- The world is Earth-like with a nitrogen/oxygen-based atmosphere, iron/nickel core, mostly covered in water, and about the same size.
- Magic is abundant and most individuals can use it. Multiple practices called Arts exist.
- Dragons exist, but the true breed is commonly thought to be extinct, though several sub-species are seen.
- Various sapient species exist, some of which regularly interact with one another
- There are several deities, which are commonly known and worshipped.
Firstly, let's set up the Celestial Landscape. The sun, the other planets, moons, all that affects worldbuilding dramatically. I'm not going to delve into exact distances and such, but enough to know how the sky will look. Ghyesh is a Earth-like habitable moon of a gas giant. As a result, it's a lot further from the sun. However, it's not a popsicle because the gas giant radiates a substancial amount of heat, and while the sun is a lot further, it's also a lot bigger and hotter than Earth's sun. Net result: Ghyesh recieves about as much heat as Earth does, but it's much more evenly spread.
Ghyesh revolves on its own axis at the same speed and tilt as Earth (simply because that makes things a lot easier) and revolves around the gas giant every week. This means that while it has an Earth-like day-night cycle every 24 hours, one quarter of the week the sun is occluded by the gas giant, creating a "long night" that lasts for about 1¾ days (there still is a daytime due to the gas giant generating light with it's heat, but it's only about half as bright than with the sun). The opposite quarter is when the world is between the gas giant and sun, creating a "long day" when nighttime is just half as bright as the day. The other two quarters have varying degrees of day and nighttime.
Basically, the world experiences two day-night cycles: one short, and one long. The oxygen in the atmosphere results in a blue sky when the sun is out, but gains a greenish tint when the gas giant shows due to the yellow light it emits and takes up about half the sky when fully visible, and becomes the greenest when the sun isn't accompanying it.
As for other celestial bodies, I'm thinking of giving the gas giant another habitable moon (this'll be the basis of a sci-fi conworld, but I wanna focus on building Ghyesh for now) and several other uninhabited ones, which will mostly affect how the night sky will look. I haven't given this aspect much thought at this point, so any ideas on that will be highly appreciated.
With the celestial landscape (mostly) covered, let's take a look at Climate. First, a map of the world.
Red line is the equator, each line is seperated by 15 degrees of longitude/latitude. An important thing to note is the white spot in the west, which is called the [Sun Spire] (everything in square brackets is a working title). It's a mountain that peaks out at three times the height of Everest, so this is pretty well gonna be the most famous landmark in the world.
I have a bit of a problem, however. Geoff's Climate Cookbook is a great resource and all, but it can't do very much outside of Earth's particular celestial situation. A gas giant is going to affect the tides a lot more than a small moon could, the [Sun Spire] casts a very large shadow throughout the day, and the heat distribution is a lot more even to name but a few factors to consider that the Cookbook doesn't account for.
Here's where I turn to you guys. Are there any resources out there for determining the climate with these kind of factors, or better yet, is there anyone who could help me with these. After I've got the solar system and climate down, I can get to business with all the ideas on species, history, languages, cultures, all that good stuff, which I'm more than happy to share with you guys.
Thanks in advance.