Ghyesh - High Fantasy Conworld

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epicarp
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Ghyesh - High Fantasy Conworld

Post by epicarp »

Ghyesh is a high fantasy conworld I'm developing to use as a setting for stories and a narrative-focused role-playing game. Don't worry, I intend to keep this thread to conworlding only. High fantasy allows for a lot of possibilities, so let's nail down some of the major rules:
  • 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.
With that out of the way, let's get worldbuilding.

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.

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Re: Ghyesh - High Fantasy Conworld

Post by Axiem »

Part of the problem with climate speculation is that we really only have one example to derive general principles from: our Earth. So, climate resources are going to head in the direction of similar celestial situations, simply because we understand it better.

The alternate side of this is that you have a lot more leeway when it comes to inventing the climate. Until we actually encounter life on Europa to correct you, no one's really going to be able to be like "well, that's just wrong" so long as you think it through and come up with reasonable extrapolations.

A few things:
epicarp wrote:Don't worry, I intend to keep this thread to conworlding only.
Personally, I don't mind if you delve into some other aspects of things. Perhaps going into the actual rules of the RP system might be too far afield, but I know I'd be fine talking about the fiction I'm writing in the thread for my world.
There are several deities, which are commonly known and worshipped.
Oooh, cool! (I say because I'm working on my world's pantheon) What's the nature of the deities? How do they interact (or not) with people?
Celestial Landscape
This term makes me giggle.
I'm not going to delve into exact distances and such, but enough to know how the sky will look.
I'm curious: is this because you've Done the Math, but don't care to share the dry details; or because you don't care to Do the Math?
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.
Okay, when you say "same speed", do you mean rotation in radians per second; or do you mean angular velocity at the equator? Assuming Ghyesh has a different size from Earth, keeping one of these the same will cause the other to diverge.

In terms of "tilt", what do you mean "same as Earth"—relative to what? Is its tilt 23 degrees relative to its orbit around its host planet, or relative to its effective orbit around its sun?

Why is Ghyesh not tidally locked to its host planet?
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.
You use the word "day" multiple times here, and it's a little confusing. When you say "1.75 days", what is the definition of a "day" that you're working with?
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.
Depending on how big and distant they are, relatively speaking, there's potentially a lot of difference in how they'd appear in the sky. And, if the host gas giant is radiating light, that'll bounce off those other moons, which depending on albedos and distances and sizes and light quantities, could mean that they're visible during the day on Ghyesh (in much the same way that Venus is sometimes visible during the day on Earth)
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.
Maybe, if cultures span across the globe and communicate those sorts of things with each other. Doing a quick google search for things like "most famous landmark" turns up an awful lot of human-made monuments and buildings as well; and even the ones that mention natural features don't necessarily mention Everest.

What sorts of geological conditions happened to make a mountain so large, and not be weathered away?
A gas giant is going to affect the tides a lot more than a small moon could
Calculating tidal effects—at least, numerically—isn't that difficult if you can dig up the right equation, and know the various masses and distances. Comparing that to numbers for the Moon–Earth system might at least give you a basis for comparison.
the [Sun Spire] casts a very large shadow throughout the day
My intuition is that the effect of this would be negligible in the grand scheme of climate figuring, unless the angle of the sun is really that low compared to it, but in the area where its shadow falls, you're already going to be dealing with high ground and the reduced atmosphere and therefore temperature up there anyway.

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Re: Ghyesh - High Fantasy Conworld

Post by mèþru »

You may want to look at this. I'd also recommend looking at Planetocopia in general.

Also, getting into non-conworld stuff wouldn't bother me; even the details about the game could potentially be interesting.
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