Continuity/Roulean Calendar and Portal Years

Over the life of Asheron's Call, we have been presented with several Roulean Calendar dates, and how they relate to the Portal Year calendar system used on Dereth.

Beta

The text The Reign of Alfrega has several dates in it, and also outlines the general history of Aluvia. Stormwaltz also provided a list of dates that he worked from when writing the Reign of Alfrega in beta.

Roulean Year	Event
787 RC	Reign of Pwyll II begins. It lasts 17 years.
804 RC	Viamont invades Aluvia, reign of Pwyll II ends.
804 RC	Reign of Alfric begins. It lasts 20 years.
824 RC	Reign of Alfric ends.
824 RC	Reign of Theolaud begins. It lasts 30 years.
854 RC	Reign of Theolaud Ends.
854 RC	Reign of Alfrega begins. It lasts 14 years.
860 RC	Public resistance of the Orts begins.
861 RC	Tharesun and Harlune seek out the hidden camps of Orts.
868 RC	83 Orts are captured in Celdon.
868 RC	Reign of Alfrega ends.
868 RC	Reign of Osric begins. It lasts 31 years.
899 RC	Reign on Osric ends.
899 RC	Reign of Pwyll III begins. It lasts 25 years.
924 RC	Reign of Pwyll III ends.
924 RC	Reign of Cellric II begins. It is not known how long it lasts.
1311 RC	After approximately 400 years pass, the reign of Cedraic III begins. It is listed as having an unknown end date, but lasting 10 years, implying it is the current reign.
Present Day	"Good King Cedraic" reigns in Aluvia during this time.

At this point, these dates exist more or less in a vacuum; there is no direct connection to the Portal Year system. One could theorize that, if Good King Cedraic and Cedraic III are the same person, and Cedraic III's reign has lasted 10 years since 1311, the "present day" in the Roulean Calendar is 1321. One could also reasonably assume that "present day" could be anywhere from -15 PY, when Aluvians first began to arrive in Dereth, to 10 PY, when Release occurs.

AC:DM

With the release of Asheron's Call: Dark Majesty, players were given the AC:DM CD Lore. Among these files was the Ages of the Empyrean, which outlined the history of Auberean. It also contains a few valuable pieces of information regarding the Roulean Calendar:

Eipoth	Portal Year	Roulean Year	Event
ME 564	-15 PY*	1261 RC	Humans arrive on Dereth.
ME 579	0 PY	1276 RC	Olthoi Queen is defeated.
ME 591**	12 PY	1284 RC	Marae Lassel opens.
*Stated in numerous other sources. **extrapolated from 1:1 ratio of Eipothi to PY.

We start running into issues here:

First, our theory about the beta timeline's present day being 1321 RC are invalidated - that date has yet to occur according to this new timeline. At the very least, this pushes back the timeframe for Cedraic III's reign. And at most, it pushes back all previous dates, if you stick to timespans Stormwaltz laid out.

Second, we have incosistancies in the ammount of time that is passing on each calendar. Between the first two events, humans arriving and humans defeating the Olthoi Queen, 15 years pass on each calednar. However, between the sescond and third events, 12 years pass on the Yalaini and Portal Year calendars, but only 8 years pass on the Roulean calendar.

Our options are:

1. Ispar years and Auberean years are at a 1:1 ratio, and the last date is incorrect - it should be 1288 RC when Marae Lassel opens.
2. Ispar years and Auberean years are at a 1:1.5 ratio, and the first date is incorrect - it should 1266 RC when humans first arrive on Dereth.

With only these three dates to work from, we can't really draw any conclusions. The easiest assumption is that the writers created a 1:1 ratio for Ispar:Auberean years, because it would be very easy to convert dates. But just because its the easiest, doesn't mean its correct.

The History of Auberean

In early 2003, Turbine released another timeline called The History of Auberean. We are presented new information:

Portal Year	Roulean Year	Event
-1441 PY	324 RC	Jojiism founded.
-874 PY	???	The Yalaini open the first portal to Ispar. It goes to Aluvian lands.
-869 PY	704 RC	Viamont invades Aluvia. The reign of Pwyll II ends and the reign of Alfric begins.
-779 PY	765 RC	Reign of Alfrega begins.
-779 PY	765 RC	Harlune stays behind on Ispar during an expedition.
-758 PY	779 RC	Reign of Osric begins.
-540 PY	924 RC	Gharu'n armies seige the Roulean capital of Tirethas.
-358 PY	1046 RC	Emperor Kou unites the Sho under his rule.
-15 PY	???	The portals created by the Sundering begin to appear on Ispar in the Aluvian lands, and the first humans begin to arrive on Dereth.

A quick look at this information reveals that the dates created by Stormwaltz in the beta regarding Aluvian history have been retconned. Aluvia was no longer invaded in 804 RC, it was invaded in 704 RC, for example.

By examining these dates, another thing is immediately clear: spar years and Auberean years are not at a 1:1 ratio, they are at a 1:1.5 ratio. For every year that passes on Auberean, one and a half years pass on Ispar, and for every year that passes on Ispar, two-thirds of a year passes on Auberean.

Upon closer exanimation, one can reach the following formulas for converting between PY and RC:

RC = (2/3) * PY + 1284

PY = (3/2) * RC - 1926

However, If you plug in the dates from the AC:DM CD Lore in these formulas, it won't work. So those dates could also be considered retconned.

Conclusion

If you need to convert between Portal Years and Roulean Calendar, use the following formulas:

RC = (2/3) * PY + 1284

PY = (3/2) * RC - 1926

Due to the added complexity of not having a 1:1 year conversion, when a text mentions that something occured X years ago, simply assume they mean that many years on the planet where the event occured.

Example 1: The text The Rise and Fall of the Tanada states that the Tanada clan arose no more than 500 years ago. This text was discovered in 17 PY. 17 PY would be approximately 1295 RC. Since the event occurred on Ispar, we will subtract 500 from 1295. This puts the approximate date the Tanada clan arose at 795 RC.

Example 2: The lore article The Origins and Current Disposition of Viamont states that King Varicci di Corcosi launched simultaneous attacks on Roulea and Aluvia 20 years ago. This article was published in 2004, which corresponds to 15 PY. 15 PY would be approximately 1294 RC. Since the event occurred on Ispar, we will subtract 20 from 1294. This puts the approximate date of Varicci's invasions at 1274 RC.