of troubles, right?

It might have come up or not come up, but some people believe Leira survived anyway so it's a convenient excuse to dodge the question.

If it ever became important the DMs would likely make a ruling on it but it hasn't come up thus far.

[TheMadPoet]

I can't recall if Leira's portfolio was subsumed or not. If it wasn't subsumed than I can't see why we can't leave it as is.

If it was subsumed I'd pick another god. Maybe Cyric.

[Wids]

Well, that's a very good question.  Let's check with the Wiki for a moment.

Portfolio for Leira:
• Deception
• Illusion
• Mist
• Shadow

Portfolio for Cyric:
• Deception
• Illusion
• Intrigue
• Lies
• Murder

So it looks like Cyric only stole about half of Leira's portfolio, just like he only stole about half of Mask's portfolio later on.  And if Mask survived having half of his godhood stolen under circumstances which were apparently less mysterious than those which claimed Leira's power.... 

Fear the creeping mists.  Leira is still with us. 

[Wids]

...and for what it's worth, Leira's back in the Forgotten Realms pantheon for D&D 5th Edition.

It's official: Leira faked her own demise, her clerics were drawing their power from her all the while (and covering for her by feigning allegiance to Cyric and whatnot), and Cyric's still a chump. 

[fealhach2008]

1421! That's nearly 50 years after the start of the 3ed setting.

This is why I ignore the year and just take note of the months and seasons. Since LotN doesn't mark major events happening in the official timeline, I don't think it's necessary.

Plus it stops characters having the lifespan of gerbils.

[Wids]

It might stop gods from having very short lifespans too.  Midnight became the new Mystra and Cyric became, well, Cyric on the same day.  Less than thirty years later, one's dead and the other's imprisoned in the Supreme Throne for a millenium.  That's not a very good track record for a deity, is it?  It suggests that Ao the Overgod really didn't think things through before handing out godhoods.

But then, Cyric didn't have a single thing to do with the deaths of the Dead Three, yet Lord Ao gave Cyric all of their powers and portfolios anyway.  Maybe Ao really is an idiot.   

[Sakes]

AO isn't an idiot, he just wants instability.  Why? Because it's fun. 

AO is essentially right below the DM in the hierarchy (Or possibly even the DM's avatar) and the DM needs campaigns and plots, so why have intelligent, well adjusted Gods?  I mean, we are talking about a world where everyone has a specific canonical alignment that can be read, if AO wanted stability or peace he could just erase all the evils and/or chaotics and be done with it. Or hell, just change everyone's alignment to Lawful Good.  Or, at the very least punish Gods for killing each other instead of actively rewarding it with portfolios that can be taken by force.

The only logical explanation for anything he does this is that is that he wants conflict.

[Wids]

That's not quite what I'm saying.  I know that Ao's all about keeping some degree of balance between good and evil, law and order, peace and strife, cats and dogs, et cetera.  What I'm saying is that, for being the Supreme Being of Abeir-Toril and beyond, he's not doing a very shrewd job of running the show.

Firstly, Ao himself contradicts your point that portfolios are dynamic concepts which are transferred from one deity to a more deserving entity through right of conquest.  The Dead Three consisted of Bane (God of Strife), Myrkul (God of the Dead) and Bhaal (God of Murder), each of whom won his portfolios from Jergal via a game of knucklebones.  Along came the Time of Troubles.  Bane was wiped out by Torm.  Myrkul was wiped out by Midnight (channelling Mystra, who had recently been wiped out by an overzealous Helm).  Bhaal was the only one of the Dead Three to be slain by Cyric, but it might as well have been Mask doing the deed himself because the only thing that Cyric did to earn that right was killing some halfling runt who happened to be carrying Mask (as Godsbane) around, exactly as Mask had planned.  So all Cyric did was inadvertently become Mask's patsy and give Mask the shot he needed to take Bhaal out.

But Bane and Myrkul?  Cyric had precisely nothing at all to do with their deaths.  But that didn't stop Ao from giving Cyric their portfolios all the same.

