Do you celebrate char. birthdays?

[amish overlord]

Curious have you ever observed your own or another characters birthday? Would this be an event and celebrated by people in zalthanas or think be seen as just another day. Just curious. Have you noticed any customs IG concerning birthdays? Probably not as big as our RL ones. But know some tribes have coming of age ceremonies, what about after or even in the cities. I never really observed them.

Amish Overlord 

Edit: Just realized meant to post in ask player. Sorry moving to there.

[tortall]

I heard there was a big one in the north for a templar. Sometimes nobles make a big deal ot of it. Most people don't notice.

Edit: So, after I posted this I went back to the main page and it said there was a new post here. I came to this thread again, and my post was gone! I was like, BUR?! Nothing here that's ic at all. I dunno how that happened.

[RogueGunslinger]

Every one of my character(that's survived that long) Has drank themselves to silly on their birthday. Even if no one else knew.


Fuck, I drank with them.

[jstorrie]

Yes, totally! I often forget to do it for my own PC but I have attended quite a few birthdays for other PCs, and most of them were commoners.

The neat thing about birthdays in Arm is that no one has calendars, so you can pretty much just ballpark it for a certain month and then party whenever it's convenient.

[staggerlee]

I generally assumed that most poorer people in Zalanthas don't follow a very elaborate or well tracked calendar, and probably don't know exactly how old they are, let alone when they're born. I think it adds a nice grungy touch to the character.

More educated characters probably do have some way of keeping track of such, the time command and time line on the webpage certainly imply there's a well established and complex method of tracking the passage of time.  I'd definitely see the leisure classes knowing those things, and possibly celebrating. 

That's just my take on it though.

[Reiloth]

My characters follow jstorrie's example.

I had a bard who was afraid of getting drunk on his birthday, because every time he did, he lost his pants.

[tortall]

Go read the one in Ask the Players.

There being two makes my head hurt!!

[Delstro]

Never had one while I was on. I havn't figured this question out yet.

[Shiroi Tsuki]

Entirely depends on the character. 

(add) When my characters DO celebrate birthdays, it is always the birthday 'season' or month, rather than the specific day.  Unless the character being celebrated reminds them anal-retentively.

[Bebop]

I think unless you are nobility, celebrating your birthday IG is stupid.

People do not have access to calendars.  Each month is over two hundred days.  Most of your regular people are not going to keep up with this.  And why would they?

[FantasyWriter]

I think unless you are nobility, celebrating your birthday IG is stupid.

People do not have access to calendars.  Each month is over two hundred days.  Most of your regular people are not going to keep up with this.  And why would they?

To lower their kank insurance when they turn 25, of course.

[Shiroi Tsuki]

People who are in more destitute situations tend to rely on causes for celebration more.  I see nothing wrong with celebrating 'birthdays', particularly if it's more in the tone of 'I was born in the first week of Low Sun, so every year we get together and get drunk in that first week of Low Sun.'  Maybe your character wouldn't say 'Oh I was born on the 115th of Low Sun in the year of Muk Utep Owning You', but I don't think its unrealistic to have an idea of the season your character was born.  Nor do I think its unrealistic to celebrate surviving another year in a culture where death happens all the time.  Furthermore, it is in the documents that certain groups have coming of age ceremonies dependent on age.  Apparently age is important to certain cultures, and would be tracked.

I've played characters that have celebrated their age with friends and family, and I've played characters that have no idea how old they are except in the roughest of terms.  I think it all depends on the characters in question, and the players of those characters, whether that's the type of thing their family would participate in.

In short, I stand by my original post that it depends on the character in question, rather than making a blanket statements.

[Bebop]

People who are in more destitute situations tend to rely on causes for celebration more.  I see nothing wrong with celebrating 'birthdays', particularly if it's more in the tone of 'I was born in the first week of Low Sun, so every year we get together and get drunk in that first week of Low Sun.'  Maybe your character wouldn't say 'Oh I was born on the 115th of Low Sun in the year of Muk Utep Owning You', but I don't think its unrealistic to have an idea of the season your character was born.  Nor do I think its unrealistic to celebrate surviving another year in a culture where death happens all the time.  Furthermore, it is in the documents that certain groups have coming of age ceremonies dependent on age.  Apparently age is important to certain cultures, and would be tracked.

I've played characters that have celebrated their age with friends and family, and I've played characters that have no idea how old they are except in the roughest of terms.  I think it all depends on the characters in question, and the players of those characters, whether that's the type of thing their family would participate in.

In short, I stand by my original post that it depends on the character in question, rather than making a blanket statements.

