Passage of time in subterranean environments

[Denalz]

Anyone know how the passage of time is denoted in under-ground environments? Particularly years? Since they don't have access to the sun and stars I'm a bit stumped on this. Are seasons ever a thing? Thanks.

 

[Blackrat]

There was a description in some novels how in Menzoberranzan they count hours by magically warming a huge stone pillar and then observing it cool down gradually (this was back when drow had infrared vision)
But longer time periods, I have no idea. Maybe flooding of underground lake once a year, when the ice melts on the surface

 

[Denalz]

There was a description in some novels how in Menzoberranzan they count hours by magically warming a huge stone pillar and then observing it cool down gradually.
But longer time periods, I have no idea. Maybe flooding of underground lake once a year, when the ice melts on the surface

Ooh, the lake melting idea would actually work quite well since this environment is within an ice capped mountain. Thanks!

 

[Umbran]

Anyone know how the passage of time is denoted in under-ground environments? Particularly years?

There's also a possibly more interesting option: maybe those in underground environments... don't care about time in years!

We, on the surface, mark the passage of years because we have planning cycles on the order of seasons and years, in terms of crops and livestock, and sometimes seasonal weather changes we need to adapt to.

So, you have two options - introduce similar seasonal changes that happen in the underground environment, or... don't, and discard the measure of time in years for such cultures as irrelevant to them.

 

[jasper]

There's also a possibly more interesting option: maybe those in underground environments... don't care about time in years!

We, on the surface, mark the passage of years because we have planning cycles on the order of seasons and years, in terms of crops and livestock, and sometimes seasonal weather changes we need to adapt to.

So, you have two options - introduce similar seasonal changes that happen in the underground environment, or... don't, and discard the measure of time in years for such cultures as irrelevant to them.

OR, just count the years. Or since magic items recharge at dawn regardless how deep they are; deep dwellers know about years.

 

[Umbran]

OR, just count the years. Or since magic items recharge at dawn regardless how deep they are; deep dwellers know about years.

Well, they know about days. That some 365 (or whatever number) of days happens to be a "year" to those on the surface does not follow from items that recharge once per day. Or items that recharge once a month. Unless there's a natural cycle that's easily observable by the subetrranean culture, why shoudl they observe it as important, such that they'd count it?

That, of course, is also if their items recharge at surface dawn, which they may not. "Dawn" is the time the sun rises over the horizon on the surface - these people aren't on the surface, there is no horizon, and the sun never rises for them. It doesn't make logical (or metaphysical) sense to tie magic to rhythms that the people do not experience.

And, we can note interesting bits from nature. The human circadian rhythm, when not reset by bright light (preferably actual sunlight) actually tends to stretch to more like 25+ hours. Over just a month, that would completely dis-join the subterranean day from the surface day. How about the idea that magic items are set to the circadian rhythms of the people around them, or to those of the person they are attuned to? This gets the same effect as "once per day" without clinging to the event that never happens below ground.

 

[Superbeast20]

Ya know that's a really interesting question. Never really considered that.

 

[Celebrim]

Anyone know how the passage of time is denoted in under-ground environments? Particularly years? Since they don't have access to the sun and stars I'm a bit stumped on this. Are seasons ever a thing? Thanks.

Interesting question.

Speaking as someone that has been underground a lot, they probably have very vague notions of the passage of time. There has been studies done and peoples clocks stop syncing up with the 24 hour day after a relatively short time underground.

Seasons are only detectable underground within a very short distance of the entrance. Deeper in a cave you have year round constant temperature, so seasons wouldn't be really a thing.

With no changes in the environment occuring on a regular cycle, I think it likely that there won't be much interest per se in tracking the passage of time. You don't have crops dependent on weather cycles. You don't have day and night cycles. You don't have phases of the moon or things like that.

Any relative constants you might have are totally biological in nature - the length of a normal sleep. So you have a watch or a rest, and most people can potentially be awake for two watches or rests without needing a rest. But there will be no 'third watch' or 'first watch'. It's all just an unbroken chain of watches. You have other biological markers like the length of a pregnancy, or the length of time before an infant obtains maturity. But absent these markers, people would have only a rough sense of the passage of time, or how to count them. A human might say that a pregnancy lasts about 800 watches, depending on whether three watches actually add up to 24 hours (which they probably don't, they usually go a bit longer than that).

But overall I have the distinct impression that they won't care about seconds, minutes, hours, days, or what not. It will just be the endless dark.

 

[Lidgar]

I like the ice melting idea. Another, more fantastical option is reliance on some strange artifact, magical construct, or creature.

For example, there could be a cavern that has a giant mushroom that spews for a huge cloud of spores once per "year" (as the subterranean folk measure it).

Another could be an ancient dwarven statue that animates annually to slam his hammer into the ground, sending out shock waves and a thunderous sound throughout the cavern complex.

Or perhaps it is a huge purple crystal that ignites and sends forth a dazzling display of light once per month (similar to the Menzoberranzan idea, but it is an artifact of mysterious origin). All within the light see visions of the surface world as it is at that moment in time.

 

[The Black Ferret]

Certain plants, like mushrooms, might have a life cycle they could follow. Or you could have a stalactite that drips water at a regular rate, which fills a cistern that has marks to indicate how much time has passed based on how full it is, and then is emptied at the start of the new cycle.