James Hockley author newsletter
Exclusive novella on sign-up
Exclusive novella on sign-up
Image by Andrew Martin from Pixabay
Time is the ultimate devourer – Villas the Unit
Like any a good fantasy world, Godslost has its own concept of time. Of course it does. That’s half the fun of a fantasy world – all the weird stuff that goes with it.
The intention with these books is clearly that those diving into Godslost can do so with enough knowledge to navigate the place, including in deciphering time. But for some that will not be enough. After all, why is a degree called a degree? Well, if you’re interested in that sort of thing, you’ve come to the right place. This is the definitive guide to deciphering time in Godslost.
Note – this blog is intended to be a living record, being updated as the adventures of Godslost spread wider and further. Make sure to check back!
The Mikaetan Empire has dominated the western half of Godslost for almost eight hundred years, albeit greatly diminished in the last hundred and fifty. As such, the Empire has shaped time in Western Godslost, and continues to do so.
This is one that wasn’t defined by the Empire. After all, a year is a year, and is equal to one rotation around the local star (which is called Mother Bright). And one rotation is about 400 days.
Why about 400? Well, that’s because the year actually ends at the waning of the Father, which is effectively a lunar calendar, and that means that years are a little longer or a little shorter depending on how close the waning of the Father is compared to the Mother’s solstice.
This one was formalised by the Empire, but all evidence points to it having roots much further back than that. Godslost’s year is split into four seasons (broadly the same as Earth seasons), and these seasons are called:
Each season is also then split into quarter-seasons, making sixteen quarter-seasons in a year. These quarter-seasons are most analogous with Earth months, and are themselves split into cycles (see below).
This is definitely an Imperial creation, being one of the many marks made by the sixteenth Emperor called Villas the Unit. He is also called the mad emperor, which should become more obvious later…
A cycle is similar to an Earth week, but with six days (one for each of the favoured gods – the Stranger is not a favoured god). Once a quarter-season however, there is also a seven day cycle (just to confuse matters) where the seventh day is called Stranger’s Day – a day for the Empire to cower at home lest the Stranger be loosed on the world once more.
This neat setup is ruined somewhat by the fact that years are not always 400 days, and in this case the calendar is “frigged” to make it work. In a good year Stranger’s Days are lost, and in bad years they are gained. All very confusing.
This is where Villas the Unit starts to come into his own.
He observed (rather cleverly to be fair) that shadows moved with the passing of Mother throughout the day. Very smart, but sadly that’s where the clever ends.
The Unit was also obsessed with the concept of numerical powers, and in particular the number 16 which could be continually divided by 2 until ultimately reaching 1, without the need for any fractions. In fact, he was so obsessed with this that he actually pushed for the decimal system to be scrapped in Godslost in favour of his “hexadecimal” system. Fortunately, despite all efforts and punishments, the decimal system persisted in the shadows, and on the passing of Villas the Unit, the hexadecimal system was cast into the shadows forever.
However, the legacy of sixteen persists in Godslost because the Unit split the day into 16 components, and using Mother to track the path on a semi-circular device (much like a sun-dial), he named each 16th a degree. Hence a degree is most analogous with an Earth hour. All seems fairly sensible doesn’t it?
Sadly, the sun is not much use at night, which means the concept of time at night is divided only into ‘before midnight’ and ‘after midnight’, which is slightly unhelpful. Worse than this though, as the days lengthen and shorten with the seasons, the amount of time represented by a degree changes. This makes a degree perfectly acceptable for general tasks (e.g. determining what time is lunch time) but thoroughly useless for any precision tasks.