Calendars and the like

[John]

> Earthquakes are caused by the land's revulsions under the yoke of
> abominations. Or they are portents. Or really big monsters stirring in
> their sleep.

".. and that, my liege, is how I know the earth to be banana-shaped."
"This new learning amazes me. Tell me again how sheeps' bladders may
be employed to prevent earthquakes..."
(Monty Python & The Quest for the Holy Grail)

Personally, I think climatology, plate tectonics and the like can be
taken far to seriously in RPGs....

;-)

John.

"Once I was a lamb, playing in a green field. Then
the wolves came. Now I am an eagle and I fly in a
different universe."
"And now you kill the lambs," whispered Dardalion.
"No, priest. No one pays for lambs."
- David Gemmel, Waylander

[Glenn Robb]

Hmm. It seems that they have considered the BR calendar as well. There
are four festivals spread among twelve months.

354 days? At least it is still a bit better than the Forgotten Realms
calendar. Until you have a look at Daggerfall's.

[JThomas622@aol.co]

The Anuirean calender consists of 388 days:
12 months of 32 days each.
4 weeks of eight days each.
each 3-month grouping seperated by a single day.
btw Haelyn's Festival is the summer equinox, which if memory is correct is the
longest day of the year; and the Eve of the Dead is the winter equinox,
shortest
day of the year; not necessarily the beginning of the seasons.

[c558382@showme.missouri.]

Since there is so much Celtic influence running around BR, I would point
out that according to the Celtic calender (found at Coligny) there were
four main festivals, each three months apart. They were quarter turns
from the seasons. Feb 1, May 1, Aug 1, Nov 1. The Eve of Death is very
similar to Samhain, better known as Halloween/All Saint's Day. The Day of
Rebirth is similar to Imbolc, sacred to Bridget, goddess of fertility and
birth, Feb 1.

Kenneth Gauck
c558382@showme.missouri.edu

On Fri, 13 Feb 1998 JThomas622@aol.com wrote:

> The Anuirean calender consists of 388 days:
> 12 months of 32 days each.
> 4 weeks of eight days each.
> each 3-month grouping seperated by a single day.
> btw Haelyn's Festival is the summer equinox, which if memory is correct is the
> longest day of the year; and the Eve of the Dead is the winter equinox,
> shortest
> day of the year; not necessarily the beginning of the seasons.
>
> ************************************************** *************************
> > 'unsubscribe birthright' as the body of the message.
>

[Neil Barnes]

On Fri, 13 Feb 1998 JThomas622@aol.com wrote:
> The Anuirean calender consists of 388 days:
> 12 months of 32 days each.
> 4 weeks of eight days each.
> each 3-month grouping seperated by a single day.
> btw Haelyn's Festival is the summer equinox, which if memory is correct is the
> longest day of the year; and the Eve of the Dead is the winter equinox,
> shortest
> day of the year; not necessarily the beginning of the seasons.

We treat the festivals as being the starts of the Domain Turn (gah -
hope I'm getting my terminology right) which usually gets called a
season (that Ars Magica influence) and each Domain action is figured to
take approximately a month.

So, Aebrynis has a lomger year than Earth - what about it's size?
Drachenward has a permenant coastal glacier - can our Scandanavian
correspondants tell us how far north you have to go before these appear?

Assuming that the top of the Continent corresponds to the Arctic circle
- - how far south (in Europe [1]) does the Imperial city come? My guess is
somewhere around Paris (taking the distances off the large map in the
boxed set, and comparing to my pocket map of europe). However this is
the same latitude as the Khinasi region which is presumed to be quite
warm - so is a) Aebrynis smaller than earth, b) warmer, c) there's a
huge warm current warming eastern cerilia, d) the Khinasi region is
much more temperate than the mediterranean [2] or e) I should just
forget about this and go do some real work :).

Oh yeah - which regions in Cerilia are volcanic (the Gorgon's crown for
sure, but where else?) or prone to earthquakes (Rohrmarch?). Anyone have
any ideas?

neil

[Mark A Vandermeulen]

On Fri, 13 Feb 1998, Neil Barnes wrote:

> Assuming that the top of the Continent corresponds to the Arctic circle
> - how far south (in Europe [1]) does the Imperial city come? My guess is
> somewhere around Paris (taking the distances off the large map in the
> boxed set, and comparing to my pocket map of europe). However this is
> the same latitude as the Khinasi region which is presumed to be quite
> warm - so is a) Aebrynis smaller than earth, b) warmer, c) there's a
> huge warm current warming eastern cerilia, d) the Khinasi region is
> much more temperate than the mediterranean [2] or e) I should just
> forget about this and go do some real work :).

I've always assumed that the Imperial city inhabited a lattitude more
along the level of Nice (if we're sticking with France) or perhaps even
Rome. This would place the Khinasi regions nearer to the the lattitudes
where the middle east is located on earth. But then your stuck with the
problem of making Cerillia the continent bigger than it appears to be.
Perhaps the sphere is smaller. On a speculative note, it would seem to me
that making the sphere smaller but keeping the daylength the same would
mean that the surface was undergoing a slower rate of rotational motion,
and that therefore the weather would be more stable and less energetic,
but this is speculation based on a casual understanding of physics and
meteorology, and in any case there is no reason to suspect that Aebrynnis
operates by the same laws that earth does.

