Wyrms High Pass

[Darius West]

13 minutes ago, EricW said:

It just seems a bit odd that as you approach Orlanth's realm of Middle Air, you run out of air ;-). As for violating Earth physics, we're talking about a realm where water only runs downhill because Magasta jumped into the void left by the destruction of the spike, and rallied all the waters of the world to help.

Do we really believe the myths, or are they the stories we tell the children to explain things we don't understand because we live in the bronze age?

5 hours ago, M Helsdon said:

Sigh. Constant as in not at Venusian or Jovian pressures at 'ground level', but with variation sufficient for weather.

You are not using the correct terminology.

[soltakss]

26 minutes ago, EricW said:

It just seems a bit odd that as you approach Orlanth's realm of Middle Air, you run out of air ;-).

I normally say that the air gets so thick that it is hard to breathe.

[EricW]

24 minutes ago, Darius West said:

Do we really believe the myths, or are they the stories we tell the children to explain things we don't understand because we live in the bronze age?

I don’t know - perhaps we should summon a greater darkness ancestor and ask them what happened!

[Eff]

I think my assumption is that it gets more difficult to breathe when you climb a high mountain and only devoted members of Air cults can really counter this, for themselves and possibly for other people. The explanation for this (perhaps the air becomes too pure for ordinary humans to safely breathe, or perhaps each "band" of air, Lower, Middle, and Upper gets thinner at its edges (and thus it becomes difficult to breathe if you go deep underground, too) before thickening as you pass into the next layer. But the mythical explanation is almost ancillary.

[M Helsdon]

And gone.

 

 

 

Edited June 27, 2021 by M Helsdon

[Darius West]

19 minutes ago, M Helsdon said:

Oh dear. And what is the 'correct terminology'?

Glorantha is a cosmos which emulates the universe our Bronze Age and many Iron Age ancestors believed they lived in. The difference is that Glorantha really is a cube of Earth, floating on Water, with Air and Sky above, and the Underworld below. It is a cosmos that obeys the Laws of Myth, not the Laws of Physics.

Given that our ancestors had a plethora of explanations for the shape of the world during the bronze age and they were all wrong, can we really be certain that Gloranthans actually know the correct answers?  Theists tend take a lot on faith.

[Darius West]

1 hour ago, EricW said:

I don’t know - perhaps we should summon a greater darkness ancestor and ask them what happened!

That rather assumes that they actually know and understand their own creation.  How well do you recall your own birth?😉

Edited June 26, 2021 by Darius West

[Sir_Godspeed]

Explaining weather in column with no vertically distinct air pressure is fairly easy: the air is, as all things in Glorantha, animate. Vast air beings, like Orlanth, Valind, Urox and many more, move through the airs (or rather, ARE the airs), creating prevailing air currents and the effects thereof. 

Basically, the same way sea currents are explained in Glorantha.

Edited June 26, 2021 by Sir_Godspeed

[Joerg]

7 hours ago, EricW said:

It just seems a bit odd that as you approach Orlanth's realm of Middle Air, you run out of air ;-).

As you enter Orlanth's realm, your breathing needs to be more and more heroic.

Last time I was out in an actual hurricane (Cyril, by now 8 years ago or so), I found myself breathless facing the storm (which had just toppled the one tree next to the place I was working at, requiring a quiick check whether anybody was hit by it). I suppose that entering Orlanth's realm has a similar effect.

I have no idea which exact physical phenomenon caused that experience, but then fluid dynamics are a lot less inside my field than are thermodynamics.

 

[EricW]

27 minutes ago, Joerg said:

As you enter Orlanth's realm, your breathing needs to be more and more heroic.

Last time I was out in an actual hurricane (Cyril, by now 8 years ago or so), I found myself breathless facing the storm (which had just toppled the one tree next to the place I was working at, requiring a quiick check whether anybody was hit by it). I suppose that entering Orlanth's realm has a similar effect.

I have no idea which exact physical phenomenon caused that experience, but then fluid dynamics are a lot less inside my field than are thermodynamics.

 

Pressure drop. Tornadoes and cyclones can cause a tremendous drop in air pressure near the eye. The record is an abrupt drop to 850 millibars, equivalent to suddenly being transported to 5000ft altitude, comparable to the pressure drop in the cabin of a commercial airliner. Not noticeable if you are sitting calmly waiting for the aircraft to take off, but a big deal if your adrenalin is pumping and you are running around trying to do stuff.

[soltakss]

9 hours ago, EricW said:

Pressure drop. Tornadoes and cyclones can cause a tremendous drop in air pressure near the eye. The record is an abrupt drop to 850 millibars, equivalent to suddenly being transported to 5000ft altitude, comparable to the pressure drop in the cabin of a commercial airliner. Not noticeable if you are sitting calmly waiting for the aircraft to take off, but a big deal if your adrenalin is pumping and you are running around trying to do stuff.

I think that is missing the point a bit.

It is hard to breathe in a hurricane because so much powerful air is all around you. It probably sucks the air from your lungs to make it join the nearby air.

Real world physics don't always apply.

[Joerg]

4 minutes ago, soltakss said:

I think that is missing the point a bit.

It is hard to breathe in a hurricane because so much powerful air is all around you. It probably sucks the air from your lungs to make it join the nearby air.

Real world physics don't always apply.

That's pretty much how it felt. I had to walk backwards in order to be able to breathe in that air current (of slightly over 120 km/h / 75 mph), and I think the Bernoulli effect was to blame in part. In the Middle Air, there would be no turning away, your breath (soul) needs to be the strength or attunement to work in that environment.

Sufficiently strong souls may allow you to direct where you are carried away by the wind.

[Ormi Phengaria]

On 6/26/2021 at 9:13 AM, Eff said:

I think my assumption is that it gets more difficult to breathe when you climb a high mountain and only devoted members of Air cults can really counter this, for themselves and possibly for other people. The explanation for this (perhaps the air becomes too pure for ordinary humans to safely breathe, or perhaps each "band" of air, Lower, Middle, and Upper gets thinner at its edges (and thus it becomes difficult to breathe if you go deep underground, too) before thickening as you pass into the next layer. But the mythical explanation is almost ancillary.

 

If the Lower Air is the air of the surface world, which everyone breathes, and the Middle Air 'proper' is the air of storms and gale-force and heavy clouds, then it seems possible that in climbing the peaks of the highest mountains in the world (and ascending beyond the clouds) one actually begins to leave the Middle Air and become closer to the Sky, if never reaching it fully. That would account for the loss of one's breath... and I imagine it could seem as though the stars and planets were getting closer.

The irresistible storm pulling the air from your lungs to join it is also pretty compelling imagery, though, but I think that would have to be overtly rather than suggestively supernatural-- clear airs of mundane high mountaintops aren't really "stormy" enough for that.

[soltakss]

15 hours ago, Ormi Phengaria said:

The irresistible storm pulling the air from your lungs to join it is also pretty compelling imagery, though, but I think that would have to be overtly rather than suggestively supernatural-- clear airs of mundane high mountaintops aren't really "stormy" enough for that.

Still air is actually more dangerous, as that is Molanni's preserve, stealing the very air from your lungs.