Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ace of Spades

Back to Guilds

A World RP with Multiple Races and a Unique Magic System 

Tags: Magic, Fantasy, World, Races 

Reply The Workshop
Conventions and Facts Regarding Time Goto Page: 1 2 3 [>] [»|]

Quick Reply

Enter both words below, separated by a space:

Can't read the text? Click here

Submit

lily564a
Captain

PostPosted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 9:43 pm


This is a surprisingly large question that would likely play a small but important role.

First off, what year is it, and what is that number based off, are there highly expressed seasons like on earth or does this planet have a much more subdued axis angle that makes the climate much more stable over the year and the cycles around the sun all but unnoticeable? If so a 'year' would have to be judged on something entirely different, such as the moon which travels an orbit roughly 50 degrees from parallel to the equator. Such a pronounced angle of orbit might cause it to travel around the world, crossing just to the side of where it did the night before. In which case some unit of time could be based off how far across the sky it is.

In the matter of how many of these units have passed it's fairly obvious that plenty of time has passed, man had enough time to collect in the harsh archipelagos, take over the jungle, and raise a ruthless empire that then fell, and all that happened long ago in the times of our ancestors. There has to be a 'year 0', in the real world we use the supposed date of Jesus' birth, likely this world will also use a major event such as the rise/fall of some empire or major force, maybe an Ace. As the Cetan were a very intellectual race I wouldn't be at all surprised if they devised the system, and it's currently counting up from something that happened in their society.

Next, the day, ours is 24 hours, since we're all used to working on about that length of time we should keep it about that, and there's not much else to mess with regarding it but I might have overlooked something.

Between the day and the year is the minor and major grouping of days, AKA the week and the month, if the year is based off the moons movement across the sky a month would be major fractions of the sky, such as quarters or eights, and weeks would be minor devisions that are easier to plan with, we kinda have to give a number of days to a year before we can make up those two.

Less than a day is the hour, minute, and second, a day might be about 24 of our hours long but that doesn't mean this world has to use the same sized units, just a different amount, and if that varies so does the minutes and seconds.

I think it would be appropriate to make up our own words for the time units, but things like 'cycle' are just lame.
PostPosted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 7:42 pm


we should also have some holidays, generically speaking there's almost definitely some form of the traditional Halloween celebration, and harvest festivals.

lily564a
Captain


Jikial

Distinct Hunter

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 3:10 pm


If this should travel paralell to our timeline, the next major event I can think of is the Spring Festivals (the time when everyone celebrates the end of winter and fertility and junk, like May Day, only when spring starts, not as it is ending).
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 10:15 pm


lily564a
we should also have some holidays, generically speaking there's almost definitely some form of the traditional Halloween celebration, and harvest festivals.


Yes Absolutly!
People need festivals and holidays in there lives. They give us a reason to keep going even when we are at our bleakest. They give us reason to forget our problems even if only for a day. They are corner stones of faith and family. They are part of the wonderment of childhood. Even if your character never experienced a single holiday the fact that they are there are important.

Gorenza
Crew

Merry Dabbler


Gorenza
Crew

Merry Dabbler

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 10:26 pm


I am going to throw a festival out there that I have used in a game before.
Bludgeoning day!

This is a festival made by the locals to celebrate a good harvest.
Years and years ago the town was ravaged by a scourge of goblin like creatures. They where small tricky and smelly. The creatures would inhabit the gardens and farms at night and do mischievous things to the peoples barns and houses. Worst of all the creatures would steal all of the peoples food. One day a group of hearty farmers had enough. They garbed what ever was avalible and waited at night to ward off the creatures. The farmers dressed like scare crows so the gobblins would not recognize something was up.
To every ones surprise this was a great success! The goblins never returned out of fear to get beaten up by magical scarecrows.

Now the towns people dress up in padded goblin out fits and cause mischief. While the more sturdy farmers dress up like scare crows. The town is decked out is scarecrow and goblin decorations.

After every night the farmer who can protect his house the best from the mischief makers gets a prize from the mayor. There are other prizes that go to the one who can beat the most goblins and so on. It is a very fun and glorius tradition. You should try it some time. Hehehe. ( if only it was real right.)
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 10:32 pm


lily564a
This is a surprisingly large question that would likely play a small but important role.

First off, what year is it, and what is that number based off, are there highly expressed seasons like on earth or does this planet have a much more subdued axis angle that makes the climate much more stable over the year and the cycles around the sun all but unnoticeable? If so a 'year' would have to be judged on something entirely different, such as the moon which travels an orbit roughly 50 degrees from parallel to the equator. Such a pronounced angle of orbit might cause it to travel around the world, crossing just to the side of where it did the night before. In which case some unit of time could be based off how far across the sky it is.

