The pocket watch is an item I almost always have on my characters, but I have literally never had time actually matter... or even come up, really. If the party has to be in attendance at a certain time, the setting usually provides an implanted plot device that would signal or display time... most of the time, though, it's more associated with the day's light cycle than any measure of hours or minutes.
"The ball starts at sundown", or "we attack at dawn"
Does anybody actually care it's 12:34am? Or is it simply night time?
I have always had my characters get a pocket watch as soon as possible simply because it is an absolutely stunning mechanical achievement to actually exist in this setting. Hairsprings are uber high-tech in most PF1 scenarios... the pocket watch did not exist until like 400 years after firearms.
Never encountered one of these other versions, and it confuses me that timezones would even be a thing. Lol. Like what do you do... teleport from kingdom to kingdom just asking what time it is there versus where you are from? Then convince everyone to set their concept of time to match these imaginary zones?
To what extent does time exist/matter in PF1?
Time zones came into existence because of railroads, so yeah, if the setting has common use of teleportation; then time zones would exist.
I don’t think I’ve ever had a character that owned a pocket watch. It would be a cool bit of character development, but I’ve always had other priorities. As you mentioned, it seems like people seem to know when it’s time to be where they need to be.
As GM, you could design your game in such a way, that accurate time keeping would be necessary. If that’s what you want.
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"Mind Blank last 24 hours and I will never stay without it.", "Teleport trap should be renewed before x hor." (with a casting time of 10 minutes you need to change the time every time you cast the trap or an opponent that knows your timetable can enter while the trap is re-cast), etc.
For a spellcastert tracking time accurately is important. Especially if the world has a tilted axis and the time of sundown and sun up change every day.
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I had no idea pocket watches existed in Golarion. Are they reliable enough to solve The Longitude Problem? The Traveler's Pocket Watch says it's accurate to within half an hour per day, which doesn't sound good enough to synchronise an attack from different locations. (The regular Pocket Watch doesn't specify.)
There's no game mechanism for a PC to lose track of time, and it would be hard for a player tracking their spell durations not to metagame with that information. I don't see many GM's making it an issue if no-one has a timepiece in the first place.
Does anybody actually care it's 12:34am? Or is it simply night time?
For me, a vague "night time" or "early afternoon" always was precise enough for the story.
If a player came up with an interest in more precise measurement of time, I'd try to add according elements. But I wouldn't be too happy about it, since to me exact time feels as much of a trifle as "ammunition" and "encumbrance".
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Does anybody actually care it's 12:34am? Or is it simply night time?For me, a vague "night time" or "early afternoon" always was precise enough for the story.
If a player came up with an interest in more precise measurement of time, I'd try to add according elements. But I wouldn't be too happy about it, since to me exact time feels as much of a trifle as "ammunition" and "encumbrance".
I see we have very different opinions. For me "ammunition" and "encumbrance" aren't trifle matters. When presented with a wizard that can't transport his spellbook I want to know who has them, when an archer fires 6 arrows each turn, I what to know how many he has brought with him.
Generally, accurately measuring time isn't so important, but it becomes important when the character chains spells or powers to have something "always active". I want to know how he is able to time them perfectly. I will not stop the game every few minutes to check, but I will want an in-game explanation.
It can even be an interesting facet of a character "You notice that Magister Albertus check his pocket watch every few minutes during your meetings.", and that an be a clue that he is using a spell to disguise his appearance.
Does anybody actually care it's 12:34am? Or is it simply night time?For me, a vague "night time" or "early afternoon" always was precise enough for the story.
If a player came up with an interest in more precise measurement of time, I'd try to add according elements. But I wouldn't be too happy about it, since to me exact time feels as much of a trifle as "ammunition" and "encumbrance".
I see we have very different opinions. For me "ammunition" and "encumbrance" aren't trifle matters. When presented with a wizard that can't transport his spellbook I want to know who has them, when an archer fires 6 arrows each turn, I what to know how many he has brought with him.
Generally, accurately measuring time isn't so important, but it becomes important when the character chains spells or powers to have something "always active". I want to know how he is able to time them perfectly. I will not stop the game every few minutes to check, but I will want an in-game explanation.
It can even be an interesting facet of a character "You notice that Magister Albertus check his pocket watch every few minutes during your meetings.", and that an be a clue that he is using a spell to disguise his appearance.
Yeah, I don't want to bog my game down with nitpicky accounting for mundane items. I assume that by 3rd of 4th level an archer recovers any arrows he can after a fight, and that he makes new ones every night during down time, the wizard has a safe place to carry his spellbook, and that everyone can drop their pack at the start of combat and/or has enough magical means of carrying things, that encumbrance can reasonably be ignored. AS for spells, they either last a few rounds, for the combat, for a few combats or for the day. Actual specific durations are not that critical.
I see we have very different opinions. For me "ammunition" and "encumbrance" aren't trifle matters. When presented with a wizard that can't transport his spellbook I want to know who has them, when an archer fires 6 arrows each turn, I what to know how many he has brought with him.
Yep, my GM and a few fellow players are also like this. And for a gritty campaign I see the point. But personally I want to spend my very limited gaming time on more fantastic elements. Mundane elements can lead to interesting situations, but IMO fantastic elements have a better chance to achieve this.
I could see a campaign or adventure arc with an emphasis on exact measurement of time. Maybe agents of order try to establish clocks everywhere, some creatures resist, and the conflict escalates. Maybe a campaign uses a setting where Medieval and Steam Age areas coexist, and pocket watches are one element that helps to show the differences. Maybe a big clock appears out of nowhere, and increasingly worse things happen when it hits a certain time of the day.
