Where is winter colder? Boldhome? Or Glamour?

[RHW]

My wine vs beer debate with @Jeff made me realize we have a fundamental disconnect about the weather in Peloria. While of course, YGMV, he describes Peloria as similar in climate and plant life as the Upper Mississippi/Missouri Valley, and I've always thought of it being more akin to Spain or Southern France. Both are about the same latitude, but obviously there's a pretty big difference in the weather, both in terms of temperature range and humidity. My Peloria is more temperate and drier, Jeff's (I believe) is wetter with a more extreme range of temperatures.

Now based on geography, Jeff's view (and by extension the official Chaosium POV) makes a lot of sense. Peloria is the north central part of a continent roughly the size of the United States. There's a glacier sitting just off the map. The White Sea is ice-locked, etc. And Sartar is just to the west of a hot dry wasteland and could easily be a high desert, given the Rockwoods' significant rain shadow.

But... but... I don't know. That doesn't feel right to me. Dara Happa doesn't feel like it should be a cold place, normally. Nor does Darjin or Pelanda. I see ziggurats and togas and flat-roofed adobe and sandals and formation dependent infantry and none of that makes much sense in places with long cold winters, ample forests, and tons of rain. Dara Happa feels like a classic river flood plain civilization, dependent on the reliable Oslir for their water, not even bothering to sacrifice to any sort of rain or cloud god. In Dara Happa (and I think much of Peloria) river water + earth + sun = food. 

Meanwhile Sartar is boots and cloaks and long pants and forests and rain and storm gods. For Sartarites storms + earth + a bit of sun = food. They propitiate a god of winter (Peloria doesn't), they have a goddess of spring (does Peloria?), they seem to experience the full range of seasons. In Dark Season, they make no war (unless they honor Valind and then it's raidin' time!)

So my justification for my version of Glorantha is that the gods make the difference.  

In my Dragon Pass, Orlanth and Heler do not give two shits about a rain shadow. It rains a lot because they say it does. Valind doesn't care about latitude. Valind hides in the mountaintops most of the year, then claims his kingship in Dark Season because that's the deal Orlanth made with him.

In my Peloria, Yelm shines bright. He sends more heat to his beloved Dara Happa and the surrounding lands than the rest of the world. He's always moderated the climate there, except when he was dead. He does so still. Now from time to time, perhaps once a decade or so, Valind would beat Yelm back in a reenactment of the Lesser Darkness and Peloria would have a snowy winter.  But even that doesn't happen anymore, because Yelm has now has help. The Lunar Icebreaker cult, for the last 30 years, has made sure that Valind never wins. Even while snow covers Pent and Fronela and Ignorance, Winter never truly comes to Peloria. (Well except Talastar, and Yelm doesn't love them, so there.)

The point is, in my Peloria, hoplites can march in sandals and togas make perfect sense and I get my Lunar wine and olives and posca.

Because really it's all about the posca.

So how's the weather in your Peloria?

 

 

[Jeff]

5 minutes ago, RHW said:

My wine vs beer debate with @Jeff made me realize we have a fundamental disconnect about the weather in Peloria. While of course, YGMV, he describes Peloria as similar in climate and plant life as the Upper Mississippi/Missouri Valley, and I've always thought of it being more akin to Spain or Southern France. Both are about the same latitude, but obviously there's a pretty big difference in the weather, both in terms of temperature range and humidity. My Peloria is more temperate and drier, Jeff's (I believe) is wetter with a more extreme range of temperatures.

Now based on geography, Jeff's view (and by extension the official Chaosium POV) makes a lot of sense. Peloria is the north central part of a continent roughly the size of the United States. There's a glacier sitting just off the map. The White Sea is ice-locked, etc. And Sartar is just to the west of a hot dry wasteland and could easily be a high desert, given the Rockwoods' significant rain shadow.

But... but... I don't know. That doesn't feel right to me. Dara Happa doesn't feel like it should be a cold place, normally. Nor does Darjin or Pelanda. I see ziggurats and togas and flat-roofed adobe and sandals and formation dependent infantry and none of that makes much sense in places with long cold winters, ample forests, and tons of rain. Dara Happa feels like a classic river flood plain civilization, dependent on the reliable Oslir for their water, not even bothering to sacrifice to any sort of rain or cloud god. In Dara Happa (and I think much of Peloria) river water + earth + sun = food. 

