But first some clarification. I am not trying to make exact equivalencies between the RW and Glorantha. What I am trying to do is to figure out where the four seasons would fit. I assume the temperate parts of Glorantha have four seasons similar to those of our temperate zones simply because to do otherwise is too much work (i.e. speculating about magical seasons or extra season just adds complexity and makes it harder for RW people to grasp. Now magical effects and influence on weather that's another matter. Of course magic and the "gods" effect the weather. Valind's Glacier and the Fiery southern desert obviously have strong effects on the weather. That's why the Lunar's annual defeat of Valind makes their weather more temperate).
Now of course different parts of the world experience different seasonssome have very different ones-wet and dry for example and this true of the warm parts of Glorantha as well. I bet that most of Pamaltea doesn't have anything beyond dry and wet seasons due to the influence of the fiery south.
What I was really trying to do is to generate a calendar for the Balazarings showing what they're doing at certain times of the yearespecially as it affects food gathering. Without knowing roughly where the four temperate seasons fit in I can't say "They're collecting wild grain around this time because it's the end of the growing season i.e. the middle or end of autumn."
Now on to specific responses:
Nick wrote:
>Use the solstices and equinoxes to fix the two calendars together,
>pro-rating appropriately for the different number of days. Yelm's High Holy
>Day is Midsummer.
I ignored the solstices and equinoxes mostly because I can't figure out
what they're supposed to represent in the Gloranthan sense (Yelm
not being orbited around by Glorantha and all, or is it???) Besides
they mean diddly where I live. Dec 21st is the first day of winter? Baw
hah
hah. Then why has there been snow on the ground for five weeks already?
But using Yelm's HHD as midsummer is beautiful. Using that date means
that autumn "falls" in earth season like it "should", winter in dark, spring
in
sea and summer in fire. All you have to do is to adjust the length of the
seasons depending on your distance from the Glacier and voila.
Elegant!
Sea 1-5 Spring
Sea 5-8 Summer
Fire 1-7 Summer
Fire 7-8 Fall, sorry Autumn
Earth 1-8 Autumn
Dark 1 Autumn
Dark 2-8 Winter
Storm 1-2 Winter
Storm 3-8 Spring
Sacred Time (all bets are off)
Alex wrote:
>Can we even determine where the four terrestial seasons are _here_ in a
>manner people will actually agree with? Never happens in my
>experience... However, conveniently, there's a four season calendar in
>Gloranthan -- to wit, the Dara Happan one. Since Sacred Time seems to
>be the start/end of the year near universally, I presume that they
>correspond as follows:
>Week: Theyalan/Dara Happan Season
>1-8: Sea/Spring
>9-10: Fire/Spring
>11-16: Fire/Summer
>17-20: Earth/Summer
>21-24: Earth/Autumn
>25-30: Dark/Autumn
>31-32: Dark/Winter
>33-40: Storm/Winter
>41-42: Sacred Time
>
>Does anyone find this outrageously unlikely or objectionable?
Not bad but the observed weather patterns for Balazar and Prax state that the coldest weather occurs during Dark season, not Storm season, though the start of that is cold as well so the bulk of "winter" - the coldest bit of the year should occur in Dark Season.
Trotsky wrote:
>One common definition of the seasons used in the RW is that the first
>day of spring is the Spring Equinox, the first day of summer is the Summer
>Solstice, etc. Working from that, its fairly easy to calculate the
Glorantha
>equivalents, with spring starting at the beginning of the year, summer
>starting at Yelm's HHD, etc.
I don't disagree that the solstices/equinoxes are supposed to designate the start of the seasons but they certainly don't in many parts of the world.
I'd said:
<< I'm working from the assumption that Glorantha for the most part
experiences the same seasons much of the earth does-spring, summer, autumn
and
winter.>>
Trotsky replied:
> The notion of four seasons, as opposed to some other number, is a
purely
>arbitrary human invention, so obviously Glorantha must also experience in
some
>sense - indeed, the Dara Happan calendar does have four seasons, rather
than
>five.
See my first nore about the necessity for four seasons.
I don't agree that they're wholly arbitrary, they certainly aren't in some
parts of
the world. We have a perfectly observable four season pattern here in
Winnipeg, though there is the joke that we only have two seasons-winter
and street repair. Winter is the cold bit where most of the plants are
dormant
or dead, spring is when it gets warmer and plants start to grow, summer is
when growth is in full spurt and the temperatures are at their highest,
autumn is
when it starts cooling off, nuts are in season and everything is bustling to
get
ready for winter. Now they're not of equal length but what I put above is a
start.
Again of course I talking about temperate zones. I think not mentioning
that
in my original e-mail was a mistake.
I'd written:
<< I know Earth season is supposed to correspond with autumn (at least it
does
in Balazar-it might still be late summer in more southern climes or in
Peloria
where they manage to delay and weaken the onset of winter).>>
Trotsky again:
>This is obviously using some rather different definition of 'winter' and
>'summer' than the official RW ones, and by the sounds of it one that would
>vary from region to region. While there's nothing wrong with that (its
>probably a fair statement that most RW people use the terms rather loosely)
it
>does mean that the correspondance between the seasons and the Theyelan
>calendar is going to depend on which part of Glorantha you're in. At any
rate,
>we'd need to know what specific definition you are using in order to be
able
>to make any sensible guess as to how the seasons you're defining correspond
>with the Theyelan calendar.
Again, I'm not sure I like the official definitions if they depend on the
solstices/
equinoxes. That completely ignores latitude on Earth and is meaningless
on Glorantha where I suspect proximity/distance from the Glacier in the
north
and the desert in the south determines very roughly how warm/cold your
climate is. Note I said very roughly. Geographical influences like large
bodies
of water, mountains and even forests still have their effects as do
magical/divine
influences. I'll bet Dagori Ingarth is cooler than it's surrounding areas
and not
just because of the mountains. Well, that's pretty speculative.
Now Sacred Time all bets are off because I'm certain the weather depends very much on how faithful the locals have been to their gods, how good the omens are, whether you're under any curses or whether special conditions exist to represent special weather situations your ancestors experienced in the God Time. Just a crackpot theory of mine.
Oliver
Powered by hypermail