Solving the Longitude Problem would involve an accurate clock and a good sextant... depends how precise our unspecified pocket watch is. Lol. Obviously, the Traveler's Pocket Watch is no chronometer... we could pretend the regular pocket watch has a tourbillon or double hairspring, and at least 7 jewels.
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Solving the Longitude Problem would involve an accurate clock and a good sextant... depends how precise our unspecified pocket watch is. Lol. Obviously, the Traveler's Pocket Watch is no chronometer... we could pretend the regular pocket watch has a tourbillon or double hairspring, and at least 7 jewels.
A sextant is used to determine Latitude, but it requires a 'fixed point' in the sky to function: If your campaign world doesn't have a 'north star' or similar fixed point, the sextant would probably never be developed...
Track Ship is probably your best naval navigation tool: Nothing in the spell text indicates it can't be cast from onboard the ship itself...
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I once ran an encounter with a bad guy where a pocket watch came into play...
The party is a (mostly) good group of adventurers, so when they burst into the BBEG's sanctum and find him calmly leaning against a pillar and saying "greetings" they don't immediately blast him. A fair amount of dialog ensues. He fills in some of the blanks of his plan that the players haven't figured out yet and tries to convince them that they should join him. They refuse and demand that he turn himself over for justice. He politely declines and discusses morality a bit. And so on and so forth for quite a while. Neither side budges. Finally the most impatient of the players says "so, are we fighting, or what?" The BBEG pulls out a pocket watch, looks at it, closes it, and replies "Oh, we're fighting. I just didn't want to be troubled by any minute per level spells you cast on yourselves before you broke down my door."
Edinburgh and Istanbul would have had radically different times in 1700. It didn't matter since it was many days journey from one to the other. Unless, of course, you can teleport or send magical instantaneous messages. In which case it would probably be nice to know about what time it is to the residents of your destination so you don't surprise a friend in the middle of the night.
Zones = areas, not a standardized measure.
The sextant is required to ensure you are not listing lazily to the left... if you are measuring time and speed to calculate distance, it is counter-productive to be traveling diagonal to your supposed heading... that makes the distance longer (as the hypotenuse), and the calculation much less accurate. And when your metric(s) for measuring both time and speed are rudimentary AF, one can ill-afford to not be traveling in the proper direction.
As for standardized time zones... I very seriously doubt enough people are using teleportation circles for it to matter enough for time zones to exist. Given how little, overall, knowing the exact time matters in anyone's day-to-day lives... would they even notice it is a different time at the destination of their teleport?
"Oh $#!+, it was 12:34am where I left, and it's 2:34am here?!?! I thought teleportation was instant."
Literally nobody cares enough to look at the clock right before they teleport, much less remember that time to compare to the time elsewhere.
Tracking time is really only relevant to spell casters who may want to recast spells before they expire. And that is such a small thing that I'd rather not press the issue.
Tracking time is really only relevant to spell casters who may want to recast spells before they expire. And that is such a small thing that I'd rather not press the issue.
Even then, who cares it you "waste" the remaining duration of yesterday's spell by casting it again earlier today than you did yesterday? I seriously doubt anyone casting all-day buffs is so strapped for cash that they can't afford to cast the spell a few extra times per year by casting it today at mid-day because you casted it in the evening yesterday... that might add up to a couple wasted days' worth of duration, but literally who cares? If you need the spell active to be alive or concealed or whatever, then you're an idiot if you wait until literally the last minute... to what? Save some coin? It's better to be safe than sorry, me-thinks.
If teleportation existed on a planet similar to Earth, you could actually arrive on a different day than you left. Which could matter. The time difference that came into play in the Jules Verne story: Around the World in Eighty Days, comes to mind. And they were only traveling by steamers, trains, and hot air balloons.
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Yeah, I don't want to bog my game down with nitpicky accounting for mundane items. I assume that by 3rd of 4th level an archer recovers any arrows he can after a fight, and that he makes new ones every night during down time, the wizard has a safe place to carry his spellbook, and that everyone can drop their pack at the start of combat and/or has enough magical means of carrying things, that encumbrance can reasonably be ignored. AS for spells, they either last a few rounds, for the combat, for a few combats or for the day. Actual specific durations are not that critical.Does anybody actually care it's 12:34am? Or is it simply night time?For me, a vague "night time" or "early afternoon" always was precise enough for the story.
If a player came up with an interest in more precise measurement of time, I'd try to add according elements. But I wouldn't be too happy about it, since to me exact time feels as much of a trifle as "ammunition" and "encumbrance".
I see we have very different opinions. For me "ammunition" and "encumbrance" aren't trifle matters. When presented with a wizard that can't transport his spellbook I want to know who has them, when an archer fires 6 arrows each turn, I what to know how many he has brought with him.
Generally, accurately measuring time isn't so important, but it becomes important when the character chains spells or powers to have something "always active". I want to know how he is able to time them perfectly. I will not stop the game every few minutes to check, but I will want an in-game explanation.
It can even be an interesting facet of a character "You notice that Magister Albertus check his pocket watch every few minutes during your meetings.", and that an be a clue that he is using a spell to disguise his appearance.
Does the archer recover the missed arrow in 0 seconds? Or you are accounting for the time needed, even if in an approximate way like"after a fight, you spend x minutes gathering loot, checking the corpses, etc.?
