Is your world round? Do the PCs know it.

[Galethorn]

Yril (my homebrew world, and consequently, the name of the 'earth'-goddess) is round. And people are smart enough to do the 'same sized sticks, same day, different lattitude, measure the shadows' experiment, and this knowledge is widespread enough that only the most backwards, barbaric fellow would scratch his head if you asked him the shape of the world. That said, nobody (on the side of the large continent on which the campaign is set) knows what most of the world looks like, so about 95% of the stuff people say about such places is purely conjecture or 'made up'. The remaining 5% is from an older culture that did a bit more exploring, but time and three falls into chaos destroyed most records.

There, I think I've explained myself well enough.

 

[Romnipotent]

Round, but the part they are part of is rather limited. Circumnavigation would be impossible cause I said so.

 

[Woas]

My worlds on a mobious strip. And I actually made one and drew the 'world map' out on it and use it to explain and show the parties where abouts on the world for refrence. So I guess its pretty common knowledge that the world is like.

 

[Aeolius]

While my undersea campaign uses the World of Greyhawk, I made Celene a dyson sphere with a vast inner ocean.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Ofc the worlds flat. What other shape could it be ? While we're discussing the shape of the world you should join my favorite orginzation http://www.flat-earth.org/ .

 

[Umbran]

On a torus, the north-south axis would behave this way too, as well as the east-west axis.

Eh, well, that depends on your definitions....

I could go on for pages and get totally off-topic listing all the topological differences between a sphere and a torus

Yes, but they all come down to "the torus has a hole through it, the sphere doesn't".

About definitions - you may say that the person going north/south never changes direction, because he never really reaches the pole (he cannot, because the axis doesn't actually intersect the surface of the object). One can just as easily define a singularity line on the torus - lie a plane on top of the donut, the torus/plane intersection will be a line, a circle along the top of the torus. That can be your "pole", and where you chnage from going north to south.

This becomes more obvious if you consider the object to be spinning around the north-south axis. Then north and south can be defined relative to that spin.

 

[GMouser]

Mine is round but they think it's flat...

In my world people are are very much afraid of opposing common 'wisdom' which is perpetrated by religous orders and other political entities. The word is round but people believe it to be flat. To the west and south are ocean but common people 'know' that if you sail too far in either direction you will fall off the edge of the world into hell or the equivalent. To the east and north are mountains and people 'know' that if you go far enough the mountains keep getting higher and higher until you climb into the heavens themselves which is an offense to the gods who's minions will smite you down and send you to hell or the equivalent. Either way same result.

 

[Aust Diamondew]

In my world people are are very much afraid of opposing common 'wisdom' which is perpetrated by religous orders and other political entities. The word is round but people believe it to be flat. To the west and south are ocean but common people 'know' that if you sail too far in either direction you will fall off the edge of the world into hell or the equivalent. To the east and north are mountains and people 'know' that if you go far enough the mountains keep getting higher and higher until you climb into the heavens themselves which is an offense to the gods who's minions will smite you down and send you to hell or the equivalent. Either way same result.

Thats great except the part about the world not really being flat. Being able to climb a mountain and do battle with a dietie's avatar is proably alot of fun or falling over the edge of the world and fighting throngs of demons.

 

[Testament]

My world is spherical, since I couldn't be bothered coming up with something else.

In addition, the Heliocentric model of the Universe is the approved model by religion in one of the major nations (The Blessed Empire of Hetran, a bunch of monotheistic Sun-worshippers), and attempts to disprove it will get you burned. Most people don't worry about either fact, although sages in other parts of the world are working to determine whether or not the heliocentric model is correct.

For the record, the technology level is around 15/16th Century Europe, and science is on the rise. Why? Because magic is too damn hard, but science can aid the ungifted!

 

[Angel Tarragon]

It is a round sphere nine times the size of earth with everyone but the uneducated knowing this, and that is a very small percentage. Every settlement larger than a thorp has an educational system.