The Imperial Year

• First Taxing Season: The first harvests occur in the month of Ascending Fire, and the first tax-collection occurs of landowners then. This is traditionally when the Great Houses pay the annual upkeep necessary for the Legions and other Imperial functions within their financial responsibilities, often paid at Imperial facilities as they arrive in the Imperial City for the Social Season.
• Social Season Begins: The Social Season of the Great Houses begins in the Imperial City in the month of Ascending Fire. The Imperial Palace is quickly overrun by Dynasts, and many of the choice inns and rental villas in the Imperial City fill up with less-regarded Dynasts who cannot be found a place in the Imperial Palace.
• Deliberative Session Begins: The Imperial Deliberative returns to session the second week of Ascending Fire.

• Deliberative Session Ends: The Imperial Deliberative retires for the season the last week of Descending Earth.
• Second Taxing Season: The second harvests occur in the month of Descending Earth, and the second tax-collection occurs of landowners then. This is traditionally when the Great Houses pay their tithes to the Scarlet Throne.

• Social Season Ends: The Social Season of the Great Houses ends in the Imperial City at the end of Resplendent Air, and most of the Dynasts retire to their country estates, practically vacating the Imperial Palace.
• Third Taxing Season: The third harvests occur in the month of Descending Air, and the third tax-collection occurs of landowners then. This is traditionally when the Great Houses pay annual stipends to their scions, to allow them to prepare for next year's Social Season.
• Hunting Season: In the month of Descending Air, the Dynastic Hunting Season begins, which occasionally features hunting trips, but mostly amounts to an excuse to throw lavish parties in rural hunting lodges and estates.

• Calibration Festivities: All over the Blessed Isle, Calibration is celebrated as the time when the Anathema were thrown down by the Dragon-Blooded Host. Children dress as all manner of monsters and evil spirits, including legendary Anathema (though the Bull of the North was acknowledged to be in bad taste, in sensitivity to recent Tepet tragedies) and go from house to house, extorting sweets and money in the fashion that the ancient Anathema used to. On the final night of Calibration, however, the children in costumed are "rounded up" and herded to Immaculate temple grounds, where they throw their costumes into the bonfires that burn there, and then set off fire-crackers to frighten away the spirits of Calibration.