I have seen parties "running" from one room to the next to keep up spells with a minute/level duration, and gathering used arrows takes time.Arrows that hit break, so they aren't recovered.
Making arrows takes time and skill points in the appropriate craft skill.
Mending takes even more time.
I have checked inventories of the characters, and even what seems easy to transport magically often isn't. A bag of holding keeps less than you think, especially when you consider food.
Dropping backpacks is an action (I don't recall if there are backpacks that can be dropped as a free action, and you still can't do it until your turn).
Spells last rounds, minutes, tens of minutes, hours, or day(s).
We really play two completely different games.
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I don't think it really means TIME ZONES as we think of them. It refers to "local use." For a long while in history, two towns 20 miles apart might keep different time. Often by some publicly viewable (and not particularly accurate) clock in each location. The "zone" around each town would observe that time. If it takes you half a day on horseback to get from village A to village B, it doesn't really matter if their clocks are 15 minutes apart.
From what I know, the time difference in the local area was relatively large even when the actual distance between clock towers was a few hundred meters if calculate on the maps. It even had a name: "guerre di campanile" (clocktower wars). It generally happened when a clock tower was on the floor of a valley and the other clock tower was on the summit of a hill.
The day was divided into 12 "day hours" (from sun up to sundown) and 12 "night hours" (from sundown to sun up), regardless of the actual time of light and darkness, so in summer a day hour was way longer than a winter day hour. Add to that that the tower on the hill summit did see the sun go up way earlier than the tower in the hill shadow on the valley floor and you had a large difference in local time. Only at midday and midnight the two clocks did agree.Napoleon tried to impose the French system, which divided the day into 24 identical hours, but in a lot of locations, it wasn't applied till after the middle of the XIX century.
BTW, all that required a person to constantly manage the clock, adjusting the mechanism every few days to keep up with the changing length of the hours.
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I had no idea pocket watches existed in Golarion. Are they reliable enough to solve The Longitude Problem? The Traveler's Pocket Watch says it's accurate to within half an hour per day, which doesn't sound good enough to synchronise an attack from different locations. (The regular Pocket Watch doesn't specify.)
There's no game mechanism for a PC to lose track of time, and it would be hard for a player tracking their spell durations not to metagame with that information. I don't see many GM's making it an issue if no-one has a timepiece in the first place.
This is why in a lot of old movies you see them synchronize watch's before an attack to make sure they're on the same time. The watch's would lose or gain different amounts so they made sure as close as possible to the attack they were all showing the same time.
As for the question I use it sparingly usually in a "you need to be here at this time" or "you have this long before X' like weather rules. They're there, I use them at times but try to avoid doing it enough to aggravate players.
You think tracking time across counntries is bad in Golarion you can actually have to worry about times on different planets.
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I make time matter when I GM because I have specific events that happen on precise days, and I purposefully "overload" the PC's with story hooks and stuff to go do so that way 1) they have multiple story hooks at any given time, and 2) they have to debate/compromise/choose what story hooks to go handle first in a "triage"-style choice. Any story hook that the PC's decide to ignore causes the situation to either worsen or progress to the next phase, so if the PC's decide to go handle something later, it's going to be a little tougher.
My homebrew world has 80 hours of night and 16 hours of daylight, and each period of daylight is given by a different star (it's a 4-star solar system), but each "day cycle" is roughly 96 hours, and there are 2 day cycles of the week that are broken up into 8 separate 24 hour periods for a total of 188 hours that make up the "week". This ends up being 92 separate "96-hour-long-days" in a "year". This sounds really complicated, but I've made it simple for myself; I put this calendar onto an excel spreadsheet that I use to track time by the hour throughout the course of a campaign, and now it's super easy. As the PC's travel or as the day goes by, I just yellow highlight/color whichever 1 thru 24 hour cell on the excel spreadsheet so I know what time/day it is, and this ensures the players have a 24hour circadian rhythm and know when to rest/regain spells in this strange 16hour-daylight/80hour-nighttime day/night cycle.
As the campaign unfolds, I'll have events that happen on certain days or weeks, like "BBEG #3 arrives at McSleepyVillage and starts doing xxxx on the 21st of Oathday" or "The Votavi perform their Doomsday Ritual 'here' in 5 weeks from when the PC's find xxxx". <---- I don't tell the players these things, unless they actually find that information out, I mainly make these notes for myself, that way the world starts producing "symptoms" of that event that eventually become story hooks as the "symptoms" worsen
When tracking time with spells that have long durations (1hour/level+), I just make a comment in the Excel cell on this calendar at the time they cast it, and then delete the comment when the spell expires. I handle dungeon crawls similarly but not on my primary calendar; I usually have a dedicated excel tab for that dungeon crawl with all my encounters and notes, as well as its own "dedicated dungeon crawl calendar". Dungeon crawls can take anywhere between 1 hour to 10 days, so I'll make an hour-by-hour graph in Excel off to the side of my notes, and that's where I track spell durations that are 1min/level, 10min/level, and 1hour/level. If something happens at 12:34 exactly, then I'll notate that in a comment for that hour's excel cell.
I also have an excel tab dedicated to Sesh Notes, and after each Sesh is over, once I get home I'll spend about 15-30 mins writing down whatever the PC's did during that individual Sesh, and in this tab I'll have the in-game Date/Time that each individual Sesh starts and ends. At the end of the campaign, I'll send out the Sesh Notes to all the players, and it reads a lot like a book chronologizing all of their exploits and adventures :)
Ryze, you never cease to amaze me. Did you model/map this solar system, or did you figure out a 4-star light cycle purely in your head? I want to play in your games, they sound... epic.
