Guildworld - Climate and Biome discussion

[Will Phillips]

Glad you guys are taking a look at this - I haven't had my eyes on developments apart from the miopic view of my own map and its neighbors.

With the changes to contininents and their positions, I'm certain I need to readjust my weather - especially now that I'm not on the equator any more.

[Robulous]

So 15 degrees is 1609 km for the 95% of the world's population that don't use metric

[waldronate]

So 15 degrees is 1609 km for the 95% of the world's population that don't use metric

From a historical/humorous perspective, this scale makes miles the "natural" distance measure because there are two nice round numbers there. Some cultures would undoubtedly view miles as evil in this scenario because there are 66.66666667 miles per degree of latitude (and sailors would undoubtedly go with 60 nautical miles per degree, just like the do at home - math is hard!) Others would no doubt celebrate the presence of both 2 and 3 in the miles per degree, as those are the first two prime numbers.

Now kilometers as a natural unit: 107.27km (give or take a few meters) per degree. That makes the math much simpler that some other silly system!

Clearly this world needs its own distance units. Probably calculated by lining up the first ten people coming out of church and taking the average length of some appendage or other. Maybe working in how much beast of burden can plow in a day at some random latitude, as well. Possibly a standard fraction of the amount of distance that an army unit in full gear can march in a day. Or take a bad estimate of the planet's pole-to-pole length and divide by some round number with lots of zeroes. Or every culture has its own distance units and maps that are sold into multiple markets will have multiple scales.

Well, then... too much history for today.

[J.Edward]

From a historical/humorous perspective, this scale makes miles the "natural" distance measure because there are two nice round numbers there. Some cultures would undoubtedly view miles as evil in this scenario because there are 66.66666667 miles per degree of latitude (and sailors would undoubtedly go with 60 nautical miles per degree, just like the do at home - math is hard!) Others would no doubt celebrate the presence of both 2 and 3 in the miles per degree, as those are the first two prime numbers.

Now kilometers as a natural unit: 107.27km (give or take a few meters) per degree. That makes the math much simpler that some other silly system!

Clearly this world needs its own distance units. Probably calculated by lining up the first ten people coming out of church and taking the average length of some appendage or other. Maybe working in how much beast of burden can plow in a day at some random latitude, as well. Possibly a standard fraction of the amount of distance that an army unit in full gear can march in a day. Or take a bad estimate of the planet's pole-to-pole length and divide by some round number with lots of zeroes. Or every culture has its own distance units and maps that are sold into multiple markets will have multiple scales.

Well, then... too much history for today.

Yes! That would be good. Multiple scales - once the main part of the mapping is done for the BIG map.
I can envision some of my people basing a measurement related to the mountains and valleys, as they're so prominent there.
Or even related to the circumference of the accepted standard size of a wheel of cheese.

[J.Edward]

Thanks Robulous.
Can you make that as a png image so people can download it if the want metric?
I'm sure they would appreciate it.

[jbgibson]

Measuring distance by rolling a wheel of cheese would be interesting... the circumference would either drop as rind wore away OR it would increase as stuff stuck to the cheese and accumulated. So already we have sub-cheese miles, hard-cheese miles, and fuzzy-cheese miles. Then there's the stinkcheese league - the distance on a sunny day without wind that the average nose can detect its aroma. The Trebuchet Cheese League is not a distance but an organization of competitive flinging devices, so don't get that confused. The distance of a cheese thrown by trebuchet or catapult varies according to the host nation and region anyway, since the chosen cheeses change irregularly.

The Highland Games of Heathertop of course promote the length of a cheese-curling ice rink as a standard - which stretches the meaning of the term 'standard' since such ice rinks vary from about 22 to 31 meters, line to line. Cheese-curling has the unfortunate effect of promoting inedible cheese, since rock-hardness matters in curling. Proponents of the sport prefer 'long-lasting' to 'inedible'. As a side note, nations without a hard-cheese tradition have been known to substitute fruitcake, but that has never influenced an international distance standard.

I do enjoy old maps with a dozen or more competing scales. Seems like a great opportunity to do that on some of our Guildworld maps, even without involving cheese.

[waldronate]

Proponents of the sport prefer 'long-lasting' to 'inedible'.

Ah, the acclaimed dwarf cheeses! I am led to believe that one of the first cheeses every made by dwarfkind still forms the centerpiece of the hoard of the northern dwarf nation, and it's still as 'fresh' as the day it was made.

[Tonnichiwa]

Ah, the acclaimed dwarf cheeses! I am led to believe that one of the first cheeses every made by dwarfkind still forms the centerpiece of the hoard of the northern dwarf nation, and it's still as 'fresh' as the day it was made.

This would be the Dwarfs in Hallanicus. They keep that cheese surrounded by the kings hand chosen guards so that no one can steal it. They put it on a giant cutting board with 20 Dwarf Cheese Bearers and bring it to war with them. The smell alone can sometimes cripple an enemy army!

[waldronate]

This would be the Dwarfs in Hallanicus. They keep that cheese surrounded by the kings hand chosen guards so that no one can steal it. They put it on a giant cutting board with 20 Dwarf Cheese Bearers and bring it to war with them. The smell alone can sometimes cripple an enemy army!

Perhaps with a nice piece of dwarf bread ( http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Dwarf_Bread )

[Azélor]

A lot of people are probably intolerant to lactose (I think) and would certainly consider the cheese as the incarnation of evil.