That idea of take-and-hold succession is also contradicted by Cyric and Leira's hoedown.  Cyric got a big head over killing Bhaal and being a moustache-twiddling Snidely Whiplash also-ran, so he decided, "Hey!  I don't think my portfolio's big enough!  I could be the God of Deception, Illusion, Mist and Intrigue too!"  So he traipsed into the Courts of Illusion with the intention of coming out with Leira's head.  He took her out and snatched up her portfolios...or so he thought.  And of course, all the Leiran clerics start saying things like "Hey, we serve Cyric now!" or "Hey, Leira's dead and we're utterly powerless!"  But here's the catch: Leirans always tell lies (except, perhaps, to each other...maybe).  Meanwhile, Leira's temples in Nimbral and Samarach (which may as well be named "Leira's Island" and "Leira's Island Junior") are still operating just as powerfully as ever, apparently no worse for wear.  And then 5th Ed comes along and confirms what we suspected all along: Leira faked her own death at Cyric's hands (which one could expect of the Goddess of Illusions), and everyone up to Cyric himself fell for it.

So if Leira kept a hold on her own portfolios all the while, then where did Cyric's portfolios of Deception and Intrigue come from?


Secondly, of course Ao's interested in creating strife.  Why else would he kick off the Time of Troubles/Avatar Crisis/Godswar/whatever in a feat of disproportionate retribution?  "Okay, Bane and Myrkul, so that's how you want to play it?  You wanna steal my precious Tablets of Fate, those ultra-powerful relics which you wouldn't have found at all if I myself hadn't dropped those 50-pound hints of their existence right on your toes?  Fine!  I'm punishing all of the gods, including the gods that you two hate and would love to see removed from the board once and for all!  There!  How do you like those apples?"

So then, if Ao truly was interested in keeping all the strife and contention rolling, then why couldn't he have found two more villainous mortals who were just as uninvolved in Bane's and Myrkul's demises as Cyric was?  If Ao's as omniscient as he's said to be, he couldn't have had that much trouble doing such.  Look at all the mortals who have lost their homes or their loved ones through Umberlee's temper tantrums.  Look at all the ones who've suffered loss through Bane's predations.  Heck, look at all the ones who've been scarred by the misguided zeal of Torm and Helm.  Out of all those aggrieved mortals, surely Ao could find at least one person who'd make a better Cyric than Cyric himself did, perhaps some reckless idealist who's thinking, "Grrr, Umberlee wiped out everything I had and everyone I loved!  Umberlee needs to go down!  Come to think of it, every god kicks us mere mortals around and turns us into pawns!  Well, I'm sick of it all!  Maybe we need to get rid of all the gods so that all the world's peoples can finally be free to forge their own destinies!"  And all someone like that needs is for Ao to give him Bane's portfolios and say, "Here you go.  Here's your godhood, here are your divine portfolios, here's some introductory training on how to do it all.  Now go fight all the other gods and free all the sentient peoples from divine rule!"  "All right!  Thanks, Ao!  Heck, I might even take you down eventually.  Then, once I'm the last god standing, I'll do myself in.  Freedom for humanity at last!"  "That's the spirit!  So...are you just going to rush in and start swinging like that fool Cyric?"  "No way!  I'm up against a hundred gods here!  If I'm going to win, I have to be smart.  I have to plan my moves centuries in advance, I have to play the long game and I have to play it for keeps!"  "There you go, mortal...I mean, new God of Strife!  Let's see it!"


Which brings me to my third point: Cyric's a complete imbecile, and if Ao had any perception and any sense to his name, he would have seen that coming and he wouldn't have wasted a godhood like that.  First off, Cyric, if you come into possession of a sentient, god-killing sword, you don't immediately try to mentally dominate it or otherwise act the prick towards said sword; alienating your most powerful allies is never a good thing.  Secondly, Cyric, you had no good reason to stab Kelemvor (your longtime adventure buddy) in the back; it was a lame impulse to follow, you didn't gain anything by killing Kelemvor and on the contrary, all you accomplished was giving Mask another tool with which to bring you down.  Thirdly, Cyric, you're a god now.  Start thinking like one!  Plan centuries ahead, play the long game, play the very long game if you can think that far ahead and remember: Sometimes, the best way to defeat your enemies is to simply outlive them or outlast them.  Hell, look at the Dead Three!  Each one of them was once a mortal who somehow ascended to godhood.  That was so long ago that the entire world seems to have forgotten their histories as mortals.  We're talking about many centuries, perhaps even millenia of the Dead Three's existences here.  Those three guys knew how to play the long game; they were cunning, they were shrewd, they were patient and they were thus pretty well suited for godhood.

