Axial Tilt of Forgotten Realms?

[Desdichado]

As pointed out here, axial tilt corresponding to slightly colder weather than Earth is a red herring. The Earth has gone through fairly dramatic climactic swings from the coldest depths of the ice age to the balmy Mesozoic where there was no permanent ice cap at either pole. All of these changes can easily take place without the benefit of changing the axial tilt. If you want to be that serious, you need to probably hire an expert in global climatology and get him to run a bunch of "what if" scenarios. The inputs for climate are extremely complex.

 

[der_kluge]

jgbrowning, you do know that nothing in the Forgotten Realms is available to the D20 license, right? I mean, you so much as put the words "water" and "deep" in the same sentence, and WoTC will be all over you like fleas to a dog.

But I'm sure you knew that.


That said, someone answer me this - a world with NO axial tilt - would it have any seasons, or would the climates never really change?

I mean, Earth is special with its axial tilt, which was probably caused by a meteor impact. Most planets have no axial tilt.

 

[Umbran]

From what I understand, tilt is probably one of the most important thing.

For climate, perhaps, but perhaps not. As has already been said, Earth has gone from planetwide-balmy to ice age without changing it's tilt on iota. And it means different things on worlds different distances from the star, or with stars of different temperature. And it means absolutely nothingif the game world doesn't follow an Earthlike solar system model at all. What if your planet isn't even a sphere?

And your original statment was aout mapping, wasn't it? Knowledge of axial tilt is important if you're creating a new map using primitive instruments. However, it means diddly when asking how far Boston is from Chicago.

 

[jgbrowning]

For climate, perhaps, but perhaps not. As has already been said, Earth has gone from planetwide-balmy to ice age without changing it's tilt on iota. And it means different things on worlds different distances from the star, or with stars of different temperature. And it means absolutely nothingif the game world doesn't follow an Earthlike solar system model at all. What if your planet isn't even a sphere?

And your original statment was aout mapping, wasn't it? Knowledge of axial tilt is important if you're creating a new map using primitive instruments. However, it means diddly when asking how far Boston is from Chicago.

I was assuming a currantly earth-like world and looking at the effects axial tilt has. Ice ages etc. weren't really in the area of my inquirely, just trying to get a grasp about what tilt does.

I'm writing a concise help guide to mapping a world, with little speculative climatology. What speculative climatology there will be will consist of only changing one factor at a time. More than that and things get too complicated very fast and are usually in the realm of "cool, but this is not game useful." Makeing a world and mapping a world are very similiar, but I'm focusing on how things look on a map because it's often easier to understand.

I asked about FR because I'd assumed the knowledge would be common considering how much detail's been put in the realms for all these years. It was more of a passing curiosity to try and see what's been done before.

joe b.

 

[jgbrowning]

jgbrowning, you do know that nothing in the Forgotten Realms is available to the D20 license, right? I mean, you so much as put the words "water" and "deep" in the same sentence, and WoTC will be all over you like fleas to a dog.

But I'm sure you knew that.

yeah, just asking about a popular world to see if any information existed about it.

That said, someone answer me this - a world with NO axial tilt - would it have any seasons, or would the climates never really change?

I mean, Earth is special with its axial tilt, which was probably caused by a meteor impact. Most planets have no axial tilt.

Yeah, no seasons. Unless perhaps you have a very wild orbit like at winter your twice as far away from the sun as you are during summer.

I think all the planets have tilts, with the inner one's having smaller tilts in general.

joe b.

 

[Desdichado]

That said, someone answer me this - a world with NO axial tilt - would it have any seasons, or would the climates never really change?

I mean, Earth is special with its axial tilt, which was probably caused by a meteor impact. Most planets have no axial tilt.

No seasons. Earth is not special in this regard, though -- as a matter of fact, most planets in our solar system do have axial tilt. In fact, one of them at least (Uranus) has an extreme axial tilt to the point where it's essentially rolling around in it's orbit on its side.

Mars, for example, has a similar axial tilt to the Earth's.

 

[der_kluge]

Well, color me stupid. Shows you how much astronomy I know.

 

[Desdichado]

Well, color me stupid. Shows you how much astronomy I know.

What color is that exactly? Let's see...

 

[jgbrowning]

Well, color me stupid. Shows you how much astronomy I know.

There's so much to know that you're pretty much bound to know almost nothing. I find satisfaction in knowing that no matter how much I know about something, I don't really. Keeps me from being arrogant, which was a fault of my youth, and it keeps me forever amazed at how things work.

I'm just happy when I can explain what little I know to someone else, and vice versa.

joe b.

 

[Hawkshere]

As a general suggestion related to this topic, any gamers wanting to play around with semi-realistic planetology are encourged to look for Traveller materials on this topic. Book 6 (Scouts) originally covered this topic, but a more recent take on planet building can be found in the GURPS Traveller supplement First In.

First In is a great source book, even if you don't play Traveller in any version.