The idea was met well by my group (even though I'm having a very difficult time maintaining a cool "mood"... also need help here. How do I continually make it "FRESH" and "COOL") and I've made sure to not hamper them in any way for the lack of light. Since the campaign occurs primarily in the Twilight Fringe there are no penalties for Perception (there is for being in the Darkscape, which is a land with a perpetual "Blood Moon" lighting) and I give bonuses to Perception in the Lightscape.
Perception is not my problem, nor am I having a difficult time creating adventures and challenges. My problem is keeping time! In a world where there is no solar patterns - HOW DO YOU KEEP TIME?!
So far, and I've told my PC's I might change this (the campaign is only in it's sixth session and time hasn't been too much of an issue yet). Currently I use a "magical sand-clock" that the PCs must "calibrate" to a central sand clock that is maintained by each Kingdom/Cities mages. So essentially, the wizards of the local city each maintain their OWN TIME (i.e. when speaking with a traveling merchant and asking the 'day' they merchant says, it's Monday by Valenor's Clock). Think of the Drizz't books when they're in the Underdark. There is the wizard that heats up the stone each day- it's a similar idea. Anyway, it's been really difficult to keep track of the passing "days". I've made the unit of time be "spins" (a turn of the sandclock) and there are 2 spins in a conventional "real world" hour. Well... I'm seeing some potential downfalls with this:
1. It's difficult for my PCs to "siege" a fortress/dwelling because they have no relative idea of sleeping patterns.
2. If the PCs lose the clock, then they're screwed! (I've actually though about this, and I'm thinking that a knowledge nature DC 20/25 would allow them to find the time by gazing at the stars. Unfortunately this only works in the Darkscape, otherwise, it's too bright!)
3. When asked "how far is X from Y" all of my low socio-economic NPCs must sound stupid and say - "um... many thousands of steps" or "2 sleep periods. That just sucks. I can't being to tell you how many times they've captured someone to find information and been told (by the very intelligent, now monster, Gnomes), "um... its not a LONG walk, but I doubt you'll make it by the time I sleep".
I'm sure others will arise. Also, I'm having a hard time keeping the "mood" set. Does anyone have any advice as to how to create a mood with this environment?
Anyway, thanks for the help in advance! I really appreciate any and all comments!
Cheers,
IchiEmperor
1. Why is there always twilight, day and night? Did it always used to be this way?
2. Why is it light on the day side? No heavenly body making it brighter there?
3. There could be calibration from the night side only if need be and then its regulated by the day side.
My suggestion. Keep going a little more whole heartedly than you had. I love the idea of regional time but I would make each one approximately 24 hours (or whatever you want as a day). Valnor's time could be off by Ilix's standard time but everyone using sometown's time. Again, have time progress evenly for all standard times but don't have them all the same. It would still take 2 days (or random new word) to travel from point A to point B but you would arrive at just about anyone's time.
After that, if your game relies on them being somewhere for a specific even then have a celestial body that crosses the twilight side every year (again whatever word you want). This could be used to calculate larger times that aren't measurable by a clock.
Failing that, why do they need time?
There are no watch schedules, where it's effectively 2 AM, it's an even rotation.
As an experiment, stop wearing a watch for a week, or imagine life without watches or clocks, and there you have your society.
Eat when hungry, sleep when tired.
Similarly, places like the arctic circle, on earth have long nights and days.
that's the route I'd take.
Something that is orbital could allow races below to calculate time. Really though, the main reason to plot hours, days, months, seasons, etc...is for the sake of crops as some weather cycles will pop up at similar times.
Realistically if the planet is not spinning there is going to be a nice temperature difference from one side to the other and this will cause quite the storms to form.
Maybe they keep time because the storms come in like clockwork.
Maybe some phenomena in sky appears in the sky, slowly appearing in and slowly fading out in a hour or so. They use the time it stays in the air (30min; 1hr; 5hr; etc) as the basis for their "hour"...or they use the time it takes for it to reappear for the basis of their "day"
I would address the problem through a creative solution - an easy way for people to keep time - instead of trying to develop a new system for time or worrying about the science behind what it might be like - that's just going to be a nightmare (and your world has bigger scientific issues than keeping time - how do plants live?
). Just a few random ideas:
1.) Magical Solution - to expand on your wizards/hour-glass idea; Wizards are called Timekeepers and they can determine the current time as an at-will utility power by tapping in to the magical ether. They keep time for the population; the party wizard (or warlock) can help keep time for the party.
2.) Religious Solution - the Church of the Goddess of Time is important in your world and the local churches keep time for everyone. Clerics have the at-will power instead of wizards, or maybe even normal people can pray to receive the correct time. Time-related ceremonies are common, priests and their followers pray at specific times during the day, every day.
3.) Technological Solution - dwarves (or a more unique race) know the secrets of making small, crude clockwork-type watches (pocketwatches are the most popular). It's a thriving industry with watchmaker guilds in big cities and a watchmaker in most towns just like there would be a tailor or blacksmith.