Then along comes Cyric, who usurps the Dead Three.  And a measly 30 years later, he's out of action.  What a waste of time.

So why couldn't Ao pass up Cyric and find three more mortals of the same caliber as Bane, Bhaal and Myrkul?


So Cyric's a dunce, and Ao's a dunce for hiring him.  It certainly doesn't help Cyric meet my standards that he's a one-dimensional character (two-dimensional at best) who's lacking in respectable motivation, who could use a heap more character development, who's a complete Mary Sue up until 4th Ed (largely thanks to Troy Denning's craptacular writing) and who appears to be evil for evil's sake, nothing meatier than that.  For someone in Cyric's role, I'd expect someone more along the lines of Maleficent or Saruman the White; hell, I'd settle for Sephiroth from the Final Fantasy games, because however strong or weak the "manipulated, spurned and pursuing a misguided and disproportionate revenge" motivation is, at least it's a suitable motivation for an interesting and credible villain.

Anyway, Cyric sucks and Ao apparently got drunk before returning to the helm of the universe.

That's all.  Next counterpoint, please.

[Neutral_Zone]

Personally, I've never read the books (And don't really care to), but I don't think Ao directly gave Cyric the portfolios of Bane and Myrkul. If anything, he let it happen. Which basically fits his whole dogma of non-intervention. Cyric might be a dunce, but he has his reasons - he was already a fairly unstable individual to begin with, and becoming a god with all that power merely amplified it.

Regardless, if we treat Ao by known game rules, he's a deity with a divine rank of over twenty. Normally, they'd get senses in all directions for a mile per divine rank, but since Ao's goes over twenty (Which for 3.0 and 3.5 seems to be some kind of weird milestone), he's essentially to gods as epic characters are to normal ones. There's nothing in the rules that state that a deity can see the future and/or past, so he probably can't either. And since he does presumably have an intelligence and wisdom score, as all deities do, we can also safely assume that despite probably being able to sense most of Toril at any given time, he cannot always come to the correct conclusion about events; he is not omniscient (but is damn near as close as any entity in FR is likely to get).

That said, there's only been a few distinct cases where Ao has directly intervened in the Realms, and it has been well established that as long as the status quo that he set in the beginning of creation is upheld, he doesn't really give a flying **** about anything that happens. So basically, Ao doesn't really have anything to do with Cyric acting like an arse. Why? Because he doesn't care. The conflict generated in FR is all the work of mortals and gods.

Now, if you really do want to blame someone, blame, oh, I don't know, the writers? James Lowder and Troy Denning sound like a good place to start.

Now, onto more topic-related stuff.

1421! That's nearly 50 years after the start of the 3ed setting.

This is why I ignore the year and just take note of the months and seasons. Since LotN doesn't mark major events happening in the official timeline, I don't think it's necessary.

Plus it stops characters having the lifespan of gerbils.

This, I like. Possibly so much I might even make it canon for LotN. (On whose authority, you might ask? I'll make a poll, dammit!)

But unfortunately, Cyric's literary ascent from Mary Sue to Greater Deity involved the death of Myrkul and the (possible) death of Leira.  Are Myrkul and Leira still alive in this setting?

Everything from the Time of Troubles and the Avatar Crisis events are considered canon in LotN. So both Myrkul and Leira are canonically dead. This does not, however, stop some folks from worshiping them, and even gaining power from them. Perhaps some remainder of their essence still exists, or they faked their death? Or maybe the followers are merely gaining it from whomever now holds their dead gods' portfolios? We like to leave some things ambiguous. :3