In the matter of how many of these units have passed it's fairly obvious that plenty of time has passed, man had enough time to collect in the harsh archipelagos, take over the jungle, and raise a ruthless empire that then fell, and all that happened long ago in the times of our ancestors. There has to be a 'year 0', in the real world we use the supposed date of Jesus' birth, likely this world will also use a major event such as the rise/fall of some empire or major force, maybe an Ace. As the Cetan were a very intellectual race I wouldn't be at all surprised if they devised the system, and it's currently counting up from something that happened in their society.

Next, the day, ours is 24 hours, since we're all used to working on about that length of time we should keep it about that, and there's not much else to mess with regarding it but I might have overlooked something.

Between the day and the year is the minor and major grouping of days, AKA the week and the month, if the year is based off the moons movement across the sky a month would be major fractions of the sky, such as quarters or eights, and weeks would be minor devisions that are easier to plan with, we kinda have to give a number of days to a year before we can make up those two.

Less than a day is the hour, minute, and second, a day might be about 24 of our hours long but that doesn't mean this world has to use the same sized units, just a different amount, and if that varies so does the minutes and seconds.

I think it would be appropriate to make up our own words for the time units, but things like 'cycle' are just lame.



I think there should be a world wide natural event that happens and has happened since the appearance of man. We can set time based on that. Would it be cool if there was a world wide aura that can be seen in the sky.
Then again it could be some kind of plant an animal thing too. I was thinking like arora Borealis. Perhaps every 5 years or 10 years but it is like clock work ever time it happens.

Gorenza
Crew

Merry Dabbler


lily564a
Captain

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 10:33 pm


sounds like a lot of fun, now we just need to put goblin like monsters on the list, it probably wouldn't be a very wide spread tradition though.
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:24 pm


No I don't suppose it would. It could bring in tourism.
All depends on how you would like to play it out.
Much Scandinavian stories and traditions have goblins and gnomes.
These creatures seemed to enter many other socites traditions.
In it's own right the small town tradition could vastly effect others.

With this thought we might not even need to make goblin like creatures.
They can be like the story book creatures we tell our children.

Gorenza
Crew

Merry Dabbler


Gorenza
Crew

Merry Dabbler

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:30 pm


Jikial
If this should travel paralell to our timeline, the next major event I can think of is the Spring Festivals (the time when everyone celebrates the end of winter and fertility and junk, like May Day, only when spring starts, not as it is ending).


It's our fantasy world so I would like to see us use the festivals to explain some interesting phenomena in it. Things in our world that does not exist in the real world would be more excepted as norm with a festival or what have you. Jikial has a point the most mundane things like winter and spring are often celebrated. Could you imagine what other mundane things we can make celebrations for? Like I don't know toads, rocks and rain clouds. I do recall that the desert people have a wind harvest festival, let us not forget that. I would think there would be many cool wind instruments and such at play doing that.
PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:46 pm


Oh to deal with the time issue.
In a previous game I was in I played a character that lived a lot longer than others. So to compensate for figuring out just how old I was and what year it was I came up with a snappy title to the decade I was from. I said he was born in The Fifth Age. That instatley game the Dm a rule of thumb. Now he could have at least five other incraments of time before the other generations.

Oh which reminds me of more about the event that we could base time around. Silly me to forget. The crater, in which the meteor impacted! Since life had not started or had been seriously altered before it many would consider time to truly began after its impact. We could even use B.C
Before crash. lol or not.

Oh many Asian society's based there time lines on who ruled during that area. That could be fun to use. Yet I think then needs to be some more focus on the card phemonia/ dogma. There are 13 diffrent cards in a suit. Year of the King perhaps was the first recorded date in history and all other years followed, maybe?

A 13 month calender would not be too much of a stretch would it?
Then again other society's calenders could be based on diffrent things.
Other calenders I know of have been based of the rotation of the planet, The birth of the planet, the stars and the end of all life. I am sure we can come up with some other interesting things to base a calender on.

Gorenza
Crew

Merry Dabbler


lily564a
Captain

PostPosted: Fri Jan 04, 2008 11:55 pm


the only race that could have possibly existed at the time of the comet would be the teroa, and even that I would doubt, compared to our time line it would have been around the time of the dinosaurs, even before. Since it was that impact that cause the formation of all three continents and the archipelagos, so in the time since all land based life has evolved, must'a been several times the distance between now and the dinosaurs actually.
PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 12:16 am


lily564a
the only race that could have possibly existed at the time of the comet would be the teroa, and even that I would doubt, compared to our time line it would have been around the time of the dinosaurs, even before. Since it was that impact that cause the formation of all three continents and the archipelagos, so in the time since all land based life has evolved, must'a been several times the distance between now and the dinosaurs actually.


