In Tales Unending, time is not tracked by celestial movement, calendars, or clocks.
Anchors measure time through Revisions.
A Revision represents a unit of lived experience—an interval in which an Anchor remains awake, aware, and capable of choice. It is not a day in the conventional sense, but it functions similarly for those who need structure.
Revisions always begin at Revision 1.
A Revision is the smallest meaningful unit of personal time for an Anchor.
Each Revision represents:
A cycle of awareness
A period of sustained identity
An opportunity for meaningful action or rest
Whether an Anchor experiences light and dark, sleep and waking, or something entirely different, their internal sense of progression advances by Revisions.
To an Anchor, a Revision feels like a day.
A Revision is not:
A fixed number of hours
A universal measurement
Synchronized across Anchors
Tied to any realm’s local calendar
Two Anchors may both be on Revision 40 and have experienced wildly different spans of local time.
This is normal.
Anchors do not inherently perceive the passage of time in the Storywake.
Instead, their Storyforged Arm provides temporal grounding.
The Arm maintains an internal sense of:
How long the Anchor has been awake
How much narrative strain has accumulated
When rest or pause is necessary
It does not display clocks or numbers unless asked.
Most commonly, it communicates time through impressions:
“You should be resting.”
“This is your third Revision without pause.”
“You have been awake longer than you think.”
If pressed directly, the Arm can state:
“You are currently on Revision [X].”
The Arm is never wrong.
Revisions advance automatically when:
An Anchor completes a cycle of wakefulness
The Anchor experiences meaningful rest or decompression
The Storyforged Arm determines identity coherence requires a reset
This often—but not always—coincides with sleep.
In realms without sleep, Revisions still advance.
In realms with distorted time, Revisions remain consistent.
Fatigue is tracked per Revision, not per hour.
Anchors who exceed safe limits may experience:
Wake-tiredness
Diminished Continuance generation
Blurred identity
Increased Unwritten susceptibility
Resting does not require a specific location—but it is most effective in Homeward.
Anchors often remember events in terms of Revisions rather than dates.
Examples:
“That was a few Revisions ago.”
“I haven’t seen them since my first ten.”
“We were already past Revision fifty when it ended.”
Long-lived Anchors may lose track of exact counts, but their Arms never do.
While inside a Story Realm:
Local time may pass normally, cyclically, or not at all
Revisions continue regardless
Upon leaving:
Anchors retain their Revision count
Temporal dissonance may occur, but identity remains stable
This is why Anchors do not age conventionally.
They age by experience, not duration.
When running Tales Unending:
Track time using Revisions, not days or hours
Increment Revisions after meaningful rest or narrative pause
Use Revisions to:
Gate fatigue
Pace arcs
Signal long-term consequence
Avoid syncing Revisions between characters unless narratively required
If a player asks “How long has it been?”, the correct framing is:
“You are on Revision [X]. It feels appropriate.”
Revisions reinforce a core truth of Tales Unending:
Time does not pass because the world turns.
It passes because you are still here.
Every Revision is a confirmation of persistence.
And when an Anchor’s story finally reaches its end, their Revisions do not reset.
They simply stop needing to be counted.
Revisions are not a measure of survival.
They are a measure of continuance.
Each one marks a moment where an Anchor woke up, remained present, and chose—whether to act, to observe, or to let a story end.
That is enough to move time forward.
And in a universe built on stories,
nothing else ever has.