Mastakos's 8-hour traversal

[PhilHibbs]

Mastakos travels across the sky in 8 hours and immediately re-appears at the Gates of Dawn.

Is this cycle synchronized to the 24 hour day, and if so, do we know how the cycle is scheduled? Does it start at dusk, when the Gloranthan day is usually said to start? If so then do you get two traversals of the sky during the long winter nights and one during the summer?

[metcalph]

I assume that at midnight, Mastakos is at its zenith so that makes it easier for people to divine its special movement.

An alternate possibility, it that it has been slipping gradually.  I think that all planets might have a periodicity of 600 years* before they return to their starting positions (ie the Doom Conjunction).  With Mastakos, it's really two hundred years.

*Lokarnos poses a problem which... I going to ignore for now.

[Joerg]

2 hours ago, metcalph said:

I assume that at midnight, Mastakos is at its zenith so that makes it easier for people to divine its special movement.

That would mean you get to experience one full cycle in a summer night, and almost from Pole Star plus a full arch to Pole Star again in a winter night. On midsummer nights, Mastakos and Lightfore would (almost?) share the same period.

An anticyclical rhythm of Mastakos (passing Pole Star at noon) would mean that Mastakos emerges with Lightfore in a 16 hour midwinter night, and sinks with it on its next cycle.

What myths do the Dara Happans have about the meetings of Uleria and Lightfore, Uleria and Lokarnos and Uleria and Dendara?

[Akhôrahil]

On 5/19/2024 at 1:20 PM, metcalph said:

(ie the Doom Conjunction)

The stars planets are right.

[Darius West]

Hmm,  I wonder if certain celestial conjunctions and other events can cause better rune spell effects for planet worshippers?  What happens when Mastakos eclipses Yelmalio or Shargash?

Edited May 22 by Darius West

[Joerg]

The Mastakos/Tolat conjunction rarely happens as his planet following the Southpath intersects the Sunpath only once, and Mastakos might be half the sky away when Tolat passes the Sunpath. When (or rather if and when) it does, the Zaranistangi might be ecstatic.

Lightfore follows the Sunpath, but at least for Yelm that path seems to go up and down against the Sky Dome (according to Nick Brooke's model of a bobbing Sunpath). Although by that logic, the nightly path of Lightfore must bob up and down in the opposite direction to explain its longer path in Winter nights and its shorter path in summer nights. With Mastakos/Uleria crossing the sky like a clockwork, that might mean that Lightfore/Mastakos conjunctions may have Lightfore below Mastakos in Summer and above Mastakos in Winter.

Sunpath planetary conjunctions are pretty reliable. Southpath ones are rather unlikely if the starting time might alter the exact zigzagging course of those planets.

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, Darius West said:

Hmm,  I wonder if certain celestial conjunctions and other events can cause better rune spell effects for planet worshippers?  What happens when Mastakos eclipses Yelmalio or Shargash?

Can planets even eclipse each other? They're moving on a 2D surface, if I'm understanding things correctly? They can collide, but can one be on top of another?

[Eff]

1 hour ago, Akhôrahil said:

Can planets even eclipse each other? They're moving on a 2D surface, if I'm understanding things correctly? They can collide, but can one be on top of another?

"All of Veldara’s first descendants lived upon her broad surface. All of the things that look like specs of light and 
that we call stars and planets are more than you think. They are called planets, palaces, and cities of the gods, and so on. In fact, each is a world, with its own rivers and mountains and wild life where the Great Gods and Planetary Forces reside." - Revealed Mythologies, p. 47

[Joerg]

30 minutes ago, Akhôrahil said:

Can planets even eclipse each other? They're moving on a 2D surface, if I'm understanding things correctly? They can collide, but can one be on top of another?

There may various subjective descriptions of the surroundings of planets or the experience of stepping on one. We know that the larger ones have a round appearance below, but other than the Red Moon we don't know for sure whether we are dealing with spheres, disks or other round shapes. Still, I guess the more or less spherical celestial body is something people will expect. Although possibly not for the Boat Planet (the name is a bit of a give-away).

The sphere of the Red Moon has been described as a two digit number of miles across, exerting a down/heavy experience towards its center. Unlike the shadow creeping across it, it doesn't rotate (relative to the surface world of Glorantha, which we assume to be non-rotating).

Geocentric world views placed the planets on crystal spheres or perhaps just crystal bands rotating before the background of the firmament, although not progressing in as regular paths as the sun and the moon.

I don't imagine any culture to visualize the Sunpath as an actual permanent road, at best a fading track across the upper sky. It may well hover "above" the Sky Dome (if you invert the perspective, assuming that entities on a Sunpath object see the Surface World above themselves, or rather like a distant valley bottom wrapping around so that what you observe in the sky is always from an above perspective).

The Gates of Dusk and Dawn aren't placed directly on the edge of the Sky Dome (at least IMG), but considerably further inward, suggesting that none of the Sunpath objects actually touch the Sky Dome.

[Darius West]

17 hours ago, Akhôrahil said:

Can planets even eclipse each other? They're moving on a 2D surface, if I'm understanding things correctly? They can collide, but can one be on top of another?

To be fair, we don't have any sources for eclipses in Gloranthan skies, but then we don't have sources for planetary impacts either.  All we have is the Sunstop, and certain stars and incidents like the boat planet vanishing, then coming back, and the disappearance of Orlanth's ring after the fall of Whitewall, and so forth.

[Joerg]

9 minutes ago, Darius West said:

To be fair, we don't have any sources for eclipses in Gloranthan skies, but then we don't have sources for planetary impacts either.  All we have is the Sunstop, and certain stars and incidents like the boat planet vanishing, then coming back, and the disappearance of Orlanth's ring after the fall of Whitewall, and so forth.

Maybe not planetary impacts, but the Juggernaut (a grey planet) has been known to crush stars on its irregular course across the visible sky.

[Akhôrahil]

2 hours ago, Darius West said:

To be fair, we don't have any sources for eclipses in Gloranthan skies, but then we don't have sources for planetary impacts either.  All we have is the Sunstop, and certain stars and incidents like the boat planet vanishing, then coming back, and the disappearance of Orlanth's ring after the fall of Whitewall, and so forth.

Shargash impacting and shattering Umath was the collision I was thinking of.

(Possibly also whatever brought Venebain crashing down.)

[Darius West]

On 5/23/2024 at 5:58 PM, Akhôrahil said:

Shargash impacting and shattering Umath was the collision I was thinking of.

(Possibly also whatever brought Venebain crashing down.)

Umath wasn't a planetary body, was he?  I thought Umath was a sudden inrush of air via a hole in the dome.

On 5/23/2024 at 3:57 PM, Joerg said:

Maybe not planetary impacts, but the Juggernaut (a grey planet) has been known to crush stars on its irregular course across the visible sky.

Is that in the Astronomy section in The Guide to Glorantha?

[Akhôrahil]

40 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Umath wasn't a planetary body, was he?  I thought Umath was a sudden inrush of air via a hole in the dome.

Orlanth's Ring is the remains of the planetary body that used to be Umath's. You can see what it looked like in the Guide, p. 115-117.

In general, Umath doesn't so much die as devolve into his various sons.

Edited May 25 by Akhôrahil