Library of Soul Society

[Alexander Kuma-Hebi]

OOC post: My idea is to have a thread in guides section where there would be listed short lore writings on Soul Society, like books of sorts. and well, we could fill in a library of sorts. If you people deem it good enough, then I suggest you move this thread to guides and remove this post from thread. Following is an opening and something I came up with. More incoming!

[Alexander Kuma-Hebi]

Soul Society Open Public Libraries

Here stands a big, white, but rather plain building in Seireitei. A few identical ones are scattered through Rukongai, in total, there are seven. As one enters, they find themselves within a single big room. Straight after entering, you are in a sort of clearing, with a few tables and chairs along them. A few feet deeper in the room is a big desk with lots of papers and scrolls on it, and an old librarian seemingly devoid of energy behind it, managing some paperwork apparently. Rest of the space is consumed by rows and rows of shelves, all filled with various books and scrolls. Yes, you are in one of Soul Society Public Libraries, where copies of certain non-classified materials from Gotei 13 and noble families archives are kept and made available to the public. As you approach the librarian's desk, he silently gives you the paper, which appears to be the list of currently available books, scrolls and other materials...

[Alexander Kuma-Hebi]

SPOILER: Click to show

{A Simple Man's Guide to Soul Society}

A Simple Man's Guide to Soul Society

by

Quan Shin Hen, Chief Loremaster, Third Seat of Squad Six

On Year nine hundred eighty fourth of the Thirty First, twenty first day of eleventh month

With great gratitude to Akashi Nekibo, esteemed Captain of Squad 1 and Commander of Gotei Thirteen, thirty first to hold the position, without whom this book would have never been published, may the King grant him long life and reign.

Table of Contents

Chapter I: The Beginning
Chapter II: The Time
Chapter III: The Seasons
Chapter IV: On Seireitei
Chapter V: On Rukongai
Chapter VI: On Government
Chapter VII: On Gotei Thirteen and other military
Chapter VII: On Great Noble Families
Appendix: Wilderness

Chapter I: The Beginning

In order to better understand Soul Society, one must know how the Soul Society itself came to be. It began over thirty thousand years ago, earliest records kept by Squad One suggest that Year one of the First, when counting of time in Soul Society begun, was between roughly thirty and thirty one thousand years ago, this coincides with the shifts, this will however be further addressed in later chapters. However, it should be noted that spirituality actually predates Soul Society, and that Soul King, supposedly, was already vastly powerful figure before the creation of Soul Society. Whatever process was used to create it, it is unknown much time was required for such a feat. Regardless, first written records are kept in Squad One and are regarding founding of Gotei Thirteen.

As for the creation of Soul Society, there are many works that cover the subject, but I will lay out the basics of how things went. Essentially, Soul King created a massive world, an entire dimension, which to this day, many millennia later is not yet fully explored nor charted. World of Soul Society is generally calm and temperate, with deep forests and lush pastures, land fertile and abundant with water. It is in such world that Soul King laid foundations to Soul Society, creating the Seireitei as a base of operations for his Shinigami forces and also a place where administration running Soul Society day to day would reside, as well as creating a ring of districts around Seireitei to house souls that would come to Soul Society, all district bearing number one were created at that time.

Afterwards, Soul King erected a separate dimension within Soul Society, and there erected his palace, then he withdrew from Soul Society, leaving it in capable hands, while he sealed his palace and placed himself in isolation, thus becoming the driving force of the Soul Cycle, being the judge of souls. Soul Society remained, and grew rapidly during these millennia since creation, from merely four districts, one on east, west, south and north, we came to have Rukongai split into four sections, depending on which side of the world they are located when observing from Seireitei, with each section having multiple dozens of districts. And yet, Soul Society grows.

