Are there compasses in D&D?

[Oryan77]

I run a normal 3.5 Planescape game and one of my players tried buying a compass in the last session. I couldn't find prices for a compass in any of my books. I wouldn't have thought this was a more modern item. There's sextants & magnets in the typical D&D world, but no compass?

I never really thought about how technologically advanced a compass is. If a compass is from a different era, where there any other types of equipment people used to gauge north & south besides the stars, moon, & sun? I'm not much of a history buff.

Also, isn't there something like a planar compass in one of the books? I thought I remembered seeing one but I couldn't find it.

 

[Henrix]

The compass was in use in europe in the 12th c, and in china a couple of centuries earlier. In D&D a lot of technology is more advanced than that, so it should probably be available.

 

[Cedric]

My answer? Setting dependent. Compasses rely on stable magnetic fields to function...if I don't want my game world planets to have stable magnetic fields or if I don't want magnetics to exist at all in my game world...then no, you won't find a compass.

However, in an earth like game world, yup, I'll throw 'em in, but in all but the biggest cities and learning centers they will probably be unheard of...unless I want a higher or slightly higher tech level.

 

[taliesin15]

Yeah, at least primitive compasses were available in the Middle Ages--oft times these were simply a pin on a piece of cork floating in water, which made it a bit dicey to use on a ship in heavy weather.

FWIW, other methods were more often used as navigation techniques--especially dead reckoning, and the flight of birds near coastlines. Many historians point out that the higher tech devices pretty much led to the spread of European influence, especially beginning with the Portuguese spread down the west coast of Africa, round the horn, up to the Orient.

 

[reanjr]

I run a normal 3.5 Planescape game and one of my players tried buying a compass in the last session. I couldn't find prices for a compass in any of my books. I wouldn't have thought this was a more modern item. There's sextants & magnets in the typical D&D world, but no compass?

I never really thought about how technologically advanced a compass is. If a compass is from a different era, where there any other types of equipment people used to gauge north & south besides the stars, moon, & sun? I'm not much of a history buff.

Also, isn't there something like a planar compass in one of the books? I thought I remembered seeing one but I couldn't find it.

Well, on the planes I don't see how a nonmagical compass would function. Magentic planetary fields are formed by spinning cores of metal. If a plane does not have a core (which none of them would to my knowledge) then it would not have working compasses. Unless you presume that the planes have a magnetic field anyway just because. Certainly a valid way to go about it.

Technologically, compasses would be available in standard D&D style campaigns, though I think they would be pretty expensive. On the other hand, the planet may not have a magnetic field similar to that of Earth. If the core of the planet is not made up in a similar manner (one fast layer spinning over a static or slower layer) then there would be no magnetic field. This is unlikely to support life as radiation would fry it without the protective magnetic field.

But, a planet can have a magnetic field but not a stable one like Earth's. At least a few times in Earth's history, the poles have flopped around. These pole changes are usually preceded by several (hundred?) years of instability wherein you will have numerous localized poles. This might actually be a kind of cool idea for a campaign. Doesn't help much with long range navigation, but you can make magical power centers the poles which all compasses point to.

Anyway. Compasses may or may not work in a D&D campaign. Even if they do, they may or may not work on the planes. They would technologically viable if they did work. And there is no official compass from WotC to my knowledge.

 

[reanjr]

Addendum:

Sunstones should always work. They are limited in pointing you directly East or West and require the sun for navigation. The Vikings were probably using them before the 8th century. Basically, by polarizing light from the sun you can cast a prism-like effect that tells you what the angle of the sun is. When calibrated and used over the period of a day (or perhaps just at noon, I'm not clear on that), it could tell you your latitude (not longitude, a much more difficult thing to determine due to the arbitrariness of it).

 

[kirinke]

Also, remember that most folks would use the stars as a way of reckoning distance and direction as well as familar landmarks too. Unless they were nomadic, most folks tended to stay in one place.

 

[Numion]

FWIW, other methods were more often used as navigation techniques--especially dead reckoning, and the flight of birds near coastlines.

The stuff I read about micronesian navigation recently was very intriguing. It depended on memorizing nightsky, currents and birds.

 

[Mark CMG]

This has the basics of the development of the compass -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass

Although, I am just happen to be finishing up listening to an audio book on the subject, Compass by Alan Gurney. Facinating stuff and I recommend it.

Wind and stars one what you could see of land were the primary navigational tools of the West until the compass was developed in the 12th century. The modern "liquid" compass really didn't develop until the mid-19th century. This book drives home how wildly inaccurate compasses were right up through present times, how many accidents were caused by overconfidence in having falsely solved the mysteries surrounding those inaccuracies, and how developments in the materials used aboard ships over the centuries only served to further cause problems and confound those looking for navigational solutions. It's incredibly more complex than one might think.

 

[Nonlethal Force]

Technologically, I think any good alchemist should be able to know about magnetism enough to figure it out.

Of course, the bigger if that needs to be answered is if the planet has a magnetic field ...

Another question is if the magnetic field point North ... or West ... or some random direction...

Granted if the planet does have a magnetic field North would probably just be "the direction the compass points," but that's no guarantee, either.