Dating Methods in Fantasy?

Dang, I thought this was going to be a thread about romance and courtships. XD

As far as timelines go, you might want to consider any huge world-altering events that might effect people's view of time, like the great battles that marked the ends of the first three Ages of the Sun in Lord of the Rings. Tolkien restarted the numbers at the beginning of each new Age. Or in our world, the birth of Christ that became the point between B.C. and A.D. (or B.C.E. and C.E. if you prefer).

 

I came here thinking the same thing.


In our world there have been a number of different dating systems, some of which are still in use. The Gregorian Calendar which sets its '0' mark at the birth of Christ is obviously the most commonly used and has basically become world-wide at this point. The Islamic Calendar begins with Mohamed's flight from Mecca to Medina. The Romans had a dating system which began with the founding of Rome. Some cultures begin their Calendar from a mythological starting point.

Honestly, I would suggest taking the culture that your story takes place in and finding a point that has major significance for that culture. Then mark that date as '0' and work from there.

 

Another example is how in ancient Egypt the dating system began with the reign of a ruler and it always started over again with the next ruler. So it was a sort of "X year of Ramesses II" sort of thing.

 

I think that you need a calendar for each society/culture and/or nation. One of my nations, for example, measures time since its founding, another measures by each ruler, and another measures time since the collapse of a larger nation group that splintered into smaller city states.

So as Ireth said, find a major event and measure from there.

 

I like using the era and year system.
Usually I have seen that there usually is a year 0. In elder scrolls year 0 is when humans arrived in Tamriel
(I think I am not positive so try looking at the elder scrolls wiki.) and then there is the eras that came before that year 0.

 

In my world I've decided to use a dating system based on lunar cycles. Each lunar cycle (in this world) is 30 days, and there are twelve cycles in a year. So if a person was giving the date they'd say something like 'the 4th of the 7th cycle' or more often just 'the 4th of the 7th'.

As for years, the story takes place in year 121, which was 121 years after a super duper amazing event which was officially decreed the beginning of the new calendar.