Chronomancy

From: Kmnellist_at_aol.com
Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 04:53:15 EST

Alex:
 Has nonsense like this happened in Glorantha? A modest instance  is Nysalor, who as is now well-known, instantly corrupted the  Dara Happans into minions of chaos by his Seductively Simple  plan of giving them a calendar that had a whole number of weeks  in it! (28 weeks x 10 days, plus 1 Sacred Time light-fingeredly  appropriated from the Theyalans, reportedly too squiffy at the time  to be keeping a proper guard on it.) >>

I am sure that Gloranthan problems make RW calendar problems pale into insignificance, for a start there is no real way to measure time (unless we count Strike Ranks) as there is nothing reliable to calibrate anything with
(the sun stops, planets speed up and slow down, etc etc). Very 'real' (in
Glorantha anyway) magical effects happen at auspicious moments (worse, probably, than the millenium bug) and no one really knows what year it is.
(We are constantly told in various sources that Gloranthans refer to some
local event, usually years since the reign of King So-and-So, for their time keeping).

I always thought that I could write a detective/puzzle style 'adventure' where the players need to find out the date of something or other and have to follow a trail of dodgy date references to do it. Having 10, 4, and 7 day weeks was one fun idea ("the murder happened 20 weeks ago, in the third season, when the moon was full, in Haranshold"). Having differnet number of seasons in different places is good, stars that move at different speeds add to the confusion, and disagreements about exactly who was King, and who lit the Flame of Sartar, and when, are bound to be plentiful. Needless to say I haven't done it yet but...

Keith N

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