Eorzea Time

See also: Reset

Eorzea Time (ET) is lied down by fundamental rules in Eorzea. First compiled by Lewphon in his work of "The Five Ages - An Eorzean Chronology", it was presented in "Dusty Tomes" during Legacy.

The in-game time is provided to the player via a clock found in the "Server Info" HUD element.

About

Eorzea Time affects the spawning of Unspoiled Nodes, Big Fish and Rank S Elite Marks. The A Realm Reborn Sightseeing Logs as well as the Stormblood sightseeing spot require specific times as well. Timers created from the Gathering Log will automatically set themselves to one bell (hour) before the node spawns, or as described in the table, approximately 3 minutes real time.

In an Interview, Michael-Christopher Koji Fox confirmed that the names of the week days as well as other (time) systems rely on the Elements system that was present in Final Fantasy XI.

The Cycle of Time

Cycles of time begin with the polar umbral element and circulate clockwise in the wheel. Following the Order on which the Twelve have alternating astral and umbral alignment, it can be assumed that at First, the cycle of time goes through all astral aligned elements, then it continues to go through the umbral aligned elements.

• 
  First comes the Astral Cycle.
• 
  The Umbral Cycle comes afterwards.

A Sun

A sun describes a "day" in Eorzea, being a "period which lasts for the duration of four cycles of the six elements". Seeing from the cycle of time, it can be assumed that the first and third cyacle will be –⚪ astral, while the second and fourth cycle will be ⚫ umbral.

Elements per bell

	1st ⚪ Cycle	2nd ⚫ Cycle	3rd ⚪ Cycle	4th ⚫ Cycle
	00:00	06:00	12:00	18:00
	01:00	07:00	13:00	19:00
	02:00	08:00	14:00	20:00
	03:00	09:00	15:00	21:00
	04:00	10:00	16:00	22:00
	05:00	11:00	17:00	23:00

Day and Night

The Day and Night time in Eorzea can mainly be put into tow parts:

• 06:00 AM - 05:59 PM ET: day
• 06:00 PM - 05:59 AM ET: night

From certain sound effects usually they can also be a third time (from 12:00 AM ET to 06:00 AM ET), though besides these there is no significant change.

Day and Night affects the music and the lighting of the world. Overworld zones and cities usually have different background music at night compared to day. Older outdoor dungeons may have different lighting depending on the time of day, although the lighting in most dungeons is unaffected by the current Eorzean time.

There are very few gameplay systems that are tied to daytime vs. nighttime. However, the most prominent uses of nighttime as a mechanic are in The Hunt system as conditions for spawning Rank S Elite Marks and in The Forbidden Land, Eureka where some enemies, classified as Ashkin, only spawn during night, which affect the availability to spawn certain Notorious Monsters, as those enemies need to be defeated. In addition, the some weekly Challenge Logs for Eureka require that a certain number of Ashkin be defeated. In Occult Crescent, Ashkin spawn in a more restricted ~5.5-Eorzean hour window, from approximately 10:30PM to 3:59AM ET.

A Week

According to the Interview, the days of the week have names. Knowing that a week spans 8 suns, and the cycle starts with ice, we can assume the days of the week are called the following:

Weekdays and their names

						⚪	⚫
Iceday	Watersday	Windsday	Lightningday	Firesday	Earthday	Astralday	Umbralday

Moon Phases

A moonphase lasts 4 eorzean days, starting with a New Moon at the first of the month. Watching the moon, the phases are as follows:

Moon Phases

🌑	🌒	🌓	🌔	🌕	🌖	🌗	🌘
New Moon	Waxing Crescent	Waxing Half Moon	Waxing Gibbous	Full Moon	Waning Gibbous	Waning Half Moon	Waning Crescent

The only influence the moon phase has right now is Okina in the Ruby Sea, since it can only be spawned during a Full Moon.

A Moon

A moon is described as four cycles of eight suns, and would classify as a month in Eorzea. A moon is therefore 32 Eorzean days.

The Cycle of a Moon

						⚪	⚫
1 🌑	2	3	4	5 🌘	6	7	8
9 🌗	10	11	12	13 🌖	14	15	16
17 🌕	18	19	20	21 🌔	22	23	24
25 🌓	26	27	28	29 🌒	30	31	32

Each Moon is said to be aligned with a deity of the Twelve, for example the first moon of a year belongs to Halone. It alternates as well between Astral Moons and Umbral Moons, which can be seen during the character creation.

A Year

The year is the length of twelve Moons. Every year is dedicated to one of the Twelves - the Year of the Fury, the Year of the Wanderer, the Year of the Destroyer etc.

An Epoch

Once all deities of the Twelve have had a year dedicated to them, the cycle starts anew. The culmination of these 12 years is called an epoch.

Units and Conversions

With all informaion, and also the measuring of time of an eorzean day to real-life time, following table of time conversion can be made:

Eorzea Time Units	Eorzea Time Sub-Units	Real Time Value
1 minute	60 seconds	2 11/12 seconds
1 bell	60 minutes	2 minutes, 55 seconds
1 sun	24 bells	70 minutes
1 week	8 suns	9 hours and 20 minutes
1 moon	4 weeks	37 hours and 20 minutes
1 year	12 moons	18 days and 16 hours

(Data obtained from ViolaRulan on GitHub.)