Hypothetical clockface showing a 15-hour Dragaeran half-day.
Time flows normally on Dragaera. Most of the time.
There are some places where time does not follow the same rules as the rest of Dragaera, which strongly implies that they are not in any sense part of Dragaera itself. Notably, the Paths of the Dead, Verra's Halls and the Jenoine's Place seem to have not only their own rates of time, but even allow time to flow in different directions, and all appear to be different universes or planes of existence.
Measuring Time[]
Time in the Dragaeran Empire is measured in Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, and Years, much as it is here. The durations, however, have some variation, and there are some additional measurements that we do not use.
An hour seems to be roughly the same length as it is in our world, and consists of 60 minutes, just as ours do.
A day, however, consists of 30 hours. This means that "noon" is at 15 o'clock. The extra time in each day means that Dragaerans eat an average of four meals a day, rather than three.
A week in The Empire is only five days long. However, since each day is longer, the week ends up being only 18 hours shorter than ours is.
A month is seventeen days long. There are seventeen months in the year, meaning each year is 289 (172) days long. And the longer day balances out the smaller number of days per year almost exactly:
- Dragaeran year: 17*17*30 = 8670 hours
- our year: about 365*24=8760 hours
-- a difference of just over 1 percent. (Cracks and Shards) The months are named for the seventeen Dragaeran Houses.
Dragaerans do not note "decades" as we do. A rough equivalent is a Turn, which is seventeen Dragaeran years.
Seventeen Turns make up a Phase, roughly akin to a century, though this is of course 289 (172) Dragaeran years.
A Phase is the minimum length of time that a single house can rule The Empire, according to the cycle, while seventeen Phases — 4,913 (173) years, or one "Reign" — is the maximum.
The Eastern Kingdoms[]
Weeks are measured differently in the Eastern Kingdoms (such as Fenario) where a week is seven days, instead of five.
Months are also apparently longer, as well, given certain remarks made by Morrolan, possibly as long as 30 days (or sometimes more), implying that there may be fewer months in the Eastern calendar.
It is unclear if the length of days is measured differently here, but it seems unlikely that the length of the day can be any different--for reasons of simple physics. (Dragaera does seem to have mostly consistent physical laws.) It is therefore likely that days are 30 hours. Hours, minutes and seconds are measured in the same way as in the Empire.
Months and years are less clear, though the term "fortnight" is used in the east, and is indicative of 14 days (or two eastern weeks) just as it is in our world.
We do know that in some places (such as Greenaere) the year begins and ends in the Winter, rather than in the Spring, as it does in the Empire. It is unclear if this is the case in the East.
- See also Speculation:Time.