How do you write the dates in a historical plot? Like you know, the novels with kingdoms and empires. I think you can create your own scheme but I don't have brain cells left for that.
Solar Calendars (aka what is common in West)
Lunar Calendars (aka what is common in East)
- Infact the above two can be used for an interesting misdirection as it is not immediately obvious whether the day/calendar is Solar or Lunar. So you can make your readers believe it is solar calendar (as that is what they would assume by default) and then pull the rug under them by having the events be closer/further than what they thought the case was.
Depending on the series and the number of suns and moons for your story, this idea can be extended a lot.
AD / BC systems - Standard stuff, change the name and the event which is the 0 of the system (formation of empire for example).
Cycle systems - Like say the empires/life/civilization/universe exists as a list of cycles, and this is the 4th cycle.
Subcycle/Era systems - Like the historical eras, or when the cycle in the cycle system is too big to make sense to use.
Empire system - X years since the ABC Empire was established.
Japanese system - Aka based on the present emperor
For more fantasy-ish ideas,
- Maybe a system based on eclipses
- or based on regular mana bursts from the central world tree etc
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Here is the thing though, all this systems use the idea of being defined based on a start. What if we do the opposite?
So consider something a bit insane, say, Consider a tragedy, an end of the world occurrence (a mana boom, ragnarok, meteor impact, heat death etc) that is guaranteed to occur no matter how much you try to change your fate.
A world such as that might reasonably define their calendars as "50046 years till Ragnarok" for example.