I can't help it, every time I see it IG I just have an OOC eye roll like every one is about to start handing out gifts and pinning the tail on the donkey.

I mean, people aren't even literate.  And they don't really have anyway to even ask some one about the date unless they wanted to ask some one who was literate who would then likely have to be educated in monitoring time and so on.

[Gimfalisette]

I mean, people aren't even literate.  And they don't really have anyway to even ask some one about the date unless they wanted to ask some one who was literate who would then likely have to be educated in monitoring time and so on.

If our characters weren't supposed to have some sense of passing years and seasons, we wouldn't have the "time" command.

Also, your argument that literacy is the basis of knowledge about the passage of time is quite silly. Pre-literate societies are plenty sensitive to the passage of time. It's related to plant growth cycles and the position of celestial bodies. And guess what, there are plant growth cycles and varying positions of celestial bodies in Zalanthas.

[staggerlee]

I generally assumed that most poorer people in Zalanthas don't follow a very elaborate or well tracked calendar, and probably don't know exactly how old they are, let alone when they're born. I think it adds a nice grungy touch to the character.

More educated characters probably do have some way of keeping track of such, the time command and time line on the webpage certainly imply there's a well established and complex method of tracking the passage of time.  I'd definitely see the leisure classes knowing those things, and possibly celebrating. 

That's just my take on it though.

In order to clarify and oppose Gimf's little pro-time keeping rant...  I'm quoting myself. And clarifying.
When I suggest that my uneducated characters don't keep track of time, I mean urban poor.  I'm talking slaves that break rocks, rinth rats and the real dredges of the proletariat here.   Tribals probably have a ridiculously complex cosmology and system for keeping track of that stuff, they're  a different story.

[Gimfalisette]

A significant portion of the populace in both Tuluk and Allanak also deals with agriculture. All those farming communities outside of Allanak; Oash and their winemaking; Rennik and their plants; House Dasari and House Uaptal are both in agriculture. There's no reason to believe that the cities and everyone living in them are entirely divorced from knowledge of seasons. Heck, there is even seasonal produce in the shops, in Tuluk, at least.

[staggerlee]

A significant portion of the populace in both Tuluk and Allanak also deals with agriculture. All those farming communities outside of Allanak; Oash and their winemaking; Rennik and their plants; House Dasari and House Uaptal are both in agriculture. There's no reason to believe that the cities and everyone living in them are entirely divorced from knowledge of seasons. Heck, there is even seasonal produce in the shops, in Tuluk, at least.

Hey whoa now. I said urban. 
I agree for the most part, but I'm talking about the really impoverished, homeless urban types. Kids that grew up on the street without family, etc.

[Gimfalisette]

Hey whoa now. I said urban. 
I agree for the most part, but I'm talking about the really impoverished, homeless urban types. Kids that grew up on the street without family, etc.

Sure, but "urban" is not really what you meant. All the employees of Dasari? They live in Tuluk. They are urban.

And I still would argue that any character at all has justification for seasonal awareness. The food supply changes, the weather changes, the angle of light changes. Again, the "time" command is IC reality.

[Cutthroat]

Days are further grouped into sets of two hundred thirty-one. This interval marks the third time the sun and two moons converge in each phase of the sun. Thus, in a 231-day phase (or month), the sun and moons will all occupy the same place in the sky, which happens to occur at midnight, exactly three times. The third time this happens, the sun is said to have moved into another phase and a new month begins.

I think it's because of this that most people would at least have some general understanding of which part of the year they were born. A person might have known that they were born a little after the moons converged on the sun during Ascending Sun, for example, and take it from there. Thus, it isn't so ridiculous that the majority of people could celebrate birthdays with a rough idea of how to schedule, but it seems kind of silly to wait until your character is exactly xx years, 0 months, 0 days old, log in and have a big party unless you have a calendar, or a huge slate to make tally marks on.

[touringCompl3t3]

People who are in more destitute situations tend to rely on causes for celebration more.  I see nothing wrong with celebrating 'birthdays', particularly if it's more in the tone of 'I was born in the first week of Low Sun, so every year we get together and get drunk in that first week of Low Sun.'  Maybe your character wouldn't say 'Oh I was born on the 115th of Low Sun in the year of Muk Utep Owning You', but I don't think its unrealistic to have an idea of the season your character was born.  Nor do I think its unrealistic to celebrate surviving another year in a culture where death happens all the time.  Furthermore, it is in the documents that certain groups have coming of age ceremonies dependent on age.  Apparently age is important to certain cultures, and would be tracked.

