Passage of time in subterranean environments

[Fanaelialae]

Another option might be the lifecycles or migration patterns of animal life. Perhaps there's an insect (possibly even magical creature like an ankheg) that goes to the surface during the warmer months but dwells in the underdark when it's cold above.

 

[Guang]

I like what Chris Beckett did in Dark Eden and the rest of the Eden novels. The story was set on a rogue planet thousands of lightyears from the nearest star. The people that ended up there used "sleeps" and "wombtimes" to mark time - a wombtime being a few months shorter than a year. It was a very inexact way of keeping time, especially since Landing Day was so important to them. The Elders would argue and discuss for days before agreeing on how many sleeps had passed since the last Any Virsry.

Great worldbuilding too. Lantern trees pumping hot sap up from deep underground, supporting an oasis ecology with their light and heat in the frozen dark of the surface.

 

[ccs]

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.

These are worlds of magic, gods, etc. There's no reason real world physics have to apply. Thus I've always just assumed that there's some cosmic clock that governs all time(probably tended by one of those gods...). Thus no matter where you are - surface, underdark, pick-a-plane, you'll always have dawn etc (wether or not you can see it).

 

[Umbran]

These are worlds of magic, gods, etc. There's no reason real world physics have to apply. Thus I've always just assumed...

Yeah. And all I am suggesting is that you question that assumption, and see if you want to keep it, and why. That assumption leads to uniformity across cultures, and that's... less interesting, isn't it? Certainly less fuel for discussion in the thread.

The different environment gives you an opportunity to explore alternatives. Nothing wrong with not taking that opportunity - our games give us more opportunities than we can shake sticks at, so that nobody can take all of them, and trying to do so might well render a game incoherent. But this one just seemed like a rich topic - what does a culture not bound to a sunrise look like?

 

[Hand of Evil]

I always go harvest or events, things like purple worm runs or flooding of passages or mushroom growths, where there are signs that a 'period' is changing. Sample of a day, glow worms showing up, it becomes a clock. A natural one would be bats leaving the cave system or returning. Another could be a simple wind direction, moving two directions during a day. You also have tides if a body of water is large enough.