Telling Time in Golarion

[rgrove0172]

The Inner Sea World Guide explains days of the week and months of the year, and even years in an age but what about hours in a day?

Do your citizens of the Inner Sea tell time in hours and minutes? Ticks of the candle? Notches on the sundial? Movement of the constellations?

I feel kind of silly telling my players its "almost 7:30pm", yet simply saying its early evening isnt exact enough when setting up meetings, arranging rendevouz etc.

What do you use that sounds 'period' if you will and lend itself to the setting?

[Kthulhu]

The problem with coming up with a Golarion specific way to measure time is that every time you use it, everyone else will have to look at the "Golarion to Real Life" cheat sheet. It's just easier and less immersion-breaking to use the methods of timekeeping that we use in real life within the game as well.

[rgrove0172]

hmm, I see your point (We do that already when proclaiming the months of the year for example) but perhaps a method that is easily recognizeable.

Perhaps a standard time-keeping candle, sanctioned in ancient Taldor or even further back, incorporates 24 small notches, each representing what we would call an hour.

So someone wishing to meet with you might tell you they will be there at a little past the 10th candlemark (or about 10:15am)

Many businesses might close their doors at the 18th candlemark (or about 6pm)

Easy and has at least an antiquated ring to it.

[Mudfoot]

It'll tend to be a very local issue: it'll vary from country to country, and often from town to town. So if you want to meet at about 5 pm in Almas or Kerse, you might wait for the great bell on the temple of Abadar that signals the close of stock trading. Alkenstar has mechanical clocks, as does Highhelm and some parts of Numeria, though they'll all be very different. In Sothis, time is told by great sundials, and each hour is named after a different star. Galt has 10 hours per day with 100 minutes per hour (or will until the next revolution). In Molthune, wait for the changing of the guard. And so on.

It's probable that there will be some geographical continuity, eg that all of old Taldor uses 24 hours per day, but some places will have 12 hours daylight + 12 hours dark and some will have 24 hours of the same length. And they might not even agree on what's meant by midnight.

[Matt Thomason]

Unless specified by the geographical area, I'd probably go with sundial during the day, and the notched timekeeping candles getting lit after sundown.

In towns and cities, you've likely got a town crier or someone similar ringing a bell on the hour. Anywhere large enough would probably have the city watchmen doing the same, relaying once they hear the bell ringing in the distance.

Some googling found a useful set of announcements you could steal from Oblivion:

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Oblivion:Imperial_Legion#Greetings

Scroll down a bit and you get a whole bunch of "One of the night watch and all's well!" quotes you can use.

[Jon Goranson]

In reading the guide on Andoran, it lists two things relevant to this.

One, that Andoran is as advanced as the other nations.

Two, that Andoran has water clocks.

While this doesn't allow for personal timepieces, it does mean that most homes or businesses could have a clock visible. It also means that the town itself could have a main clock by which to tell time.

Given that, I would expand what Matt says and say that the big cities have a Big Ben like clock that can sound out the times for all to hear. Towns or smaller probably have exactly what he said, with a town crier or the watch calling out times. However, the smaller they get, specific times might not be needed. People would know at dark the market would close, for example, but maybe special occasions would need to be announced.

Just a few more coppers.

[Ahlmzhad]

If you have to have exact time in your game, that's fine. Give them clocks. There are clock towers in at least Magnimar so having them be available in town is pretty easy to do.

Prior to that time was pretty much what you wanted it to be, and based on the sun during the day, and stars at night (the moon doesn't rise and set with the sun on earth, but could in Golarion if you wished). Basically they divided the day and the night into twelve hours. So the sun came up 6am and sat at 6 pm. Night ran from 6pm to 6 am. The hours of day and night grew shorter or longer depending on the season. That worked just fine as people didn't need exact time to order their lives unitl there was such a thing.

Personally I just use terms such as early, mid, and late along with morning evening to tell time in the daytime, and watches for the night. I've never seen any reason to get more exact. Players might set a meeting for 1 hour after sundown, and it's just assumed that everyone will be able to what that is, and be there close enough to it that it's not an issue.

[Transylvanian Tadpole]

James Jacobs wrote:

We generally avoid having events occur at exact hours unless they're on a schedule not tracked by humans. Clocks DO exist on Golarion, down to and including pocketwatches, but big clocks are relatively rare and the smaller the clocks get, the rarer they are. So... Golarion's cultures are not nearly as time obsessed as modern cultures.

As a general rule when folks agree to meet, it's at things like "sunset" or "noon" or the like, or if they're in a city with a clocktower or two, they can agree to meet at specific times (which are often announced by criers or bells or the like).

DM Tadpole

Thanks James, that's kind of what I figured. Do the clocks that do exist track time in the same way as we do on Earth? Do people say "o'clock"?

James Jacobs

Sure!

The above might be of use.