If we took that information and based it around a 13 month calendar we might have something. All we have to do is decide how quickly life began to rekindle. Now I am curious. What was on that meteor? Could what ever was on it have effected how life has come to being as we know it here on this world? He he for all we know the meteor could have gave life a boost! Things could have instantly started to grow after its destruction. Heck the planet it's self could have been ready to poop out before the impact. Who knows right? Core samples of the newly formed world could show that the meteor might have leeked into the planet and cause a life altering change. If anything the impact could be seen as a gift from the gods. What do you think? This all depends on how what we want yah know. Until we set the first date in stone it's all just speculation. None of it will feel like a real time line until we do set that date. After the meter crashed what happened? When did the first human arrive and who recorded it?

Gorenza
Crew

Merry Dabbler


Jikial

Distinct Hunter

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 11:51 am


Gorenza

It's our fantasy world so I would like to see us use the festivals to explain some interesting phenomena in it. Things in our world that does not exist in the real world would be more excepted as norm with a festival or what have you. Jikial has a point the most mundane things like winter and spring are often celebrated. Could you imagine what other mundane things we can make celebrations for? Like I don't know toads, rocks and rain clouds. I do recall that the desert people have a wind harvest festival, let us not forget that. I would think there would be many cool wind instruments and such at play doing that.


Though it may be too much, Lily has informed me that there is lucinite on the moon, causing it to glow at night (when the phases make it darker). In that, less civilized cultures should have a New Moon Festival, celebrating the time when the sun no longer brightens the moon, and the lucinite glows within.

However that wouldn't be a world event, just something for adventurers to stumble on from time to time.

A few events I can think of is;

Harvest Festivals
Appeasing the Seas (during the summer months, when weather will is the worst.)
Full and New Moon celebrations.
The Passing of Winter.
All Hallow's.


My only thoughts to further this is to look up some pegan and druidic celebrations, not only are those fun, but they allude to the time period we seem to be in.
PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 11:58 am


Jikial
Gorenza

It's our fantasy world so I would like to see us use the festivals to explain some interesting phenomena in it. Things in our world that does not exist in the real world would be more excepted as norm with a festival or what have you. Jikial has a point the most mundane things like winter and spring are often celebrated. Could you imagine what other mundane things we can make celebrations for? Like I don't know toads, rocks and rain clouds. I do recall that the desert people have a wind harvest festival, let us not forget that. I would think there would be many cool wind instruments and such at play doing that.


Though it may be too much, Lily has informed me that there is lucinite on the moon, causing it to glow at night (when the phases make it darker). In that, less civilized cultures should have a New Moon Festival, celebrating the time when the sun no longer brightens the moon, and the lucinite glows within.

However that wouldn't be a world event, just something for adventurers to stumble on from time to time.

A few events I can think of is;

Harvest Festivals
Appeasing the Seas (during the summer months, when weather will is the worst.)
Full and New Moon celebrations.
The Passing of Winter.
All Hallow's.


My only thoughts to further this is to look up some pegan and druidic celebrations, not only are those fun, but they allude to the time period we seem to be in.



Well most of those sound ok but your going to have to sell me on all hollows. If your taking all hollows from much of our worlds cultural traditions then I could be a bit confused. Not all cultures celebrate the dead or the spirits of the dead. If we want a day of the dead like festival that's fine but in all cultures it is not needed. It will be interesting to talk in a separate post about how each culture honors (in the game) their dead if they do at all.

Gorenza
Crew

Merry Dabbler


Jikial

Distinct Hunter

PostPosted: Sat Jan 05, 2008 12:12 pm


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Saints
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween

Completely forgetting that All Hallow's covers a forgotten but mostly important pagan holiday, All Hallow's was meant to be a christian celebration in honour of the saints.

All Hallow's Eve is a midnight vigil, also in honour of the saints.

As this planet has no religion (or at least none that I've seen) the saints could be replaced with heros, or anyone the populace wishes to honour at all.

It would be merry and similar to thanksgiving (infact, I think that's probably what the real origin of thanksgiving might have been, the American Christians celebrating All Hallow's a little too late).

In terms of the dead festivals (El Dia de los Muertos), it depends on the cultural background of the race or area in question. These festivals are meant to honour and respect the ancestors of those that are now, much as though everyone was a hero.

Personally I don't really like the dead festivals, though they can be generally fun, they're not meant to be scary like everyone makes them out to be.

However if you look at the pegan holiday behind Christmas, it was held to keep the demons of winter out of house, home, and crop.

It'd be a fun twist on the regular holidays to be celebrating evil on Christmas, but that just may be pushing it.
Reply
The Workshop

Goto Page: 1 2 3 [>] [»|]
 
Manage Your Items
Other Stuff
Get GCash
Offers
Get Items
More Items
Where Everyone Hangs Out
Other Community Areas
Virtual Spaces
Fun Stuff
Gaia's Games
Mini-Games
Play with GCash
Play with Platinum