In Ouvezia, the day is divided into 10 watches, 6 during the daylight hours and 4 during the night hours. Each of those watches is governed by one of the
Watchers of Ouvezia. Typically, rituals and acitivities under the domain of a certain watcher tend to center around the time of the associated watch.
First Watch: The Dawn Watch
She-Who-Opens-The-Door has the first watch, starting at the threshold that invites the day in. New endeavors are usually started early in the day: Ships leave the harbor, people leave their homes to travel, or new buildings or crafts get started during this time. It starts the moment the sun's body starts showing on the horizon and the sundials start showing a shade.
Second Watch: The Warm Watch
The early morning after dawn is governed by
Fire-Within-Stone - hers are the routines and the family rituals as well as simply spending time with your loved ones. If you're not planning to start a new endeavor, you're usually starting the day slowly, before taking on the day's work in the Third Watch.
Third Watch:
Fourth Watch: The Woven Watch
Fifth Watch: The Bloody Watch
Sixth Watch: The Echoing Watch
Seventh Watch: The Hidden Watch
Eighth Watch: The Mourning Watch
Ninth Watch: The Starry Watch
Tenth Watch: The Trading Watch
Ever since Lamariou's time the sun has been the dominating feature of Ouvezian culture, and so time was measured by the sundial ever since their arrival in their now-homeland. Keeping the hours at night has proven to be more challenging, especially when Ouvezians discovered that the length of the hours changed with the time.
Over time, The Keeper's Order has developed a sophisticated system of keeping track of the changing length of hours at night and the populace has come to rely on the bells signaling the hours. Somehow, though, with time the ebb and flow of the seasons has become ingrained in Ouvezia's people and they instinctively move faster when the daylight watches get shorter. Summer is not only a season of abundance when it comes to food and fruits, but also of time.
Utopian traders are still puzzled by this weird people - they tried to sell their novel timekeeping devices to them, arguing they would finally know the real time, for how could you want to deal with hours that change their duration?! But no one as willing to give up the old ways that have structured their lives since Lamariou's time, and thus no one would buy something that was guaranteed to be the wrong time most of the time.
The Utopian storage house in Linal actually has one of those fancy clocks installed. Unlike most of the Ouvezian bells, this one sports elaborate chimes that play different tunes at different times of the day. It was meant to be an advertisement for the new clocks, but the people of Linal were more bemused than enthused about the clock that rang seemingly at random and started calling it the "Silly Monkey", since whenever the chimes played, a tiny animated Tarassyr figurine appears and mimics playing the music.
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