I've played characters that have celebrated their age with friends and family, and I've played characters that have no idea how old they are except in the roughest of terms.  I think it all depends on the characters in question, and the players of those characters, whether that's the type of thing their family would participate in.

In short, I stand by my original post that it depends on the character in question, rather than making a blanket statements.

Yeah, this is a good post.

That being said, I feel like a lack of Holidays were one thing missing from Arm 1.  It kind of limited the realism of the game to the level where the realism was capped.

[Pantoufle]

I think it might be worth looking into whether illiterate "urban" societies in the real world have ever celebrated birthdays before passing judgement and saying it's stupid for them to do so.  There are a lot of misconceptions players jump to regarding character activities, basing their opinion off assumptions rather than knowledge in the area - such as warriors wearing silk (silk has been used as armor throughout history due to is resilience against arrows, for example), people wearing black in the desert because "black absorbs light" (just look at the clothing worn in the arabic world today if you think wearing black in the desert is unrealistic) and expecting players to stupefy their characters just because they are illiterate when illiterate societies have shown remarkable intelligence in many instances throughout history (illiterate individuals statistically have greater memorization skills, for example). 

If we are to use the argument that an illiterate group of commoners wouldn't know these things simply because they cannot read and write, we can still employ the idea that the city-states center around the nobility and as such the common mass could easily keep enough track of time through the nobility in order to know when the passing of a year transpires, even if they don't know the exact date day by day.

Moreover, much of these expectations imposed upon commoners by certain posters (you know, "don't do this", "don't do that", "you're too stupid to know this", you're too dumb to understand that", etc.) would mean that our characters amount to very little and we as players would find little joy in playing them.  I see nothing wrong with any character, from the highest noble lord or lady to the lowliest 'Rinth rat celebrating (in some form or other) his or her date of birth - and until someone substiates why it's unrealistic with some sort of evidence beyond the argument from personal incredulity, they run the risk of backfiring who and what they call "stupid".

Show me why it's unrealistic rather than simply labelling certain RP unrealistic because it "seems" unrealistic.  It seems unrealistic to me that something as big as a planet can spin on an axis but, you know what, the Earth is still rotating despite my incredulity.

[Lizzie]

Except in very specific places where you aren't -capable- of knowing night from day, you'll definitely notice season changes. I don't care where you live - if you live in the back streets of Chicago, you'll know when winter's coming, and you'll know when the spring thaw has just ended. If you live on one of the private Cays of the bahamas and you're the only human there, you'll know when hurricane season is coming.

In Zalanthas, you know when the seasons change. And the butcher who found your scrawny little ass when you were abandoned on his doorstep one day, tells you that you were no older than a month, and the winds were shifting to the east right after a horrible week-long sandstorm, then you can be pretty confident in knowing you were born the month before the Season Before The Eastern Shifts.

Having said that, I think some people will celebrate it as "another year I survived this harsh brutal world" and others will mourn it as "another year closer to death" because death comes so young, comparatively.

[Hot_Dancer]

I only celebrate birthdays when I can coax Lizzie into jumping from a cake..

[Lizzie]

I only celebrate birthdays when I can coax Lizzie into jumping from a cake..

...which makes Hot_Dancer three years old. He can even tie his own shoes now.

[brytta.leofa]

I only celebrate birthdays when I can coax Lizzie into jumping from a cake..

...which makes Hot_Dancer three years old. He can even tie his own shoes now.

Time for him to start paying very careful attention to the terms of his indenture.

[Angela Christine]

You don't see a lot of calendars, but that doesn't mean that calendars do not exist.  Because of the simplicity of the Zalanthan Calendar, it would be very simple to have permanent calendar painted or engraved on the wall.

To review:

A summary of the organization of Zalanthan time might be as follows:

          Days of the Week (11)         Hours in the Day (9)
              Ocandra                       before dawn
              Terrin                        dawn
              Abid                          early morning
              Cingel                        late morning
              Nekrete                       high sun
              Waleuk                        early afternoon
              Yochem                        late afternoon
              Huegel                        dusk
              Dzeda                         late at night
              Barani
              Detal
     
