Re: HISTORY: 1st draft timeline

In <URL:news:local.spelljam> on Fri 10 Feb, Paul Westermeyer wrote:
> Looking for comments
> 
> An "official" Spelljammer Timeline [revised]
[snip]

I think you are brave to attempt this!

Even considering that years might have the same perceived
measured length in the three main SJ campaign settings, i.e. a
year is made of roughly the same number of seconds of roughly the
same length; there is nothing to say that time runs at exactly
the same rate when considering any two crystal spheres, or even
runs at a consistent rate!

I know a number of played campaign settings where significant
events have interfered with the flow of time, things like the
Turning Of The Age. For most locals there might be just perceived
a slight lurch, but if you could compare this with the
presumablably more regular flow of time in another crystal
sphere...

Then there is the issue of time flow with regard to real world
time. Some local campaigns have a four-to-one time rate against
the real world, i.e. a real world week is roughly a month of game
time. Others are purely episodic, where game time is whatever is
convenient to the flow of the plot. The least common that I am
familiar with are the one-to-one time rate ones, e.g. if your
character is imprisoned for ten years that is ten years real
time before you get to play them again!

These different time rates have sometimes been used to establish
what happens when characters move between different DM's
campaigns, in a open campaign setting. I know of at least some
cases where finding worlds with an accelerated time rate to the
normal campaign world has been a very important plot point, as to
whether vital research or enchantment work got done in time. The
fastest generally accessable one that I am familiar with had a
thousand-to-one time rate.

There is one setting where wizards have a x36 time rate spell,
and I'm pretty sure at least some have engineered this into the
basic reality of demi-planes that they've created. If this can
happen with demi-planes, then I'm pretty sure it can happen with
whole crystal spheres, even if only rare ones. Could you say that
floating in the phlogiston tends to drag all the spheres into
roughly the same time rate?

In some campaign settings the will of major being can interfere
with the flow of time, the King and Queen of Faery are supposed
to be able to do this - return from a single night in Faery and a
hundred years may have passed. If you said that it seemed
possible that this occured in Ravenloft then might that explain,
at least some, of the various published inconsistencies in the
dates that you've managed to establish?


I would suggest that you continue as you have been, for the three
main SJ campaign settings, assuming that the year length is much
the same and that time flows mostly at the same rate and evenly.
It might be worth mentioning that if there are any discrepancies
that this is likely to make coordinating dates beyond a few
hundred years problematic.

Again, I think this is a brave and likely highly useful effort!

-- 
Dreamer
dreamer@??????.?????.??.uk
http://www.romsys.demon.co.uk/