Chapter II: The Time

Time in Soul Society still follows the basic rules of Human World. Day has twenty four hours, every hour sixty minutes, every minute sixty seconds,and a second in Soul Society lasts for as long in Soul Society as it would last in Human world. However, system of dates and years varies from that in Human world. Unlike Humans, whose years are numbered in AD and BC formats, in Soul Society, things are a bit different. In Soul Society, there are three ways of writing down and counting and numbering years. First way is simply taking the creation of Soul Society as starting point, and immediately after creation, the year was year was 1 AC, or year first after creation. Since no dates exist before creation of Soul Society, no years and dates are ever numbered in that era. This has been the oldest and simplest way of calculating years, and it has been instituted during the reign of first Captain Commander. It has remained in use for straight sixteen thousand years, as the official calendar.

However near the end of the reign of sixteenth Captain Commander, a new calendar has been instituted at the behest of Central 46, and a new way of calculating years. Years has been grouped in eras, and idea general was to keep large period of history separated into eras for convenience. This time, however, it is interesting to note that in this calendar time was defined for a period before creation of Soul Society. It was termed "Creation Era", and it lasted from hypothetical date of birth of Soul King up to the end of creation of Soul Society. No years are numbered for this era, nor dates, however when referencing this period, it is simply marked with CE, standing for creation era.

In this division, First Era begun with ending of creation of Soul Society, and lasted for the next eleven thousand years. Years of first era are numbered as for, example, IE 1, for first year of First Era, which also coincides with year one AC. Second Era started along with beginning of era of Calm, and lasted all the way to outbreak of Hollow Virus Epidemic (those would be roughly from 11,000-15,000 AC), and follows the same numbering as the First Era, IIE followed by a number of year. The Third era followed, and lasted afterwards for eight thousand years, and Fourth Era which followed lasted for another four. For those who still follow this calendar, we are now in Fifth Era, VE 984.

However, near the end of Third Era, roughly around IIIE 7879 (22,879 AC), a new calendar was adopted by reigning Captain Commander, rather than the matter being decided by Central 46. This Calendar is known as the Shift calendar, and it counts years and dates between shifts of Captain Commanders. It is a general rule that they roughly change every thousand years, though this is not a steadfast rule. However, keeping this in mind, this is quite simple calendar, given that time period is determined by reigning Captain Commander, and then simply a number of years of his reign is added. So, today, this is Year nine hundred eighty fourth of the Thirty First, meaning that this is nine hundred eighty fourth year of the reign of our Captain Commander, Akashi Nekibo the Wise. Shift calendar, while not necessarily the simplest one, is currently official calendar of Gotei Thirteen. However, recently debate has been started on an official calendar by Central 46, and while it is not over, it seems that we are soon bound to change calendar again.

Now, so far I talked about how the years themselves are numbered within Soul Society, but I still didn't touch the year, nor talked about it's length nor months. Now, before we understand year of Soul Society, we must talk about a certain anomaly. That anomaly is known as Time Bending. It is a natural effect, that makes time in Soul Society flow a tad bit faster than in Human World. It is speculated that this is an effect spilling into Soul Society from Dangai, however, I am not familiar enough with the causes of this anomaly to give any theories as o why it exist. However, it's effects are visible in soul Society making it's time flow a bit faster. It takes a while for the difference to accumulate to be noticed, however, it is there. For every four years that pass in Soul Society and Human World, Soul Society gets ahead of Human World by three days. In order to remedy this, one year of Soul Society has 366 days, as opposed to ordinary year of Human World with 365 days. However, Soul Society doesn't have leap years like Human World, with one additional day, all years in Soul Society are exactly 366 days long.

As for the months, Soul Society has different months than Human World. Instead of names, they are numbered from first to twelfth, and are usually marked with roman numerals when writing the date. They all have either 30 or 31 days, as it follows: first month has thirty one day, second, third and fourth have thirty, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth have thirty one day each, ninth, tenth and eleventh have thirty, and final, twelfth month has thirty and one day. Another interesting thing to note is that first day of the year is always first day of the week, it doesn't matter which day of the week last day of the previous year was, the first day of year shall always, always be first day of the week.

-WIP-