FIVEY: Human Beings in Fiveria

Originally I wanted a way of rationalizing a 120-day calendar. Speaks for itself, obviously!

Human Beings

Human beings were originally inter-dimensional colonizers who traveled by starship to conquer distant worlds and thus escape the certain destruction of their home planet. One particular fleet targeted a world system called Fiveria for how it so resembled Terra, except with much shorter orbital cycles and exceptionally quick-growing vegetation. They were met however by a united front of Fiverian peoples, for the first time putting aside their particular differences on a social scale, who swiftly and surely defeated the fleet by means of magic hitherto unknown by human beings.

The fleet's underlings were granted refuge on Fiveria, and were eventually fully integrated into the world's increasingly cosmopolitan society. Meanwhile, other fleets of human beings still roam the cosmos, conquering worlds and reshaping them in their own image.

Fiverian Calendar

The solar cycle of Fiveria is about three times shorter than that of Terra, just 120 days long. This Fiverian year is divided into 4 seasons of 3 ten-day "tennites". The names of these seasons correspond in their common language to roughly the same meaning as the names in our own: spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Each tennight also has its own proper name which corresponds to a zodiac constellation in the night sky.

Season (1d12)	First Tennite	Second Tennite	Third Tennite
Spring (1-3)	Aries	Taurus	Gemini
Summer (4-6)	Cancer	Leo	Virgo
Autumn (7-9)	Libra	Scorpio	Sagittarius
Winter (10-12)	Capricorn	Aquarius	Pisces

In Fiverian society, the tennite is divided into two 5-day weeks. Children are taught this by way of metaphor: although you have ten fingers, they are split between two hands. Furthermore, just like you have two hands, you also have two thumbs. The halves of the tennite are punctuated by two "holidays", one major and one minor on the first and seventh day respectively. Both holidays are days of rest where the purchase of time, i.e. of labor, is prohibited.

Major Holidays

Festivities take place on the first major holiday of each season (Aries 1, Cancer 1, Libra 1, and Capricorn 1) to celebrate that season's equinox or solstice. The spring holiday celebrates romance, the summer holiday friendship, the autumn holiday community, and the winter holiday family. Specific practices differ between regions, but they are usually accompanied by giving gifts and spending quality time with the particular loved ones being celebrated.

Fiveria also has a moon like Terra does, and its lunar cycle is approximately the length of one season. In fact, the full moon is the occasion of the second major holiday each season (Taurus 1, Leo 1, Scorpio 1, and Aquarius 1). It is a less significant occasion than an equinox or solstice, but it is no less a good excuse to celebrate with family and friends. Some cultures, especially those with a (relatively) recent nomadic history, count their years by lunar cycles rather than by equinoxes and solstices, so they will celebrate the new year on one of the four second major holidays.

The third major holidays of each season were traditionally celebrations of elvish prophets, but throughout the millennia they have been filtered through the lens of syncretization, secularization, and an emerging cosmopolitan world identity. They are celebrated in different ways, for different reasons, in different regions. The state-endorsed interpretation is that each one celebrates one so-called "cardinal of history", a hero of international acclaim and adoration whose exploits were mythologized as expressions of societal paradigm shifts. Perhaps it is only a coincidence that they were also elves.

Age & Birthdays

As human beings adjusted to life on Fiveria, they began to measure their age in Fiverian years rather than Terran ones. Below is a general table of age cohorts; if you would like to determine your character's age, human or not, you may roll 3d6 × 10 years (ignoring child results, or any result, if you so wish). You may also assume that your character is simply a young or middle-aged adult. If you want a more specific age, add 1d10 years to the total.

Age Cohort	Terran Years	Fiverian Years
Infant	0-2	0-4
Child	3-12	5-39
Adolescent	13-17	40-49
Young adult	18-33	50-99
Adult	34-67	100-199
Elder	68+	200+

You may also pick your character's birthday. If you need help, roll 1d12 for the tennite and 1d10 for the specific day of that tennite. Individuals celebrating their birthday are under no obligation to work, but are still paid a tennite’s wages as usual. This may seem problematic for those born on holidays, but they simply get to celebrate the day after their 'actual' birthday. Some parents cross their fingers for their child to be born on a holiday if only for the benefit of a two-day celebration.

Fiverian Society

Fiveria's calendar implies much about Fiverian society—as all calendars do, being expressions of social organization first and representations of astronomy second. The workweek implies an industrial or post-industrial economy, which implies an economic world system of core, periphery, and frontier countries (or regions).

Core regions are cosmopolitan and highly developed, often relying upon raw resources extracted from peripheral regions. In turn, peripheral regions are inundated with international capital and thus organized around core countries' demands. Frontier regions are those not yet integrated into the worldwide economy, likely having premodern and insulatory social organizations. These three broad "subsystems" find themselves in conflict with each other, and also see internal conflict and competition. Most of the action will (likely) occur in the periphery or the frontier.

The international culture is liberal and oriented around bourgeois interests, even as much as it may pull from the specific cultural practices of individual cultures. Some individuals from the periphery or frontier may interpret cosmopolitanism, or foreign elements in general, as an affront against their particular way of life (and they are not necessarily wrong), or a reflection of the international bourgeoisie slipping into their once small world. Likewise, some individuals from the core may regard peripheral or frontier cultures as backward, ignorant, or even savage. Most people are empathetic and open, albeit not free of social or subconscious biases.

Closing Thoughts

Originally, I wanted 4 months of 5 six-day weeks because I just found out that they remade Rune Factory 3 literally a couple days ago and I’ve been obsessed with it (not usually a gamer, but I make exceptions!). However, there also being 12 fortnights in the year makes it really easy to roll for your birthday and also assign your character a zodiac. Both important things, of course—very important. But you can't divide 20 weeks into 12 fortnights, so I switched to ten-day "tennites" divided into five-day weeks.

I am kinda irritated at nonsense fantasy world-building, so I wanted to paint with broad strokes a pretty basic semi-modern world that wasn’t grounded in endless race war. The implied liberal colonialist society draws a lot from Disco Elysium, especially the cardinals of history. This is my angle on the tacky liberal bourgeois utopian settings that some people make for their games.

I also wanted to give humans a more interesting and weirder origin than just being the default people group for some reason. Plus too, this whole thing sprung out of me trying to rationalize human beings on a world with shorter years. Why not make them the alien intruders, to set the stage for a fantasy world that smugly imagines itself at the end of history?

Anyway, I think all this should make for an interesting and varied setting that retains the sort of liberalized aesthetics of 5E while turning it on its head.