Time zones came into existence because of railroads, so yeah, if the setting has common use of teleportation; then time zones would exist.
This makes a lot of sense actually… early methods of telling time relied on position of the sun. So if someone were to teleport around from town to town and look at a sundial, they would realize pretty early on in history that time of day can be very different at different locations. Timezones would have been put in use as soon as mechanical clocks were in invented due to the ease of travel between locations.
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Time zones came into existence because of railroads, so yeah, if the setting has common use of teleportation; then time zones would exist.This makes a lot of sense actually… early methods of telling time relied on position of the sun. So if someone were to teleport around from town to town and look at a sundial, they would realize pretty early on in history that time of day can be very different at different locations. Timezones would have been put in use as soon as mechanical clocks were in invented due to the ease of travel between locations.
Timezones weren't created for trains exactly: They were created for train schedules, which is significantly different.
On a practical level, the establishment of time zones basically requires some form of high-speed long-haul transport with a scheduling requirement as a motivation: For instance, if we had skipped right from horses to personal automobiles, timezones would have been very slow to develop because cars don't need to be scheduled and therefore there is no real need to coordinate the specific time.
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I don't particularly like people running from one room to the next, but at the same time, I don't impose a slower pace if the players choose to do that. Choices have consequences both ways.
20 normal arrows weigh 3 lbs, and at level 6 they last less than 7 rounds. I have seen archers use up 120 arrows in a single dungeon crawl.
Characters rarely get to have "5 fights and then downtime". Characters have whatever number of fights that piece of the adventure requires and then get downtime in some kind of settlement if that is appropriate to the adventure. If they are in the middle of nowhere and need teleport to get to a settlement and back, they have to choose to have teleport available at the end of the fights or they will still be in the middle of nowhere, with all the adventures and mishaps related to returning home.
It is possible to go half-speed and forage, but terrain matters. Sometimes time matter too.
Foraging in the middle of a desert isn't the same as foraging in an orchard.
Your archer with 33 lbs of equipment with monk or peasant clothing has 0 days of rations and lacks water, a dagger, rope, a backpack, etc. Good if he is adventuring in a city, a bit less if he is adventuring in the wilderness.
If that is how a character prepares for an adventure I see why "the wizard has spells to resolve everything" is a familiar cry. Because wizard need a spell to resolve everything. Mundane solutions aren't available.
All I hear is "it can be handwaved", but I don't like handwaving stuff that much.
Does the archer recover the missed arrow in 0 seconds? Or you are accounting for the time needed, even if in an approximate way like"after a fight, you spend x minutes gathering loot, checking the corpses, etc.?
I have seen parties "running" from one room to the next to keep up spells with a minute/level duration, and gathering used arrows takes time.
Arrows that hit break, so they aren't recovered.
Making arrows takes time and skill points in the appropriate craft skill.
Mending takes even more time.I have checked inventories of the characters, and even what seems easy to transport magically often isn't. A bag of holding keeps less than you think, especially when you consider food.
Dropping backpacks is an action (I don't recall if there are backpacks that can be dropped as a free action, and you still can't do it until your turn).
Spells last rounds, minutes, tens of minutes, hours, or day(s).
We really play two completely different games.
it's a magical world, it's pretty easy to carry hundreds of arrows. And yeah, we account for time after a fight, which is why spells last for a few rounds, for a fight or for a few fights or all day.
We seldom go running from room to room, it's an adventure after all, not a foot race.
AS for making arrows, take 10 or take 20 and you're good. And most adventures adventure for 8 hours, rest for 8 hours and sleep for 8 hours, plenty of time to make arrows.
so yeah, sounds like we play different games, the one I play is adventuring, not accounting and record keeping.
Ryze Kuja, surely the Votavi do not believe in Doomsday Rituals, right? Their study of eldritch arts would certainly inform them that no such ritual exists [unless your world has WAY more powerful rituals than PF1 does]. By the way, do the Votavi have souls? Can they, themselves, be subject to the Kiss of Chaos ritual to cannibalize Dust?
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Ryze, you never cease to amaze me. Did you model/map this solar system, or did you figure out a 4-star light cycle purely in your head? I want to play in your games, they sound... epic.
My favorite classes in college were Astronomy and Chemistry, which is ironic because my degree is in Political Science, but tbh these classes have really helped the most with worldbuilding, especially when I combine that with the possibilities of magic and psionics :P I just wanted to have a calendar that wasn't the exact same as earth's 24 hour clock. Every fantasy world somehow seems to have a 24 hour clock and tbh this makes no sense; every fantasy planet would have its own day/night cycle based on whatever the heck is going on in that solar system. My day/night cycle ends up being something like 80.7 hours of night and 15.1 hours of daylight (I have the exact values and calculation written down in my primary excel file, but it's not in front of me atm), but for ease to the players, I just tell them it's 80 hours / 16 hours and make it a 24 hour clock.