4.) Natural Solution - A Timestone is a common (or rare if you want) type of rock that changes color based on the time of day. Everyone wears them in jewelry, they are embedded in other items, larger ones hang from walls inside buildings - fancy/expensive ones could be incorporated into works of art. Think similar to mood rings.
Then you can keep using days, hours, etc. to make things easy. If you want to change it up a little have the world's time be double (or half) ours - something easy to remember and deal with.
These ideas could all be used in "regular" campaigns as well as just a more accurate way to keep time.
for that matter, you could have there be a sun, the planet merely rotates vertically with a pole locked to the sun. anything but a near perfect 90 degree angle would yield something of a wobbly north star.
this would allow for time keeping, and would only cause minor light changes primarily in the twilight zone.
Solar-synchronous orbit:
The Sun: It doesn't move through the sky each day, it just wiggles back and forth over the course of a year, causing and indicating the changing of seasons. Obviously, these seasons are very different from Terrestrial seasons, but I'm sure you can determine what the significance is to each region.
The Moon: This would be your day-clock. Can you see the moon? If you can, it's "day". If you can't, it's "night". Just conveniently give the moon a 24-hour orbit time. Note that in this way, the moon will become as prominent a religious icon as the Sun is in most societies, although probably the Twilight Zone and the Darkscape will appreciate it more than the Lightscape, as it would be a primary natural light-source as well.
The Stars: These help track the passing years, but are largely only considered by wizards (and about 1 out of 3 warlocks). Obviously, the stars have reduced significance in the Fringe, and no significance in the Lightscape.
-wrecan, your friendly neighborhood forum lead[/highlight]
I'm sure others will arise. Also, I'm having a hard time keeping the "mood" set. Does anyone have any advice as to how to create a mood with this environment?
Anyway, thanks for the help in advance! I really appreciate any and all comments!
If there is no regular star/moon that can be used to track days, then the people of that world probably wouldn't even have a concept of day. They would speak of something being 3 cycles away, where a cycle is one activity/sleep cycle. And since cycles would vary by race, personal preference and what you are doing, they would vary a lot.
This isn't really a problem, but it is something you need to adjust too. People are so used to highly accurate times and maps they have no concept what living was like prior to their existence.
Towns and cities would have bell towers to ring out the hours. But there would be a fair amount of drift since the period of an hour would be set by sand or water clock and would drift by a few minutes each day.
Wizards and other who needed really accurate time would have magical clocks, or possibly mechanical ones if your technology is advanced enough.
Longer periods would be set by the cycle of plant growth and farming. Spring would be when the crops are planted, summer is the growing period, fall is the harvest, and winter is the gap between harvest and planting.
Jay
How or why would people keep track of time in the Underdark? No day/night cycle there, no moon/stars/comets to track, no migratory flocks of birds. Just rocks and darkness.
In campaigns I've run where tracking time in the underdark was important, there were available these things called "hour candles," which were just your typically-sized dinner table candles, which had been marked off in roughly hour increments. Put one in a candle lantern and have them changed every watch.
Cheers,
IchiEmperor
A point to consider is not how, but why? If there is nothing to mark the passage of time, why would the passage of time be noted?
How or why would people keep track of time in the Underdark? No day/night cycle there, no moon/stars/comets to track, no migratory flocks of birds. Just rocks and darkness.
because there is utility in knowing time. for example, how long should i cook the roast? how long before the enemy army arrives? etc.
You might even have special stones or time-glasses that are magically attuned to the main device (like a modern atomic clock).
Not sure if this is helpfull but it allows for "virtualy" no solar pattern and yet an excuse to have standardized clocks. Of course this only would apply to the light sid of your planet on which the sun constantly shines.
Not sure if this is helpfull but it allows for "virtualy" no solar pattern and yet an excuse to have standardized clocks. Of course this only would apply to the light sid of your planet on which the sun constantly shines.
water clocks
pendulum based clocks
but those don't give a universal way to synchronize. so your best bet may be like others mentioned: if there is a moon or other heavenly body, if you know where you are on the world and you know which way is north, and you understand the path of the object, you might be able to figure out the time.
i think this is an interesting idea. but i it would have huge ramifications on society that may be difficult for us to easily grasp. probably fun to explore if that's what you want to do, but i think difficulty knowing what time it is might be the least of the changes.
Another option is geodetic time, if your setting still has natural phenomena such as tides, fixed heavenly bodies such as stars, tectonic plates, and poles, even if represented as magical phenomena such as "rising water" or "world platforms." By measuring the motion and changes in these items, one could create an accurate and practical (if complex) clock or calendar.
I would establish a strong astronomy or even astrology tradition among the civilization. In a day the heavens rotate X degrees. We are now entering the third horn of the constellation Astras which means its a good time (day) for planting root crops, a time for seeking lost loves, and for taking chances. The more minute to minute timekeeping rhythms could be a political decree in each town. To make it interesting make all the distant towns on different systems and there is currently a movement to try to unite them all for the benefit of trade.