The Four Seasons of Zorhros
Jölthar: The Great Dark
Jölthar is cold, clear, and full of stars. Nights are long enough for old stories to feel close. This holds Jölthar, the cycle of lanterns and warmth carried into dark places. Tarak is born under Jölthar, which suits his nature perfectly.
Jölthar
Jölfest: The Emberwalk
The Emberwalk is where hands are first held, secrets are whispered, and hearts secretly hope for something new. Sometimes, if the night is brave enough, a first kiss happens beneath the glow.
Jölthar is the winter season on Zorhros. During its deepest days, the twelve-day celebration of Jölfest begins. Ancient Geyser Lamps are lit along the Ridge paths in blue and amber, honoring the star-fragments that once fell through the winter sky. Over time, this tradition became a rite of passage for older teens and young adults.
They walk beneath frost-bright cliffs and silent moons, pretending they have only come for the lights.
But everyone knows better. For some, it is only a winter tradition. For others, it is the night something quietly begins.
Jölfest: Lighting of the
Luminara Cylinder
Jölfest marks the final twelve nights of Jölthar, the deep winter season on Zorhros. It is a time for celebrating the last days of darkness and the promise of Várthar, the returning spring.
Across the city, children walk the frosted streets carrying candles, their songs rising into the cold air while families gather with warm mulled wine, silver-and-gold Jölthar rings, and lanterns glowing against the snow.
At the heart of the plaza towers the Luminara Cylinder — the Zorhrosian answer to a Christmas tree. Grown directly from the planet’s crust, it is a massive column of fused glass-sand and alloy, its transparent shell holding drifting luminal dust and tiny phase-crystals that catch the red dwarf’s light and bend it into living color.
Inside, the lights move slowly, like a million stars turning in silence.
For the children standing below, bundled against the cold and staring upward, Jölfest is more than a festival.
It is proof that even the longest darkness eventually gives way to light.
Jölthar: The Great Dark
Jölthar is cold, clear, and full of stars. Nights are long enough for old stories to feel close. This holds Jölthar, the cycle of lanterns and warmth carried into dark places. Tarak is born under Jölthar, which suits his nature perfectly.
Várthar: The Great Awakening
The season of Várthar on Zorhros is brief, windy, and unpredictable. Dust storms still sweep across the open basins, but hidden seeds begin to wake in protected cracks and shaded gullies. It is the season of rising light, red winds, and the Great Awakening. Auren is born in the cycle of Great Awakening.
Várthar (Spring) on Zorhros is greeted as the Dawning Season and marks a pivotal shift in the Zorhrosian cycle, celebrated through the Feast of First Bloom. As the harsh chill of Jölthar recedes, the first resilient flora begins to stir within the shadows of the Ridge and the scrap-littered dunes. This period is more than a seasonal change; it is a ritual of survival and hope.
Communities gather to honor the ancient traditions of the festival, sharing preserved stores and marking the soil where new growth is spotted. It is a time for mending—both the mechanical salvaged parts of the scrapyards and the social bonds of the found families that inhabit them, looking toward the light after the Great Dark.
This Dawning Season, as it is often referred to, marks the awakening of the dust-choked plains. As First Bloom approaches, the dormant flora of Zorhros begin their rapid, violent ascent through the silt. Ridge Day stands at the heart of this cycle—a time of environmental revival where the atmospheric pressure shifts, allowing the subterranean rivers to swell and feed the desperate landscape. Cultural activities peak as communities gather to witness the Geyser Wake, celebrating the return of moisture to the Ridge.
Ridge Day
A Hope Bay tradition. Young skiv riders on thick, bulky, training boards gather near the Ridge to watch, compete, and boast. It is a day of dangerous pride where legends are born or broken in the dust.
Várthar
The Súmarthar Season
The Súmarthar Season, mostly offered to as the season of Hidden Teeth as the locals call it. It, is the longest and most intense cycle of the Zorhrosian year, characterized by unrelenting heat and vibrant golden hues that wash over the Ridge. Life during these months is a test of endurance, where the sun reaches its peak, drawing out the moisture from the deep massive underwater reserves.
The intense dry heat triggers the planet’s geyser networks, sending towering plumes of steam and mineral-rich spray into the shimmering atmosphere. For the inhabitants of Zorhros, this season is one of early-morning labor and long, silent mid-day shelters, waiting for the brief reprieve of the star-filled nights.
The height of the Súmarthar Season, where the sun reaches its zenith and the citizens of Zorhros honor the life-giving heat and the shifting currents of the planet.
The Great Sun Festival celebrates the peak radiance of the sun. Citizens of Hope Bay gather in the scrap-plazas of The Ridge, sharing synthesized juices and marking the zenith when the shadows nearly disappear into the red dust.
Sol Day
The Geyser Wake
Synchronized with the planet's heating core, the subterranean steam geysers of the northern plains begin their quarterly cycle. It is a time of both danger and wonder, as the shifting steam creates rainbows across the scorched horizon.
Solthar: Survival Rewarded
Harvests are brought in from greenhouse settlements, protected valleys, fungal caverns, and water-fed terraces. This is the season of Solfest, when Aunt Lavinia assigned Kailum his official orbit day—the last day of Solthar when the year leans once again toward Jölthar the Great Dark.
The Solthar Season
A time of bounty and reward celebration and relief as festivals acknowledge you survived the intense heat of the past season. As the sun of Zorhros reaches its lower arc, the Ridge enters the season of Solthar. This is a time of atmospheric shifting, where the blazing desert heat yields to crisp, piercing winds. The sand takes on a deeper, ochre hue, and the nights lengthen, pulling the Great Dark closer with every setting sun. It is a season of harvest and hoarding, as the inhabitants of the Ridge prepare for the coming frost.
First Blooms of Shadow Fall
The arrival of the first resilient flora after the heat, celebrated with shared water-rights and communal gatherings across the Ridge outposts.
Solfjest
The Harvest Festival. Lanterns, spiced roots, skiv tricks, and repair competitions fill settlement squares. It is part market, part feast, and part quiet prayer May this be enough last us through the Great Dark.
The Night of Three Moons
As the primary season of Solthar reaches its zenith, the skies of Zorhros witness a rare celestial alignment. The three sisters, Oryn, Lumaer and Vesk, align in a perfect triad, casting an iridescent silver glow over the scarp.
Whispers of ancient star-maps and forgotten constellations guide the Ridge-dwellers to their high sanctuaries. It is a time for quiet reflection, for the air is thin and the spirits of the Forgotten are said to wander the dust-plains below.
Citizens of the scrapyards climb the highest wreckage piles to witness the triad. No fires are lit on this night. Instead, bioluminescent crystals are unearthed from the grottoes, illuminating the rituals of the Geyser Wake and the silent watchers on the Ridge Day cliffs.