o -------------- |> -- O ------------------ 8
It actually looks kinda like this ---^ where "o" is an F-class star that is Purple in color, and it's just slightly hotter than our yellow sun. "O" is a Neutron star so it's super dense and has an insanely high gravitational pull on this planetoid system "|>" that is tidally locked to the neutron star and always faces away from it (similarly to our moon being tidally locked to earth). And "8" is a pair of Binary stars that Nova off of each other (this place has a "Nova Season" every 10-ish years, and its 16 hours of spontaneous wildfires and scorching heat). "o" and "8" revolve around the Neutron Star "O" as well, but they revolve pretty slow. Since the gravitational well of the Nuetron star is so intense, it causes this planetoid system to make a full revolution around the Neutron star in only 188 hours (so it is absolutely trucking around this Neutron Star at the center), and for 16 hours it's exposed to the stars on either side and then 80 hours of night and then 16 hours of daylight from the star on the other side. And round and round we go. There are 3 moons orbiting this tidally-locked planetoid system "|>", and they reflect light off the neutron star to provide reasonably strong moonlight during these 80 hours and the moons come up on different nights, so each night is a different moon. One moon has a 2 day cycle, the other moon has a 4 day cycle, and the 3rd moon moves around the horizon of the planetoid system every 88.5 minutes, and this causes massive gravitational anomalies and makes the seas almost impossible to navigate because it's essentially a giant tsunami that comes around every 88.5 minutes, and it's very much like a child sloshing themselves back and forth in a bathtub to make the water shoot up and absolutely soak the bathroom floor (can you tell I have kids? :P).
The planetoid system used to be a completely inhospitable planet due to its close proximity to the neutron star and was essentially a desert planet that was roughly 5x the size of earth and had no atmosphere, but this planet was struck by a comet, causing the planet to crack in half and release its molten core, and the metal from this molten core became vaporized into a mist by the Neutron Star, eventually creating an atmosphere, and some of the debris from the comet strike ends up getting captured gravitationally, and this forms 9 primary continents and thousands of islands out in a big ocean of mist that spans for thousands of miles in an elliptical shape around all these islands and this cracked-in-half planet. Among the many elements that were released by the molten core, one of these is called Vorium, which is a magical metal that has interesting heat absorption qualities, and it is poisonous to consume for humans. So, you have to stay above the mist or just barely submerged in the mist, but you cannot go to the deep places of the mist otherwise you'll pass out and probably die, and you cannot drink the water without filtering the Vorium out first. The primary way of getting around between all these islands and continents is via Airship.
The Neutron Star has a slightly active precession cycle that causes the planetoid system to repeatedly tilt about 28degrees axially up and back to center, and then down and back to center again, and this is what causes the seasons to change here. While it is in center tilt, its directly facing the two stars on either side, so it's Summer, but while it's tilted up or down, it's not directly facing the star on either side because it's tilted 28 degrees, so it's Winter. Each of the seasons are 15 days with the exception of winter, which is 17 days (and each day is ~95.8 hours). Due to this axial tilt causing the planetoid system, over the course of 2 years, the seasons go: Summer - Spring - Fall - Winter - Fall - Spring - Summer - Spring - Fall - Winter - Fall - Spring - Summer.
Anywho, yeah, I've put some thought into this :P
Ryze Kuja, surely the Votavi do not believe in Doomsday Rituals, right?
The Votavi are currently in the works of taking over the surface world and they're getting help from a secret society highly-racist High Elves called the Myrin sil Xylar, which roughly translates to "Phantom in the Mirror", and the High Elves from this Myrin sil Xylar secret society are actively trying to exterminate all Half-elves who they view as abominations while restoring all pure-blood elves to their rightful place, and they consider Votavi as pure-blooded elves. So, since the Votavi are light-averse, they want to blot out the light from the suns using geo-glyphic rituals to magically darken the sky for hundreds of miles, creating a kingdom for themselves on the surface world. They call it the Ritual of Sacred Shadows. In my last campaign, the players were actively trying to stop these (and they did stop one of these rituals), but there were 3 other rituals that they failed to stop. So the Votavi now have a major foothold on the surface world, and these Myrin sil Xylar High Elves are about to realize how stupid this idea was, because Votavi will kill them and consume their souls without batting an eye. So true Doomsday? No. Blot out the Suns and take over the surface? Yes :P
Their study of eldritch arts would certainly inform them that no such ritual exists [unless your world has WAY more powerful rituals than PF1 does].
Yeah, this is a very powerful ritual, it will magically darken the sky for 25 miles around each of the 5 geoglyphs that are part of this ritual, which ends up creating a landscape of shadow for ~100-ish mile diameter (per ritual). Last campaign, they successfully got 3 of these Rituals off.
By the way, do the Votavi have souls? Can they, themselves, be subject to the Kiss of Chaos ritual to cannibalize Dust?
Yes Votavi have souls, and yes they can be subject to the Kiss of Chaos ritual. They reserve performing this against Votavi for capital punishment only, such as treason or crimes against the Emperor.
The home planet and setting of your homebrew world is a cracked-in-half, shattered, poisonous mist ball?
Unless there is something about Vorium that makes it worth sticking around, I would be researching inter-planet travel more than dark magic... GTFO. Why would anyone stay there, on purpose, when leaving is possible? What makes the limited surface even worth fighting for?
The mist is actually a big ocean that looks like a "flattened out disc" due to the massive amount of gravity that the 3rd moon generates, and since it's going around the horizon, it shapes this "flattened disc" of mist to about 10,000km deep. But it's thousands of miles wide. I have movies of this place, if you want to see them? :)
The mist is actually a big ocean that looks like a "flattened out disc" due to the massive amount of gravity that the 3rd moon generates, and since it's going around the horizon, it shapes this "flattened disc" of mist to about 10,000km deep. But it's thousands of miles wide. I have movies of this place, if you want to see them? :)
I most certainly do [want to see them].
