World Building details

[Luna_Silvertear]

If a year consists of 8 seasons, but it's just two cycles of the usual four that we have on Earth, then that begs the question: why is a year two cycles of seasons instead of just one?

The original purpose of measuring a year, on Earth, was specifically to measure the seasons so as to know when to plant crops. Why would people on your world decide that two cycles was a year, instead of one? It means they have two times to plant, half a year apart, rather than one time to plant, each year.

So, is there something different about your seasons, the second time through? Why is it significant enough that the ordinary Commoners would mark the second cycle of seasons as different from the first, and call the whole thing of eight "one year" instead of just paying attention to when the planting season is like people did on Earth?

Hmm...I honestly can't think of why. I asked the overgod of the pantheon how the universe was created...he just shrugged. (Sorry, A little joke for myself).

Maybe the second cycle is colder thus facilitating the need to plant different types of crops of something...I really do sound like an idiot, do i not?

Wait! Maybe the sun could revolve around Ilphyria in an Ellipse. throughout the year, the ellipse moves up and down. When it moves down, the seasons get warmer. when it's further away, it's colder. Bam, 4 seasons and a 365 day year...

 

[GlassEye]

No, you don't sound like an idiot. But it does sound like you want a scientific explanation for something that may not be able to be explained scientifically. Also, some of your decisions for your world seem arbitrary. There's nothing wrong with that but it's easier, imo, to come at it from the other direction: 'these are the events that led up to the current setting' rather than 'this is the setting, now how do I explain it'.

Since your world has a steampunk base have you considered making the universe a giant clockwork? Kinda like the orrery below but instead of sun, moons, etc. on an axis from the center have them on a track rolling along the outer edge?

[sblock=Orrery][/sblock]
As far as the seasons go I'm having a hard time coming up with a reason it would work that way. Maybe the Earthdisc goes through a different zone that makes the first set of seasons wetter than the second, sort of like layering our world's Rainy/Dry seasons common in some parts of the world over the four seasons. Or maybe the sun goes through cyclical flares where it is warmer during one set of four seasons than the second set of four.

 

[paradox42]

Also, some of your decisions for your world seem arbitrary. There's nothing wrong with that but it's easier, imo, to come at it from the other direction: 'these are the events that led up to the current setting' rather than 'this is the setting, now how do I explain it'.

Agreed. This is the way I prefer to do world-building, and it usually works out very well when players start asking the uncomfortable questions. I ran a game with PCs that were actually gods, for 2 years- and while some of the worlds they encountered were seriously fantastic, even difficult or impossible to imagine properly or in full- I always knew the reason each world was the way it was, so the players got the answers when they used their divine powers to figure out The Why.

Some of the mechanisms the PCs encountered led them to create their own worlds, in various ways, over the course of the campaign- and I now have new additions to that setting for any new campaigns I run in the future that use it. Neat things like the planet-sized dragon guarding the home system, or the far-off worlds in other star systems that are now metaphysically linked to the home world, came from player creativity, after they saw what I did and ran with it.

For your world/setting, the sun being in an elliptical orbit is certainly the best way to explain seasons, assuming the orbit precesses around the planetdisc. But I still don't see a way for that to translate into 8 seasons which happen to contain 2 cycles of the standard Spring->Summer->Autumn->Winter that would make sense to primitive inhabitants of the planetdisc itself. It can be done; you just need to decide how the second cycle meaningfully differs from the first and then figure out why it differs.

 

[Luna_Silvertear]

Glasseye, paradox42...you both have helped me greatly, and I mustn't forget the others here that have given their input. The orrery is a fantastic idea...truly wonderful. At the edge of Ilphyria, there is what is called the Twilight Storm and beyond that is the Star Ocean. In future campaigns, I was thinking the characters could sail the Star Ocean to new worlds...but I digress...The second set of seasons...they could be colder...or darker. Perhaps the way the moons revolve around the world could effect the light that the world gets. (On a side note, if a true Solar Eclipse happens with BOTH moon, it opens a...gate for the Mists [of Ravenloft] to come into Ilphyria.) I've been in a LOT of games where the GM didn't really put thought into such things, making their world much like ours. I believe that they are taking it for granted. In the games i've GMed, I've used settings (mostly Ravenloft), but now...I want to bring this world I've been hiding away in my mind to life. I want something more than the typical fantasy setting...that and I find it terribly amusing to see a group of adventurers take on a dragon using arc blades and flintlock pistols or to encounter a steam-lich hidden away in an ancient ruin (called Vaults). I know I'm rambling, but I also know that all of you understand how I feel.


---EPIC FAIL on dice roll. I just killed Kenny.

 

[afstanton]

Another possibility is to have a much more rapid precession of the equinoxes than we do on Earth. The poles trace a circle every 26k years or so. Summer in the northern hemisphere actually occurs when the Earth is at the farther end of the ellipse that is our orbit, but our orbit is not very eccentric at all. About 13k years ago, summer was when we were at closest approach, and Polaris was not the north star.