          Months in the Year (3)
              Descending Sun
              Low Sun
              Ascending Sun

http://www.armageddon.org/HyperNews/get/general-archive2002/539/3.html

Here's a listing of the Years in an Age, beginning with 1 and ending with 77:
Jihae's Anger
Drov's Peace
Desert's Vengeance
Ruk's Slumber
Whira's Defiance
Dragon's Reverance
Vivadu's Agitation
King's Anger
Silt's Peace
Suk-krath's Vengeance
Lirathu's Slumber
Jihae's Defiance
Drov's Reverance
Desert's Agitation
Ruk's Anger
Whira's Peace
Dragon's Vengeance
Vivadu's Slumber
King's Defiance
Silt's Reverance
Suk-krath's Agitation
Lirathu's Anger
Jihae's Peace
Drov's Vengeance
Desert's Slumber
Ruk's Defiance
Whira's Reverance
Dragon's Agitation
Vivadu's Anger
King's Peace
Silt's Vengeance
Suk-krath's Slumber
Lirathu's Defiance
Jihae's Reverance
Drov's Agitation
Desert's Anger
Ruk's Peace
Whira's Vengeance
Dragon's Slumber
Vivadu's Defiance
King's Reverance
Silt's Agitation
Suk-krath's Anger
Lirathu's Peace
Jihae's Vengeance
Drov's Slumber
Desert's Defiance
Ruk's Reverance
Whira's Agitation
Dragon's Anger
Vivadu's Peace
King's Vengeance
Silt's Slumber
Suk-krath's Defiance
Lirathu's Reverance
Jihae's Agitation
Drov's Anger
Desert's Peace
Ruk's Vengeance
Whira's Slumber
Dragon's Defiance
Vivadu's Reverance
King's Agitation
Silt's Anger
Suk-krath's Peace
Lirathu's Vengeance
Jihae's Slumber
Drov's Defiance
Desert's Reverance
Ruk's Agitation
Whira's Anger
Dragon's Peace
Vivadu's Vengeance
King's Slumber
Silt's Defiance
Suk-krath's Reverance
Lirathu's Agitation

Previous discussion of calendars: http://www.zalanthas.org/gdb/index.php/topic,1953.0.html


The named years of a King's age would be fairly easy to remember because of the simple repeating pattern, and easy to record without words as pictographs or pictures.   An angry red moon, a peaceful darkness, a vengeful desert, a sleeping stone, and so on.  It might be weirdly abstract to us, but in a primitive society it is easy to personify the wind as angry or the sun as defiant.  While some of the pictures representing years would probably need to be pretty abstract, it would still be easy to figure out what a muddled picture was supposed to be because the first word is repeated every 11 years, and the second word is repeated every 7 years.  If you can't figure on out, go down 11 years to find another example of the actor, and 7 years to find another example of the emotion.  If you are able to use runes, and runes do seem to exist at least for the elements, then it would be even easier to record the tally of years.

Remembering that your kid was born in the year of "Desert's Defiance" might be easier than remembering that your kid was born in "year 47 of the 21st Age" or "1587" if you are not used to memorizing strings of numbers.  All three would be valid and understood by scholars, but the named years seem like they would be easier for commoners to memorize.  When you are only a few years old it is easy for the adults around you to remember, or guess, what year you must have been born in, and once you know the name of your birth year it is easy for you to remember it yourself.  Remembering your year of birth isn't that hard.

The accounting of the months (seasons?) is easy to visualize, even without formal education people shouldn't have trouble with it.  Common people might be more likely to use "rising" and "falling" than "ascending" and "descending" but since they aren't really speaking English I suppose it doesn't matter.

Descending Sun              Low Sun             Ascending Sun

It certainly isn't outrageous for people to remember at least the year and season of birth.  There is no handy way to remember the days of the month, and you hardly ever hear someone refer to them.  The 128th day of Low Sun?  I don't know, that doesn't trip off the tongue for me.  They might remember the exact date, or they might not.  Remembering that it was the second week of Low Sun, or early in Low Sun, or around the middle of Low Sun, or towards the end of Low Sun sounds reasonable though. 


It is quite likely that at least some people believe in a sort of off hand astrology based on the name of your birth year.  Since it is year based, it is obviously more like Chinese astrology than western astrology, where you wind up with a sign like "water rat" or "fire snake".   It would be fairly easy for superstition to arise about people born in "defiant" years, darkness(drov), windy(whiran) years, or what have you.  Folks that are really into it might even expand it to include the month.  You were born in the Rising of Whira's Agitation, or the Falling of Dragon's Slumber.  While most people work hard all the time, that work is often not intellectually challenging, so they have plenty of time to think up new and exciting superstitions.  That would give folks another reason to bother remembering when you born.

"Did you hear that Malik boy storm out of the building this morning?  I thought he was going to tear the hinges clear off the door.  Tut tut tut.  Still, what can you expect from a boy born in the rising of suk-krath's anger?  He's bound to be trouble."

Birthdays? I don't know.  Some people might celebrate them, some people might not.

[tortall]

Wow. AC, you rock. ~reads the post again~

Can this be stickied so that we can see the list of the years easily? Because I think that is awesome.