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The mist is actually a big ocean that looks like a "flattened out disc" due to the massive amount of gravity that the 3rd moon generates, and since it's going around the horizon, it shapes this "flattened disc" of mist to about 10,000km deep. But it's thousands of miles wide. I have movies of this place, if you want to see them? :)I most certainly do [want to see them].
I'd be interested in well, not a place I'd want to live but interesting to visit like the remnant dimension in a series I'm reading currently.
I’m a bit confused about your seasonal progression… Summer and Winter are the only seasons that are actually determined by planetary tilt and heat from the sun… Spring and Fall are transitional seasons that only exist because we have both a Summer and a Winter season… Spring is the transition from Winter to Summer as heat on the planets surface increases, while Fall is the transition from Summer to Winter as surface temperatures drop… a progression of Summer > Spring > Fall > Winter > Fall > Spring > etc… doesn’t actually make any sense.
I’m a bit confused about your seasonal progression… Summer and Winter are the only seasons that are actually determined by planetary tilt and heat from the sun… Spring and Fall are transitional seasons that only exist because we have both a Summer and a Winter season… Spring is the transition from Winter to Summer as heat on the planets surface increases, while Fall is the transition from Summer to Winter as surface temperatures drop… a progression of Summer > Spring > Fall > Winter > Fall > Spring > etc… doesn’t actually make any sense.
Not that you're wrong, but it's called suspension of disbelief.
Orcs and magic are equally unbelievable as an incorrect progression of season.
Not that you're wrong, but it's called suspension of disbelief.
Orcs and magic are equally unbelievable as an incorrect progression of season.
Orcs are a lot more believable than you might think… theoretically if Human evolution had continued down the Neanderthal route, we’d more closely resemble most fantasy Orcs today… nearly every humanoid race in pathfinder and dnd could have actually existed if evolution had taken a slightly different path… as for magic… certain aspects of Magic are actually scientifically sound and plausible… it doesn't take all that much suspension of disbelief for magic…
Those seasonal patterns aren't completely unexplainable, though...
Spring could be associated with the main source of heat/light low in the sky due to axis tilt... Fall could equally be associated with the heat/light coming from high in the sky (again, due to axis tilt). Sure, their respective temperatures might be similar, but weather could be completely different depending on where the heat/light makes it from different angles. A bunch of snow may be safe in a valley during the spring, buy melts in the fall because the light gets to the valley floor (sun is higher). Or whatever...
Honestly, it's a cracked-in-half ball of poisonous mist... the freaking order of its seasons is absolutely the least of your worries. There is so much going on with this world, which order its seasons appear in juxtapose to ours is trivial, at best.
I’m a bit confused about your seasonal progression… Summer and Winter are the only seasons that are actually determined by planetary tilt and heat from the sun… Spring and Fall are transitional seasons that only exist because we have both a Summer and a Winter season… Spring is the transition from Winter to Summer as heat on the planets surface increases, while Fall is the transition from Summer to Winter as surface temperatures drop… a progression of Summer > Spring > Fall > Winter > Fall > Spring > etc… doesn’t actually make any sense.
The people that live here named the "seasons" after how plantlife reacts to either the abundance or the lack of sunlight during each season. There are no months here, so these "seasons" could also be thought of as "months". Being that this is a 4-star solar system, they are heavily influenced by sunlight, even though they have 80 hour nights.
It's never actually Summer, Winter, Fall, or Spring as you know these seasons on earth, but this homebrew world experiences "seasons" that are similar to them - so when I say summer, spring, fall, and winter I'm just saying that for ease, it's not actually summer, spring, fall, or winter. Winter isn't cold per se, but its more like a "near-complete lack of sunlight nuclear winter" where a lot of the plantlife "hunkers down/hibernates" to survive the lack of exposure to sunlight due to the tilt.
This world is not a round planet-- it's a "flat disc of mist with thousands of islands in it", but it has a broken-in-half-planet hanging out off to the side within this disc of mist. People don't go to the broken planet because it's constantly getting scorched by the Neutron star, so only druids/dryads live there to help preserve the plant-life that can survive it-- everybody else lives out on the islands in the mist. The flat disc of mist is actually a vaporized metal called Vorium, and Vorium has some pretty interesting heat absorption qualities, so the entire disc of mist actually causes all of these islands to be around 30-40 degreesF minimum regardless of what season it is because the mist absorbs heat from the Neutron Star it orbits. The mist doesn't have a parts-per-million of Vorium count that is lethal to humanoids until you're 2-3km deep into this 10km ocean of mist. If you want to go deeper than 2-3km, then you have to wear a breathing apparatus.
It rarely, if ever, gets cold enough to snow here. So in "winter" it's 80 hours of Night (30-40 degrees F), then 16 hours of Day (30-60 degrees F). And in "summer" it's 80 hours of Night (30-40 degrees F), then 16 hours of Day (120-180 degrees F). Due to the intense heat during summer, most people just stay indoors during the 16 hours of daylight. During Nova season every 10-ish years, it can reach over 300 degrees F, but only while the planetoid system is facing the binary stars.