If your world had a much more serious wobble to its axis, it could even move the axis through a full circle twice a year perhaps. The north star would change rapidly, being a true north star for only a few days before moving on to "that part of that constellation right there...no, a little to the left". Anyway, if you have it swapping which hemisphere is pointed more at the sun at one time of the year than another, that will enable more seasons. (Note: With swapping that often, you wind up with multiple equinoxes over the course of the year, obviously, and "precession" doesn't make much sense, it's more axial variation.)

An excessively eccentric orbit could easily carry a planet out of the habitable zone for its star, by the way...as long as we're talking about realism...

 

[Luna_Silvertear]

Another possibility is to have a much more rapid precession of the equinoxes than we do on Earth. The poles trace a circle every 26k years or so. Summer in the northern hemisphere actually occurs when the Earth is at the farther end of the ellipse that is our orbit, but our orbit is not very eccentric at all. About 13k years ago, summer was when we were at closest approach, and Polaris was not the north star.

If your world had a much more serious wobble to its axis, it could even move the axis through a full circle twice a year perhaps. The north star would change rapidly, being a true north star for only a few days before moving on to "that part of that constellation right there...no, a little to the left". Anyway, if you have it swapping which hemisphere is pointed more at the sun at one time of the year than another, that will enable more seasons. (Note: With swapping that often, you wind up with multiple equinoxes over the course of the year, obviously, and "precession" doesn't make much sense, it's more axial variation.)

An excessively eccentric orbit could easily carry a planet out of the habitable zone for its star, by the way...as long as we're talking about realism...

afstanton, Your input in appreciated and enlightening, but it's clear that you haven't read the whole thread. My world is flat and the sun and moons revolve around it. It has no axis.

 

[paradox42]

afstanton, Your input in appreciated and enlightening, but it's clear that you haven't read the whole thread. My world is flat and the sun and moons revolve around it. It has no axis.

If the world is a disc, then it could rotate on its own, which could have something to do with the seasons. And precession of the equinoxes is a good way to explain a shift between two cycles of seasons, if it happens quickly enough. Given that the world still has gravity, despite being flat, the people living on it wouldn't necessarily notice the disc rotating, except by where the sun and moons come up each time and the arcs they transcribe across the sky as they pass overhead (that was how the Egyptians figured out the 365-day year, for example).

 

[Systole]

My first thought is that your sun has two bright faces with a dark band around the middle. The sun revolves around the planet 1/day, but at the same time it spins around on its axis, taking 2 years to revolve completely. When one of the faces is completely facing the planet, it's summer. As the sun rotates, the first face turns away, and the light diminishes, causing winter. Then when the second side faces the planet, there's a second (and possibly different summer). If the faces were different, you could potentially have two entirely different summers -- a blue summer and a red summer, for example.

Alternatively, you can make a mythological explanation like the Greek Demeter/Hades myth. Except he's married to two sisters or something.

By the way, this reminds me of the eight seasons on Terry Pratchett's Discworld. The disc revolves on the back of the turtle, so that a point on the disc experiences one summer when the sun rises nearby, and a second summer when the sun sets nearby.

 

[Luna_Silvertear]

If the world is a disc, then it could rotate on its own, which could have something to do with the seasons. And precession of the equinoxes is a good way to explain a shift between two cycles of seasons, if it happens quickly enough. Given that the world still has gravity, despite being flat, the people living on it wouldn't necessarily notice the disc rotating, except by where the sun and moons come up each time and the arcs they transcribe across the sky as they pass overhead (that was how the Egyptians figured out the 365-day year, for example).

If I follow that, then the rim would be tropical and the center would be cold. Damn...I'm starting to think that the nature goddess/god could have something to do with the stability of the seasons. The things we're discussing makes me think of something else concerning my world. What happens when the "ancient" steam technology is ressurected and science develops. Although it won't be a problem in this campaign, how do you divide magical theory from the tradition scientific method? I thank you all for your help. Ilphyria is coming alive because of your help.

 

[paradox42]

What happens when the "ancient" steam technology is ressurected and science develops. Although it won't be a problem in this campaign, how do you divide magical theory from the tradition scientific method?

Who said you have to? The "scientific method" as such is just the idea that performing experiments and getting repeatable outcomes brings you closer to true knowledge of how the world really works. So if magic works, then Wizards and others who do spell research, are probably using something like the scientific method to figure out their spells.

As for the whole "technology-vs.-magic" thing, it's unnecessary. If you figure out a semi-scientific reason why magic works, in your setting, then you have both coexisting with no conflict.

In my own setting, I long ago decided to use the notion that magic represents a "fifth force" in the sense of the four basic forces we on Earth know through science- which is to say, gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. The fifth force is the "life force," and it differs from the other four in that it is conscious and alive as a raw force of nature- it can focus itself and change its interactions with other forces and particles so as to cause effects to happen that otherwise wouldn't. So by controlling the fifth force properly, you make "magical" things happen. The actual methods of controlling the fifth force are irrelevant to the game and story; it's safe to just assume that the characters within the world know how to do it and that explains the existence and use of magic.

You can use that explanation, or something else; whatever works. Just having an explanation- and thinking for a while about the consequences of it- can lead to all kinds of insights about your world and how it works, and will probably give you new ideas you never would have thought of otherwise. It's like putting together a puzzle whose pieces you didn't know you had, when it works- then you know you have something special.