Calendar of Sanctum Prime
Origin of the Veil Calendar
“We no longer count years — we count how many times the light remembered us.”
— Rema Cael, Seat of Memory
When the Last God immolated Himself and the Sanctum Veil was born, time itself fractured.
The old solar and lunar cycles no longer functioned — the heavens had turned into a mirror.
Thus, the Veil Calendar was created by the Truth Order during the Century of Refuge to measure time through resonance stability, not celestial motion.
Its central unit is the Flicker Cycle, the period between two full Veil synchronizations.
A Flicker is both a heartbeat and a countdown — the pulse of a dying god.
Structure of the Calendar
One Flicker Cycle ≈ one mortal year (though temporal distortion makes this imprecise).
Each Cycle divided into Four Phases, corresponding to the Veil’s breathing pattern:
Dawnphase – Stability and light. The beginning of the cycle.
Midveil – Balanced period; harvests, marriages, construction.
Duskphase – Weakening resonance; dreams become prophetic, births forbidden.
Darkphase – The pre-Flicker silence. Veil storms, worship bans, enforced curfews.
Time within @Sanctum Prime does not flow uniformly. Near the Pillars, a day can last half as long or twice as long depending on resonance fluctuations.
All records are timestamped using Resonance Codex notation, for example:
Cycle 500, Duskphase-12, Pillar of Truth Alignment.
The Sacred Week
The @Truth Order maintains the Heptad, a seven-day resonance pattern — one for each Pillar.
Valor’s Day (Defiance) – Warden training, military rites.
Mercy’s Day (Restoration) – Healing rituals, ration distribution, population culling memorials.
Truth’s Day (Reflection) – Study, silence, data archives closed for cleansing.
Judgment’s Day (Balance) – Civic trials, purges, execution ceremonies.
Memory’s Day (Remembrance) – Mourning and historical reenactments.
Hope’s Day (Radiance) – City-wide illumination, the only sanctioned festival.
Sacrifice’s Day (Offering) – Reactor maintenance, Veil blood tithe, funerary processions.
The Heptad repeats continuously; the Flicker resets its count each new Cycle.
Major Observances
The Dawn of Ashes
Commemoration of the Last God’s sacrifice.
Held at the start of each Cycle’s Dawnphase.
Mandatory attendance within the Upper Ring.
Hymns sung backward to symbolize the reversal of divine hunger.
The Vigil of the Dimming
Occurs every Duskphase.
Citizens extinguish all light for one hour while the Wardens whisper The Oath of Light.
Any visible illumination during this hour is considered heresy.
The Renewal Hymn
Performed at the exact midpoint of the Flicker synchronization.
The Halo Guild projects auroral waves across the city; the @Truth Order ecords harmonic fluctuations.
One in every thousand participants disappears mid-hymn — considered a divine offering.
The Crimson Tithe
@Core Guild ritual conducted when Veil reactors weaken.
Volunteers (or convicts) donate blood and life essence to fuel the Core Guild heart-reactor.
Their names are burned into marble beneath the Cathedral of the Last Dawn.
The Day of the Hollow
Memorial for those who became Hollowed in service of the Veil.
Observed in complete silence; even the @Aether Guilds shut down machinery.
It is said the @Hollowed hum in response when their names are remembered.
Temporal Anomalies and Resonance Drift
Time within the Veil is elastic.
Resonance Drift: During strong Veil surges, mechanical clocks and memory implants desynchronize.
Echo Days: Occasionally a day repeats itself — people relive events with minor differences.
The Missing Hours: Unaccountable time lapses that occur citywide during Darkphase. Truth Order theorizes these are Veil recalibration periods.
Memory Lag: Recorded events appear days before they occur, likely due to the Memory Pillar’s instability.
Because of these distortions, the Truth Order forbids predicting the next Flicker by time alone — only by harmonic observation.
Historical Milestones
Cycle 001: The First Flicker. Establishment of Sanctum Prime’s temporal axis.
Cycle 127: The First Breach; introduction of the Veil Calendar replacing the solar year.
Cycle 300: The Ascended Rise — formal recognition of Awakened hierarchy.
Cycle 412: Detection of resonance fluctuations; Calendar adjusted to compensate for lost time.
Cycle 476: The Glassfall Event — Calendar temporarily halted for re-synchronization.
Cycle 500: The Final Flicker officially declared; Calendar now maintained under emergency review.
Cultural Effects
Citizens refer to their age by how many Flickers they’ve survived, not years.
Example: “I am twenty-two Flickers old.”
Birth certificates are stamped with the Veil Phase, not the day.
Memory archives are divided by Cycle Resonance Tone, each sound signature identifying a span of history.
Weddings and oaths are forbidden during Duskphase and Darkphase — words spoken then often vanish from record.
Guild contracts expire automatically at each Flicker; the Council renews or dissolves all political agreements thereafter.
The Truth Order’s Warning
“When the Calendar ends, it will not stop at zero. It will turn inward.”
— Fragment recovered from Mirror Choir transmission
The Veil Calendar predicts no future beyond Cycle 520.
After that, the projected harmonic field becomes self-consuming — the city’s concept of time will invert, collapsing memory, cause, and consequence into a single eternal instant.
Scholars call this projected collapse The Still Light — a moment where nothing moves because all light is frozen in divine thought.
The Council officially denies this theory.
The Truth Order has already prepared an Eternal Record, a backup of all history stored within crystallized echoes beneath the Archive of Echoes — in case time itself forgets to continue.
Common Sayings and Proverbs
“May your Flicker be bright.” – Blessing used before major Veil surges.
“Born in Duskphase.” – Idiom for someone fatalistic or melancholic.
“Light willing, another Cycle.” – Traditional farewell among Wardens.
“To skip the Dawn is to invite the Dark.” – Guild saying warning against working through renewal rites.