Post by David on Dec 5, 2006 15:31:54 GMT -5
Howdy folks,
A couple of people have been asking about the moons of Oerth. Well, here goes:
Oerth has two moons named Luna and Celene. Luna is by far the larger of the two and enjoys a regular, stable orbit of 28 day cycles. The current Common Year calendar was defined using the first day of Luna rising full as "January 1st" aka 1/1/1. That means, given a year of 338 days (12 months of 28 days plus the two days of Midsummer and Yule "outside the calendar"), in 616 Luna's three days of fullness begin on the 9th from January to June and then on the 8th from July to December.
Legend holds that there are a race of elves who dwell on Luna amid massive forests, pleasant skies, and shallow seas. Only one party of adventurers has reached "The Lady" in recent history (the last 200 years) -- they report that Luna has no native intelligent life; the colony of mind flayer living exterminated most things and brought slaves with them, but were themselves wiped out and their thralls will probably not last long unguided.
Celene, "The Handmaiden" is a smaller moon with a greatly irregular orbit (hey, modern science still doesn't have a nice model of three-body dynamics, so I just roll it up each game!). During the Apocalypse, the interaction of Celene and Luna combined with the changes in natural laws allows Celene to blot out Luna and also display the stars beyond...
Folklore holds that Celene is a lifeless void, pocked with ugly craters. Ancient tomes tell that Celene doesn't even have air to breathe. Despite this, some elves tell of a mysterious city on Celene, lost since before the Invoked Devastation. One group of explorers actually reached this site and, despite strange variations in air and movement, encountered a handful of guardians left by a long-lost elven people. No one has returned again or visited more than this tiny sliver of Celene.
A couple of people have been asking about the moons of Oerth. Well, here goes:
Oerth has two moons named Luna and Celene. Luna is by far the larger of the two and enjoys a regular, stable orbit of 28 day cycles. The current Common Year calendar was defined using the first day of Luna rising full as "January 1st" aka 1/1/1. That means, given a year of 338 days (12 months of 28 days plus the two days of Midsummer and Yule "outside the calendar"), in 616 Luna's three days of fullness begin on the 9th from January to June and then on the 8th from July to December.
Legend holds that there are a race of elves who dwell on Luna amid massive forests, pleasant skies, and shallow seas. Only one party of adventurers has reached "The Lady" in recent history (the last 200 years) -- they report that Luna has no native intelligent life; the colony of mind flayer living exterminated most things and brought slaves with them, but were themselves wiped out and their thralls will probably not last long unguided.
Celene, "The Handmaiden" is a smaller moon with a greatly irregular orbit (hey, modern science still doesn't have a nice model of three-body dynamics, so I just roll it up each game!). During the Apocalypse, the interaction of Celene and Luna combined with the changes in natural laws allows Celene to blot out Luna and also display the stars beyond...
Folklore holds that Celene is a lifeless void, pocked with ugly craters. Ancient tomes tell that Celene doesn't even have air to breathe. Despite this, some elves tell of a mysterious city on Celene, lost since before the Invoked Devastation. One group of explorers actually reached this site and, despite strange variations in air and movement, encountered a handful of guardians left by a long-lost elven people. No one has returned again or visited more than this tiny sliver of Celene.