Calendar

Collaborative design workspace. Approved Decisions are established lore; unassigned properties and questions remain open. No moon or god is to be named yet.

Creative Direction

Nine moon-gods guard Mother. Their attendance forms the only calendar: a repeating cycle, without years. Develop their nature and the logic of their captivity before deriving their names.

The nine gods themselves are inspired by Dante’s Inferno, not merely its number of circles. The precise relationship to its circles, themes, environments, inhabitants, or punishments remains undecided. Do not assume a one-to-one mapping or import its theology as universal truth.

Poe’s intimate grief and obsession and Lovecraft’s limits of mortal perception inform the tone alongside Dante’s ordered descent. Bound Souls retains its own divine personalities and absence of universal divine morality.

Approved Decisions

• Nine gods, nine moons: nine moon-gods guard Mother. Each presides over one day-like interval. After the final remaining moon, the sequence begins again. Nine is an intentional nod to Dante.
• Only the cycle: there are no years. There is no months-per-year structure or separately approved longer ascendancy. The cycle is the organizing unit.
• Moonlit time: there is not necessarily a sun or an alternating night/day structure. Moonlight illuminates the sky. A “day” is the interval until the next moon, not a daylight period contrasted with night.
• Duration: each moon’s attendance is approximately twenty-four Earth hours for author/game-design reference only. Inhabitants do not describe time in hours. An intact cycle contains nine such intervals, with practical rhythms of travel, work, recovery, and anticipation.
• Divine order, mortal perception: this is the gods’ order, imperfectly understood by mortals. Souls know only what they can perceive and understand. Whether other realms share the observable schedule remains unspecified.
• Captivity created the calendar: Mother’s imprisonment established the present sequence. The moon-gods take their turns because they have a duty to guard her as their prisoner.
• Authority and effects: the presiding god influences which souls or types of souls are awake and active, and which buffs and debuffs affect players and other souls. The exact effects and schedules remain undecided.
• Sleep: inactive souls are asleep in the ordinary sense, not transferred to another plane. Sleep is not death.
• Gravedigger knowledge: Gravediggers are important scholar-like keepers of hidden knowledge. Their understanding of moons arises from observed consequences of divine nature in burial work. Under some lunar conditions, some souls become conscious enough to answer. Which souls answer, how they communicate, and what they know remain open.
• Burial and rebirth: Gravediggers bury vessels awaiting another life, giving them back to the realm from which they passed so that they may be reborn. Exact rebirth mechanics remain undecided.
• Naming: the Gravediggers’ name for each moon derives from an observed consequence of its god’s nature. Names are deferred until that nature and observation have been developed.
• Encounter structure: the nine gods establish the intended nine first-layer bosses and corresponding temples or realms oppressing Mother. Their individual identities, domains, locations, and encounter order remain unassigned.
• Destruction removes a day: destroying a moon-god removes its interval from the rotation. There is simply one less day, not a dark vacancy or a replacement god. The cycle contracts from nine to eight to seven, and so on; the remaining intervals keep their approximate duration. The state after the last god’s destruction is not defined.
• Mother’s intent: she sends the Wonderer to destroy her oppressors with utmost brutality. She seeks revenge and scorched earth, not merely escape. Her hidden world-eating nature and manipulation are recorded in Mother > Hidden Nature — Author Knowledge, not assumed known to inhabitants or the player.

No individual names, particular buffs/debuffs, additional destruction costs, or resolution after the final moon have been approved. Capture and retreat remain distinct from destruction and require separate calendar rules.

Lore Constraints and Relationships

• The Living Heavens and Gods: visible celestial bodies are mortal perceptions of living gods, not merely inert objects. Their true forms exceed mortal comprehension.
• Mother: her world is her perceived existence, and her imprisonment fractures it. She was wronged and is genuinely dangerous; her captors’ fear and her suffering can both be real.
• Divine Temperaments: gods are individuals of varied natures, without a universal divine morality. Dante-inspired themes must not silently establish universal sins or judgments.
• Reality, Service, and Divine Bonds: existence depends on gods and souls. Service is continuous. Periodic feeding or burial as a special feeding act must not replace this rule without approval.
• Outer Gods: absences and ruptures beyond known reality, explicitly not moons or worlds. A missing calendar interval is not automatically an Outer God.
• God Evolution: gods can be captured or allowed to retreat and change. Destruction now has a calendar rule; capture and retreat do not yet have one.
• Wonderer: intentionally forged by Mother with no past life. No special birth-date or exceptional calendar interval has been assigned.