> Oh yeah - which regions in Cerilia are volcanic (the Gorgon's crown for
> sure, but where else?) or prone to earthquakes (Rohrmarch?). Anyone have
> any ideas?

Based on my memory of the Continental Map, there would seem to be
subduction zones on both ends of the continent. On the western side, one
runs from Taeghas in the south to Hjolvar in the north. Geologicaly, this
would seem to indicate that the Rjuric Highlands are slowly being rammed
in a southeasterly direction into Brecht Basin States. The mountains
along the western shore of the Great Bay should then be some of the
largest on the continent (like the Himalayas on earth). However, this may
all have happened in the past, and is now fairly stable. I would expect
this whole range of being volcanic in the past, and probably at least some
peaks remain active but dormant. The mountains of Baruk-Azhik I imagine to
be much older. Perhaps the most common place for volcanism and earthquakes
would be the SE corner of Khinasiland, where the Temple of Rilni is
located. Perhaps one of the reasons the dwarves gave up their ancestral
home, said to be located somwhere in this region, is that it became
geologically active again.
Personally, however, I prefer the idea of volcanos and earthquakes
as portentious rather than geological. As such, the closer you get to the
realm of one of the great Awnsheighlein, the more likely you are to
encounter such events, as the earth groans beneath the weight of their
evil.

Mark VanderMeulen
vander+@pitt.edu

[c558382@showme.missouri.]

On Fri, 13 Feb 1998, Neil Barnes wrote:
> Assuming that the top of the Continent corresponds to the Arctic circle
> - how far south (in Europe [1]) does the Imperial city come? My guess is
> somewhere around Paris (taking the distances off the large map in the

Europe is freakishly warm compared to the rest of the world. St Louis and
Athens have the same lattitude. London is north of Winnipeg and
Vancover. Depending on the ocean's currents &c all kinds of things could
be going on climate wise in Cerilia. Which makes an estimation of its
size based on climate nearly impossible. However, since we have some
information about the location of the constellation fo Haelyn, it can be
estimated by someone with a slot or two of Astronomy.

Kenneth Gauck
c558382@showme.missouri.edu

Last month's Atlantic magazine had an article on Europe's climate.

[Rasmus Juul Wagner]

On Fri, 13 Feb 1998, Neil Barnes wrote:

> Assuming that the top of the Continent corresponds to the Arctic circle
> - how far south (in Europe [1]) does the Imperial city come? My guess is
> somewhere around Paris (taking the distances off the large map in the
> boxed set, and comparing to my pocket map of europe). However this is
> the same latitude as the Khinasi region which is presumed to be quite
> warm - so is a) Aebrynis smaller than earth, b) warmer, c) there's a
> huge warm current warming eastern cerilia, d) the Khinasi region is
> much more temperate than the mediterranean [2] or e) I should just
> forget about this and go do some real work :).

Duh! Khinasi lands are warmer because there are more temples to the sun
goddess, and therefore the sun shines more on those areas. Enough with
your babbling about latitudes!

>
> Oh yeah - which regions in Cerilia are volcanic (the Gorgon's crown for
> sure, but where else?) or prone to earthquakes (Rohrmarch?). Anyone have
> any ideas?

Earthquakes are caused by the land's revulsions under the yoke of
abominations. Or they are portents. Or really big monsters stirring in
their sleep.


> neil
>

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"If day cycle was a musical style, mine
would be jazz"

Rasmus Juul Wagner
Technical University of Denmark
c958650@student.dtu.dk
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Neil Barnes]

On Fri, 13 Feb 1998 c558382@showme.missouri.edu wrote:
> Europe is freakishly warm compared to the rest of the world.

I know. We've just reached the end of a gloriously warm heat wave...

I chose Europe as an example because there's a rapid shift in climate
over a (reasonably) small geographical distance. My point still remains
that a shift from permenant Glacial to sub-tropical climates within a
few hundred miles (anyone got a tape measure?) seems odd. It doesn't
really bother me that much, except that I've been wondering about the
underlying geology/ climatology of Cerilia in my off moments recently..

> However, since we have some
> information about the location of the constellation fo Haelyn, it can be
> estimated by someone with a slot or two of Astronomy.

Where's this info? I've got physics type players who are easily
malleable (I got them to fix my TV by offering xp for it :).

neil

[c558382@showme.missouri.]

On Mon, 16 Feb 1998, Neil Barnes asked:

> > However, since we have some information about the location of the
> > constellation fo Haelyn, it can be estimated by someone with a slot or
> >two of Astronomy.
>
> Where's this info? I've got physics type players who are easily
> malleable (I got them to fix my TV by offering xp for it :).

Ruins of Empire pg. 5. The rub is estimating how large the constalation
is to the Anuirian observer, and the tilt of the planet. Since Astronomy
is so important to Cerilian calendrics, and to Rournil, stuff like this,
mostly worked out on Earth during the Hellenistic era, should be known to
sages, mages, and appropriot priests.

Kenneth Gauck
c558382@showme.missouri.edu