Catastros Region Calendar and Timeline
Basic time keeping for games in the world of Giathos
Welcome to the Glyph and Grok - A weekly blog-letter exploring topics in the tabletop gaming arena. We explore design, execution, and culture relating to anything played on a tabletop.
Intro
One of the things game masters/referees get caught up in is spinning up an entire world when a village would suffice. This has captures my imagination on more than one occasion and I’ve spent entirely too much time and effort thinking I need to flesh out every detail of the ancient world to enable interesting play. Many books and videos on the subject will push you away from this. If the players will never see it, it’s not worth doing, unless it’s just for you to have fun with. In no way is this much detail required in your typical ttrpg home game. The general rule is it only exists if the players interact with it.
For me, it’s been more about what is the gain for the effort. Until now, the gain has mostly been distraction from work I should be doing and it never sees the light of day. Part of the purpose of this publication is forcing myself to explore world building aspects and create a canon to base stories and play opportunities. This may mean entries in this vein are edited later, but if I end up doing that I’ll track it in the document.
Celestial Bodies
The Moons
Seltor
Closer to the planet, appears larger in the sky
Blue/white hue coloration
28 day cycle
Fengari
Farther from the planet, appears smaller in the sky
Brownish/white hue coloration
32 day cycle
Days of the Week - 7
Sunday
Starsday
Moonday
Godsday
Waterday
Earthday
Fireday
Months - 12
Primor
Solmuth
Ostara
Auvum
Eury
Lithos
Levana
Samhain
Dyonisios
Brumal
Kandel
Yule
Seasons
Year Length - 336 Days
Spring - 1st Primor - 28th Ostara - 84 days in length
Low Summer - 1st Auvum - 7th Lithos - 63 Days in length
High Summer - 8th Lithos - 14th Samhain - 63 Days
Fall - 15nd Samhain - 21st Brumal - 63 Days
Winter - 22nd Brumal - 28th Yule - 63 Days
Sketch Map of the Nations of Catasros
Map Key:
G = Grasslands
C = Coastline
O = Ocean
M = Mountains
F = Forest
D = Desert
Rh = Rolling hills
W = Wasteland
Vo = Volcano
Oh = Rocky Hills
S = Swamp
R = River
L = Lake
Me = Megastructure
Pi = The Pit
STAR = Capital
Nations
Sil-Dimas = Green
Malkant = Blue
Kaxos = Brown
Nation 3 (WIP) = Yellow
Nation 4 (WIP) = Red
Known Timeline
~1200 - The Ancient Empire of Old Xathra falls. It is known that a great technological catastrophe occurred, but there is no truly agreed upon record of what happened. The Kath-Interum is a dangerous mega structure left behind by the fall of the empire at the center of the region.
1506 - Discovery of Physical Aether
1620 - Research of Physical Aether has a breakthrough, A small multi-national cabal of wizards seek to contain the knowledge to only a few chosen. In-fighting leads to a schism. The arcane knowledge is kept quiet for a time, but the pact is broken and knowledge spreads out across the region and leads to a cold-war effort amongst all five nations.
1671 - Present day? Catastros has five well established nation-states of relative equality.
Conclusion
I do not recommend that every game master or referee do this much work for their table. I specifically am working to create a new setting that I can call my own. I find value when it can help push my creativity. The more I actually use this stuff, the less silly its creation will have been.
It feels good to get these thoughts down in an organized fashion and think about how their use moving forward. I am planning to play with this world in Shadowdark play both solo and running games for others and playing with ideas for strategy empire level gameplay.
I have sketched out numbers for population of these nations and have been spending a lot of time thinking about the Gods of this world and how their worship connects to this magical fantasy world. This world is were Corsin and Pelf had their recent adventure but Pelf will be going on the shelf for a minute as the next solo play chapters are going to be a new small group traveling from western Kaxos toward southern Sil-Dimas.
I have a lot of ideas to try out here and i’m happy to have you come along for the ride!
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