The seasons actually go:
Year 1 -Tilt Up: Dawnrova (summer), Daywane (second spring), Withergreen (first fall), Southdancers(winter), Witherspeak(winter), Flowercall (second fall), Sowingcall(first spring),
Year 2 -Tilt Down: Sweltersurge (summer), Fruitspeak (second spring), Auburnhelm (first fall), Northdancers (winter), Wastesfall (winter), Greenwake (second fall), Blossompeak (first spring)
The "Dancers" are what the people call the two binary stars that Nova off of each other, so Southdancers and Northdancers is named for how the Dancers appear to the viewer during full Up Tilt or full Down Tilt. During Southdancers, to any viewer, it appears like dawn to the south all 16 hours of the day. Likewise, during Northdancers, it appears like dawn to the north all 16 hours of the day. Dawnrova and Sweltersurge are the two summers, and this is when their tilt is at 0 degrees, so it's the maximum amount of heat and sunlight exposure as possible. The suns are directly overhead during the summers.
The reason why there are two "falls" and two "springs" is because of how plantlife has evolved to survive this-- some plants have difficulty surviving winter, while other plants thrive in winter, and likewise some plants have difficulty surviving summer while others thrive in summer, and the two "falls" and "springs" reflect what these plants are doing before and after summer, and before and after winter. Some trees/plants have evolved to shed their leaves in anticipation for the sweltering heat of Summer (to prevent fires), while some trees have evolved to blossom just before summer on purpose so they can maximize photosynthesis. Plants also do something similar for winter, where some plants do sort of a "photosynthesis hibernation"-mode in anticipation for "winter" while some other plants are in full bloom during winter because their leaves/seeds are highly susceptible to heat. Some plants are like "oh it's winter? meh" "oh now it's summer, k w/e" and don't react to the abundance or lack of sunlight at all.
Example: The Kingsberry Bush is heat averse, so it begins to "hunker down" in Flowercall and Greenwake (second falls) to survive the intense heat of summer, and then blooms during Fruitspeak and Daywane (second springs), but the Othur Fume Sundew prefers sunlight, and goes into photosynthesis-hibernation mode during Withergreen and Auburnhelm (first falls) and blooms during Sowingcall and Blossompeak (first springs).
So the "seasons" or "months" are named after how this world's flora reacts to the different stages of sunlight exposure.
If you're interested in seeing maps/movies, feel free to PM me with your email address ;)
Again, though, why do people stay?
Surely, there are 9th-level spellcasters on this planet (or what's left of it) with access to spells capable of, well, leaving. The grass is literally greener on the other side... being everywhere... everywhere is better. Interplanetary Teleport does not even have expensive components or an inconvenient casting time.
Researching and perfecting rituals to darken the skies above your cracked-in-half ball of poisonous mist doesn't solve the issue that you live on a cracked-in-half ball of poisonous mist. Now you just have shade... so what? You still can't walk on your planet's surface, because the majority of your planet still lacks a physical/solid surface to walk on. You still can't breath the mists that make up the surface of your planet... your entire planet is still literally poisonous, to you. But at least you no longer have to wear sunglasses. Lol.
Priority one should be leaving.
Then, if you actually care, figure out a way to retutn and reform the planet into a single solid body with an atmosphere, hopefully lacking the infinite clouds of life-killing Vorium gas.
I mean, I can imagine it becoming a place where studied magic is lost.
Still, plane shift is a 5th level oracle/cleric spell. I imagine if anyone reached high enough level, they'd be looking to get off that...what's left of a planet. And there are probably lower level options to get away if we look hard.
But interplanetary transport isn't even necessary. Plane shift to literally any plane that is going to kill you, and then plane shift to any planet you even vaguely know to exist and you'll be in a better place. Who cares if you're 500 miles off target. You're no longer on the s~+%hole of planet.
Honestly, anyone being left and capable of high level magic is way harder for me to believe than worrying about how the seasons don't really make sense.
I think I am going to convert my old 5e homebrew campaign to PF1, and use the Votavi as the main antagonists.
Said 5e campaign was based around an eclipse that lasts for almost a year... think something like Pitch Black or the winter known as the Long Night in Game of Thrones... but this eclipse only happens every couple thousand years, like the cycle of a comet. It is myth, legend, ghost stories that nobody believes in... except literally every scholar of the underdark. Drow and Undead astronomers and historians keep track of the exact timing of this event down to the minute. Entire kingdoms had calendars that counted backwards towards this date as zero. My campaign involved the underdark uniting and taking over the surface during the next eclipse... with hopes of having killed/enslaved enough of the surface dwellers to maintain permenant control of the surface even after the eclipse has passed.
I can add Votavi to this list of those interested. And sleeper cell Votavi cults could even perform their Seance of Sacred Shadows anywhere that might not be totally in the shadow of the eclipse... darken the sky over special targets or over portals to the surface hours before the eclipse's shadow actually reaches that area...
I really liked being able to make these things matter in that campaign. All of your best historians, cartographers, astronomers, horologists, sailors, and diviners were most likely Drow or Undead, or directly linked to, trained by, or helping them. I could use this as a wonderful opportunity to introduce Votavi to my PF1 worlds, and have them excel in the above fields... as well as a beyond intimate relationship with dark magic and the practice of soul rending rituals.
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Again, though, why do people stay?
Lots of reasons. Firstly and most importantly, this place is a plane of magic that was created using the dragonscales of Aiyu. Aiyu is a Creator-level deity and the mother of all dragonkind, and mother of the lesser deities Bahamut and Tiamat. Bahamut and Tiamat are the primary protagonist and antagonist of this story. This plane of magic is a sort of Mecca for magic users because it was created from Aiyu's dragonscales, and any spell cast in this plane is simply stronger and more powerful, so spellcasters travel to the outer planes to reach this place and experiment/train/study/live, etc. This plane was actually created by Bahamut on accident.