Existing Ambiguity to Preserve

Soul describes a permanent bond to a single god, while Allegiance allows changing divine allegiance. Do not assume a resolution of this tension when assigning lunar affiliations. Mother’s desire to destroy her enemies does not yet establish a mandatory player outcome or remove existing capture and allegiance choices.

Structural Decisions

Element	Current decision
Initial gods / moons / days per cycle	Nine
One moon’s attendance	Approximately 24 Earth hours, author reference only
In-world hours	Not used
Day/night alternation	Not the organizing principle; the next moon marks the next day
Years and annual return	None
Separate longer ascendancies	Not adopted
Origin	Mother’s imprisonment and the gods’ guarding duty
Moon names	Derived by Gravediggers from observed consequences; deferred
Ordinary inactivity	Sleep
God destroyed	Its day is removed; the cycle shortens
God captured or allowed to retreat	Calendar consequences undecided
All nine destroyed	Undecided; do not assume darkness or frozen time
Exact handover and procession order	Undecided

For author bookkeeping, while at least one moon-god remains: days per cycle = 9 minus the number of destroyed moon-gods. No extra or replacement days have been approved.

Moon Register

Agreed Development Framework

Develop each unnamed god through these five questions, before deriving any name:

1. Its nature: what kind of being is it beyond its role as a boss? Establish character, desires, and divine nature.
2. Its part in the imprisonment: what does it do to keep Mother contained? Distinct restraints for each god remain a possibility, not an approved arrangement.
3. Its effect upon the living: who wakes, who sleeps, and what strengthens or weakens beneath its light? Record effects on players and other souls.
4. What the Gravediggers observe: what concrete consequence of its nature appears in vessels, burial, rebirth, or answering souls? Separate witnessed facts from interpretations.
5. What its destruction costs: beyond the established removal of its day, does anything else change or become lost? Additional costs are optional and unapproved, not an automatic punishment for victory.

Naming comes afterward: derive the Gravediggers’ moon-name from the agreed observation. Its meaning must have a concrete basis, not merely an ominous sound.

Nine Reserved Entries — No Names Assigned

These are author-facing planning identifiers, not in-world names, confirmed procession order, circle assignments, or a mandatory boss order. Each row reserves one god, moon, day, and first-layer temple/realm encounter.

Slot	Name	Nature	Imprisonment role	Living effects	Gravedigger observation	Additional destruction cost	Temple / realm
1	Deferred	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open
2	Deferred	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open
3	Deferred	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open
4	Deferred	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open
5	Deferred	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open
6	Deferred	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open
7	Deferred	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open
8	Deferred	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open
9	Deferred	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open	Open

Individual Entry Template

• Author-facing slot and approval status:
• Dante inspiration and degree of correspondence:
• Nature, personality, desires, and motives:
• Relationship to Mother before imprisonment:
• Part in her capture and present restraint:
• Visible appearance and identifying signs:
• Position in the rotation and reason for that position:
• Souls waking or sleeping beneath its light:
• Buffs, debuffs, and environmental effects:
• Gravedigger observations concerning vessels, burial, rebirth, or answering souls:
• What mortals believe versus what is actually true:
• Temple or realm and encounter role:
• Practical uses, observances, and taboos:
• Relationship to adjacent moons:
• What destruction changes beyond removal of its day, if anything:
• Capture and retreat consequences, if established:
• Canon links and unresolved dependencies:
• Later only: Gravediggers’ moon-name, meaning, pronunciation, and the observation behind it:
• Later only: divine proper name or other naming layers, if approved:

Questions Awaiting the Author

1. Dante correspondence: should each god draw directly from one of Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery, or draw more loosely from the Inferno? A god might embody a condition, enforce a punishment, suffer it, or believe it protects others from it. None of these approaches is chosen.
2. The betrayal: what trust existed between Mother and the nine—kinship, companionship, dependence, protection, or something else? Is betrayal chiefly Mother’s interpretation of their fearful conspiracy?
3. The restraints: does each god contain a different capacity of Mother, or do all share a guarding function with different effects?
4. Burial and hunger: does burial directly nourish Mother? If so, what do Gravediggers understand about that exchange? Continuous soul-service is established; a special burial-feeding mechanism is not.
5. Answering souls: who answers, how are they roused, and what do they remember? A soul briefly conscious while its vessel awaits rebirth is a proposal, not canon. A voice versus signs through the vessel is also undecided.
6. Displaced waking: when a god’s day disappears, do its associated sleepers wake beneath another, lose their dependence, remain asleep, or experience something else? Do not assume permanent sleep.
7. Gravedigger institutions: an organized scholarly order, shared calling, inherited profession, or solitary practitioners? Their importance is established; their structure is not.
8. Handover: what observable event marks the next moon? Is its arrival reliably predictable, and can multiple moons be seen together?
9. Final moon: what happens after all nine are destroyed? The shortening cycle does not by itself answer this.
10. Other outcomes: how do capture, retreat, and changes of allegiance affect the sequence and Mother’s revenge?
11. Mother’s presentation: how does the player encounter evidence of her hidden nature? Can they reject her? Her children’s belief in her love is not proof of love; any genuine attachment or limits remain undefined.
12. Mortal knowledge: how much do Gravediggers suspect about Mother, and how much remains beyond anyone’s perception?

Further Exploratory Questions — Not Canon

• Could a moon’s name be forbidden to pronounce?
• Could people remember a moon which no longer appears?
• Can two souls perceive the same sky differently because they serve different gods?
• How do inhabitants describe age and long journeys without years or hours?
• What merciful or beautiful interval makes the dreadful ones bearable?
• What would an innkeeper, farmer, mourner, or hunter need to predict?
• What happens to burial and rebirth when a god’s interval is removed?

Naming Workshop — Deferred

Naming is not the current task. First establish the five-part framework for each god. Then derive a Gravediggers’ moon-name from its observed consequence. Whether gods also have separate proper names, ritual names, or forbidden names remains undecided.

Eventually test names in ordinary speech: “Meet me when ___ returns.” They should work for Innkeeper and Shopkeeper, not only in ceremonial recitation. No candidate name has been approved.

Decision History and Superseded Ideas

• The original brief used moons as nights, cycles as months, and considered a larger year-like return. This analogy was superseded: nine day-like lunar attendances form a cycle, with no years or hours in mortal reckoning.
• One changing moon or multiple simultaneous moons were initial alternatives to counting distinct gods. Nine distinct gods taking successive turns is the selected basis; exact sky visibility remains open.
• A separate longer astrological ascendancy was proposed but not adopted. Do not reintroduce it as established timekeeping.
• Twelve and thirteen moons were considered; nine was selected as an intentional Dante reference.
• The early options were a divine procession, an imprisonment observance, Mother’s bodily rhythm, or merely mortal reckoning. The agreed basis is divine guarding duty created by imprisonment, imperfectly perceived by mortals. Bodily rhythms remain unapproved; mortal invention is not the origin.
• Extra days, dark vacancies, replacement gods, and correction intervals were explored but are not approved. A destroyed god simply removes its day.
• Individual names are explicitly deferred. The five-part development framework and Inferno inspiration are approved.

Future Notes and Dependencies

The nine individual god notes, temples, realms, and names have not been created. Their space is reserved here. No existing named god has been assigned to a slot. Flag proposed new entities for the author’s decision before expanding them into notes.

The shared references currently needed are Mother, Gravediggers, Soul, Gods, and the linked cosmology notes above. Keep established facts, mortal interpretations, author secrets, and exploratory possibilities distinct as work proceeds.