A workweek being 5 days fits with a 7 day week, 5 working days, two days off. It sounds like Tendays are some sort of misunderstanding of Workweeks? Or, perhaps a Tenday is the 10 working days in a two week period.
Or maybe in that world, there are no days off? Yikes!
The Metric System considered a 10 say week but it was a non-starter of an idea. In the end, those working out the details of Metric just stuck with conventional Earth time.
As Sanvael says, Tendays taken literally, rather than 2 x (5 days on, 2 days off), are just way too many headaches while adding nothing.
Reading SCAG, a tenday is 10 days also known as rides, a month is 3 tendays (30 days exactly), a year is 12 months plus there are 5.25 holidays that don't actually belong to a month (365 days a year, and leap day every 4 years).
I'm pretty sure the "workweeks" described in the PHB and DMG downtime activities are referring to standard 5 days on/2 days off weeks like we are used to (otherwise some of the time frames don't add up).
That said, I wish they had just used days regardless of whether they were going to change the amount of days in a week or not (and especially because they did), if even just because "week" doesn't indicate whether it takes 5 or 7 days of work etc.
My thought is that Xanathar's is running off a '7 day week' on the realms calandar (all the other worlds ect), where specifically Faerunian calandar is the 'tenday' and they refer to the tenday as their 'week'.
They can exists parallel to eachother, just two systems of telling time used by different worlds/cultures. Use what fits your game best
I have always used tendays in my d&d campaigns. With every month composed of 3 tendays and each tenday composed of Firstday through Seventhday. Eighthday and Ninthday are like the weekends and Tenthday is a day reserved for worship. That means that each thirty day month has 9 tendayend days and there are 21 days of work. Many peasants and those with working class jobs might opt to work Eighthday and Ninthday, but Tenthday involves prayer to each man's god or gods. Compare that to the earth calendar. February, with its 28 days, has 20 week days and 8 weekend days, months with 30 days or 31 days add some weekend and week days. This all works out very closely with my Faerûnian tendsdays.
Think about it. It makes a lot of sense to me!
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Reading SCAG, a tenday is 10 days also known as rides, a month is 3 tendays (30 days exactly), a year is 12 months plus there are 5.25 holidays that don't actually belong to a month (365 days a year, and leap day every 4 years).
I'm pretty sure the "workweeks" described in the PHB and DMG downtime activities are referring to standard 5 days on/2 days off weeks like we are used to (otherwise some of the time frames don't add up).
That said, I wish they had just used days regardless of whether they were going to change the amount of days in a week or not (and especially because they did), if even just because "week" doesn't indicate whether it takes 5 or 7 days of work etc.
Xanthar's Guide to Everything is explicit about the length of a week in regards to downtime activity and work weeks
The Sword Coast tenday is specific to that setting only and not a general rule.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
My thought is that Xanathar's is running off a '7 day week' on the realms calandar (all the other worlds ect), where specifically Faerunian calandar is the 'tenday' and they refer to the tenday as their 'week'.
They can exists parallel to eachother, just two systems of telling time used by different worlds/cultures. Use what fits your game best
I have always used tendays in my d&d campaigns. With every month composed of 3 tendays and each tenday composed of Firstday through Seventhday. Eighthday and Ninthday are like the weekends and Tenthday is a day reserved for worship. That means that each thirty day month has 9 tendayend days and there are 21 days of work. Many peasants and those with working class jobs might opt to work Eighthday and Ninthday, but Tenthday involves prayer to each man's god or gods. Compare that to the earth calendar. February, with its 28 days, has 20 week days and 8 weekend days, months with 30 days or 31 days add some weekend and week days. This all works out very closely with my Faerûnian tendsdays.
Think about it. It makes a lot of sense to me!