Vilani Calendar
The Vilani Calendar has its basis in the depths of antiquity; its units were dictated by the period and rotation of Vland (the Vilani homeworld) around Urakkalan, its star.
Description / Specifications[edit]
Basic Units: The Vilani distinguish between days and nights when they count time. A Dran-dir is one complete rotation of Vland and is equal to about 23.35 standard hours. A drandir consists of a Dran (day) and a Dir (night). Since the Vilani Gurkala (year) is 500 drandir long, there are a total of 1000 dran and dir in the year. The gurkala is 486.46 standard days in length, about 1.33 standard years.
The year, at 500 drandir, does not exactly match the orbital period of Vland. So the Vilani celebrate the kargurkula or ten-year, where the extra fractions of a day are accumulated and an extra day is added to the calendar.
Base Point[edit]
The Vilani calendar uses as its base point the founding of the Vilani Empire in -4045; that year is treated as year 1. The Vilani date 3882 corresponds to the Imperial date 1120.
History & Background / Dossier[edit]
Date Format: Vilani dates are entirely decimal. Vilani count both dran and dir when noting dates. Dran are odd; dir are even. Dates are expressed in the format year.drandir. For example, 3870.000 is the first half-day of the year 3870; since 000 is even, it referes to the dir (night). 3876.999 is the last half-day of the year 3876; since 999 is odd, it refers to the dran (day).
The extremely rational system of Vilani date format makes each date refer to the fraction of the year when specifying a date. For example, 3766.500 is exactly halfway through the year 3766.
References[edit]
- Marc Miller. Imperial Encyclopedia (Game Designers Workshop, 1987), 46.
- Marc Miller. Referee's Companion (Game Designers Workshop, 1988), 45.