Does anyone have a method they use for marking the passage of time for their players? I'd like to be able to give them an actual date to mark the passing of months, but as far as I'm aware no standard method exists. I'm already using the Imperial Dating System, giving the year as 816.M41, and while Imperial chroniclers use a decimal system (000-999) I'm not really super excited about the prospects of converting a Terran standard year, with it's 365 days, into decimals everytime I want to tell my players how far into the current year they are.

I mean, it can be done. As I figure it, using the Imperial dating system, today is 0332011.M3. But that's not very humanistic and it lacks the style of saying "January 1877" or whatever.

I was thinking of using the old Julian calendar, with the old Latin names, to give it a sort of High Gothic feel. So, you know, Januarius, Februarius, Martius, Maius, Aprilis, Iunius, etc.

Technically, the 332011M3 style date is the Terran standard dating scheme. Local dating systems should abound in the Imperium, as most locals are going to want a calendar that has at least something to do this the local days and years.

So, use away with what you want.

Post your final calendar tho, so we can all steal it

Depending upon the age of your dynasty and your ship, it may be that the crew have come up with their own unique calendar. Given that the crew on warships tend to operate a number of different shifts, perhaps a strange new version could arise based upon the number of shifts they have served.

Say a ship has 4 shifts of 6 hours (to honour the Terran daily cycle). Perhaps they might mark the completion of every four shifts (4 days) as being a "quad" every sixteen shifts (16 days) as being a "High quad" and every 64 shifts (64 days) as being a "Great Quad" and every 256 shifts (256 days) as being a "ship year."

I know that sounds weird, but if you have no seasons or regular sunlight, a system based on shifts makes as much sense as anything!

One imagines every truly ancient voidborn community has its own way of marking time. After all, for them the Terran calendar is arguably even more abstract than for those living on Imperial worlds: although the Terran calendar probably has little to do with the local world's calendar, it is at least consistent. The two dates at least move forward in the same proportions. On board a warp-capable ship, every time they leave or enter the warp, they're going to end up either gaining or losing time, possibly hundreds of years.

As a result, the crew would all likely have their own way of measuring "ship time" at the very least to have some sort of handle on how old they all are! One imagines this is a further reason why the voidborn feel isolated from regular humanity.

All the ships and campaigns that I've run have been on Imperial Standard Time unless they've been actively mingling with the culture of a particular planet. What I've done (to deal with essentially the same problem) is to state that every Day (1 Imperial Year Fraction) is equal to one work-shift, and given them a 2 on/1 off work/sleep pattern (for the more diligent; most players vote to veto and work 1/play 1/sleep 1). This works out at roughly 24hrs (well, slightly over, but that just helps.

Beyond that I've arbitrarily decided that an Imperial Week is 20 Days (works out at roughly 6-and-a-bit Terran observed days), and an Imperial Month at 100 Days (roughly 30 Terran observed days).
This gives me a Year of 10 months of 5 Weeks apiece, that fits in with the 1000 Day Year, and matches fluff references from diaries in universe that give the date as X Day, Y Month (IIRC, only Crossfire (Matt Farrer) gives any Month names that aren't obviously local religious festivals, and then solely to date religious festivals...).

All that said, ten months per year, high gothic... sounds perfect for lifting the old old names from the Julian calendar.

There is an official suggestion of conventional days and months, actually - the precise date of the start of the Siege of Terra has been mentioned as the 13th of Secundus , 30014 (or, in contemporary Imperial timekeeping, 1120014.M31).

We don't know the full list of months, but that's a clear statement that they do, or at least did, exist.

A lot of places have their own non-imperial date systems and use days, months and years relevant to where they are locally... which is easier to live with than the official Adeptus Admin system.
They use a check-number to refer to the accuracy of the record.
0 & 1: Earth Standard- events which happen in Sol system, 0 most commonly referring to the Terra events.
2: Astropathic source of the event was in contact with the Sol system when it happened
3: Source was in direct reference contact with someone who was in a Source 2 event
4: Someone who was directly corroborating with a Source 3 event participant
5: Source for the event was in an Astropathic contact with a Source 4 event participant
6: Non, directly referenced contacts with the last 5 contacts that is a comparatively accurate continuation of a timeline.
7: Non referenced continuation with about a 10 year degree of accuracy
8: As above but accuracy around 11+ years
9: Educated guessing... often using non-imperial timelines as reference
Then they have the fraction of the year, each year divided into 1000 parts, drop the 0, so that its numbered 001-000
The year in the millennium which is 001-999
The millennium itself - eg M40, M41 etc
So, Bob the sage would write it having spoken to someone who in Astropathic contact with a person on Terra would mark the accuracy of
eg 2.
They would get the fraction of the year
eg 500 (exactly halfway)
The year in the millennium
eg 999
The millennium itself
eg M41
And come up with something that looks like-
2.500.999.M41

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Do you remember what source that was from?

AkumaKorgar said:

I can't check since I am at work right now but, I think that this comes from the 3rd ed. 40K Rule Book. I will get back to you on that some time in the near future.

The word alone suggests that it's the second 'month' of the calendar. Could potentially be February.

My appologies for taking so long. The refferace I was thinking about just confirms what MKX said:

MKX said:

No mention of months. But if it helps any this comes from pg. 269 in the Appendex of the 3rd ed. Warhammer 40,000 Rule Book.

I kinda like the idea of using Latin ordinals to mark the months. It's High Gothic without being blatantly ripped from the history books. I think I just might use Alasseo's suggestion for the calendar, too.