Secondly and also very importantly, even though I've described the seasons/solar cycles as atrociously wild and unforgiving, it's not even the slightest nuisance to their daily lives. This is a place where magic, psionics, and technology all collide, and this is a high-magic and high-technology setting, so these people have an answer for everything this universe can throw at them. "180 degrees? Pfft, where's my endure elements-parasol at, it's friday and I wanna go play D&D." "Nova season? Again? Didn't we just go through this 10 years ago? Fine, raise the city-sized Nova Shields and we'll put out the fires with Control Weather once it's nighttime *yawn*". Their airships have Thaumaturgic engines that can literally suck the magic right out of the air and use it as an energy source, so they never run out of fuel. Their magically-enhanced homes are equipped with Thaumaturgic "strips" that run along their walls in every room of the house, so Open/Close, Create Food and Water, Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, Mending, and Light are common staples, and can be used even by non-magically inclined folk with a simple command word. They have perfectly comfortable lives.
Thirdly, since this place is a plane of magic, there are minerals, plants, trees, animals, and ores here that have incredible magical properties, and products created from these can be sold for a small fortune in other dimensions (as well as here in this plane as well, obviously). This place has enticed mining guilds, beast tamers, botanists, and all manner of professions to operate here.
Fourthly, one of the 9 continents of this planetoid system passes through 3 Ley Lines; there are thousands of Ley Lines throughout the multiverse and these Ley Lines are like a inter-dimensional cosmic "spider's web"-esque network of unfathomable magical energy, and 3 of these Ley Lines happen to pass within about 150 miles of each other, which the chances of that is astronomical. Bahamut realized the strategic position that this planetoid system held, and if any evil ever got a hold of this and harnessed it, it would be catastrophic. So after this universe gets formed, he specifically chose to move his Paragonic Dragonflight here to protect it. The Paragonic Dragonflight existed here for several thousands of years and replenished their population after facing near-extinction in Prime. Eventually after these thousands of years of prosperity, humans accidentally found it via Astral Travel, and once they realized the magical potential of this place, they began flocking here in droves, bringing all other races with them. Tiamat also eventually finds this place, realizes its potential, and decides she's going to take it for her own. Spoiler alert: Tiamat wants to harness the power of those Ley Lines.
I think I am going to convert my old 5e homebrew campaign to PF1, and use the Votavi as the main antagonists.
Said 5e campaign was based around an eclipse that lasts for almost a year... think something like Pitch Black or the winter known as the Long Night in Game of Thrones... but this eclipse only happens every couple thousand years, like the cycle of a comet. It is myth, legend, ghost stories that nobody believes in... except literally every scholar of the underdark. Drow and Undead astronomers and historians keep track of the exact timing of this event down to the minute. Entire kingdoms had calendars that counted backwards towards this date as zero. My campaign involved the underdark uniting and taking over the surface during the next eclipse... with hopes of having killed/enslaved enough of the surface dwellers to maintain permenant control of the surface even after the eclipse has passed.
I can add Votavi to this list of those interested. And sleeper cell Votavi cults could even perform their Seance of Sacred Shadows anywhere that might not be totally in the shadow of the eclipse... darken the sky over special targets or over portals to the surface hours before the eclipse's shadow actually reaches that area...
I really liked being able to make these things matter in that campaign. All of your best historians, cartographers, astronomers, horologists, sailors, and diviners were most likely Drow or Undead, or directly linked to, trained by, or helping them. I could use this as a wonderful opportunity to introduce Votavi to my PF1 worlds, and have them excel in the above fields... as well as a beyond intimate relationship with dark magic and the practice of soul rending rituals.
Very cool :)
I like your use of Ley Lines. That is fun. I added them [Ley Lines] to the Kingmaker campaign I ran.
There's an NPC "witch" that was actually a Sorcerer... I thought that was stupid, so I just made this "witch" an actual Witch. A Ley Guardian, to be exact. I added the petrified remains of a truly gigantic tree near her, and a custom sleeping Construct of equally epic proportions. The tree once grew over the intersection of two Ley Lines... its taproot penetrating into both lines... absorbing their power to fuel its epic growth. It was once considered sacred by the Elves, and Treerazor sent the construct, Hexxus, to chop it down... forever guarding its stump to eliminate any attempts the tree makes at regrowing.
Anyways, this Witch couldn't do anything to Hexxus, and was terrified of waking it up... so she pretty much guards the forest around this area to keep people away from this sacred petrified stump and this horrifying Construct. The party, on the other hand, reduced Hexxus to scrap metal. And helped Old Beldame restore life into the petrified stump... a wee tiny sprout... hope.
Then when Nyrissa's blooms start to infect the kingdom, this little sprout grows like a magic beanstalk into a Scythe Tree hundreds of feet tall. In the process of its explosive growth, the tree impales Old Beldame... absorbing her sentience in the process. The tree once known to the Elves as the Tree of Life was now an intelligent Scythe Tree with Witch spells fueled by two Ley Lines. Luckily, it ended up with the Witch's alignment and personality, essentially it was still her... just a different body, a tree body.
She chopped down the forest within her reach, which is substantial, clearing a circle around her, and the party erected a magical wall of roses/thorns around the edges of this circle. There are beautiful arched gates through the wall at each of the cardinal directions. People come from all over the kingdom to commune with the Tree of Life. She became a living shrine, a talking temple, an ally, and a friend.
VM, check your PM's