Meanwhile Sartar is boots and cloaks and long pants and forests and rain and storm gods. For Sartarites storms + earth + a bit of sun = food. They propitiate a god of winter (Peloria doesn't), they have a goddess of spring (does Peloria?), they seem to experience the full range of seasons. In Dark Season, they make no war (unless they honor Valind and then it's raidin' time!)

So my justification for my version of Glorantha is that the gods make the difference.  

In my Dragon Pass, Orlanth and Heler do not give two shits about a rain shadow. It rains a lot because they say it does. Valind doesn't care about latitude. Valind hides in the mountaintops most of the year, then claims his kingship in Dark Season because that's the deal Orlanth made with him.

In my Peloria, Yelm shines bright. He sends more heat to his beloved Dara Happa and the surrounding lands than the rest of the world. He's always moderated the climate there, except when he was dead. He does so still. Now from time to time, perhaps once a decade or so, Valind would beat Yelm back in a reenactment of the Lesser Darkness and Peloria would have a snowy winter.  But even that doesn't happen anymore, because Yelm has now has help. The Lunar Icebreaker cult, for the last 30 years, has made sure that Valind never wins. Even while snow covers Pent and Fronela and Ignorance, Winter never truly comes to Peloria. (Well except Talastar, and Yelm doesn't love them, so there.)

The point is, in my Peloria, hoplites can march in sandals and togas make perfect sense and I get my Lunar wine and olives and posca.

Because really it's all about the posca.

So how's the weather in your Peloria?

 

 

I suggest starting here: 

 

When I get a chance I will post the temperatures for Peloria as well.

 

[RHW]

2 hours ago, Jeff said:

I suggest starting here: 

 

When I get a chance I will post the temperatures for Peloria as well.

 

Rain figures aren’t too different from what I’ve run IMG. Bit wetter in some places, but I always figured Tarsh and Talastar’s weather was more influenced by the Storm than the Sun. If most precipitation in the basin comes in Fire Season, that means not much snow. I picture Dara Happan precipitation as more L.A. than San Jose.

i suspect our real divergence is temperature range. 

[Jeff]

2 minutes ago, RHW said:

Rain figures aren’t too different from what I’ve run IMG. Bit wetter in some places, but I always figured Tarsh and Talastar’s weather was more influenced by the Storm than the Sun. If most precipitation in the basin comes in Fire Season, that means not much snow. I picture Dara Happan precipitation as more L.A. than San Jose.

i suspect our real divergence is temperature range. 

Until the 1590s, the key factor is the winter winds blowing off Valind's Glacier in Darkness and Storm Seas, which is very cold. Lowland Peloria was covered in glaciers just a few thousand years ago. Yelm's presence makes agriculture possible and makes it hot in summer, but Peloria is traditionally very cold in winter. Some of Sheng Seleris's army movements  were possible because the Oslira used to regularly freeze over in Darkness season. 

So think inland continental climates. Cold winters, hot summers. Entekos blesses the summers in the Heartlands with gentle rain, but gets disrupted by the rebel gods with their infertile thunder and hail storms.

[Jeff]

As for Boldhome, here's something out of a forthcoming book:

Climate

At 1700 meters in elevation, Boldhome has a cool subalpine climate. The peaks above Boldhome have snow year-round. The Killard Valley below Boldhome is significantly warmer, with a comparatively shorter winter. 

Because of its high elevation, Boldhome gets cold, snowy winters, but because of the Storm Bull winds blowing off Prax, it gets warm summers. Sea Season gets the most rain; while Earth and Darkness seasons are the driest. During the winter, Boldhome gets over 2 meters of snow.

 Most human structures here are built out of sturdy stone, and dwarf-made conduits drain the snow and water.

Boldhome Temperature And Precipitation

Season	Tem Hi/Low	Rainfall cm/Days	Prevailing Winds	Snow cm
Sea-Early	1/14	10/18	Southwesterly
Sea-Late	5/16	10/14	Southwesterly
Fire-Early	9/25	5/8	Southwesterly
Fire-Late	15/30	5/2	Southwesterly
Earth-Early	9/25	3/2	Desert Winds
Earth-Late	5/20	2/2	Desert Winds
Dark-Early	-4/5	4/6	Desert Wind/ Northerly/Desert Wind	15
Dark-Late	-16/2	6/8	Northerly/Desert Wind	60
Storm-Early	-12/5	12/20	Northerly	80
Storm-Late	-5/11	12/20	Northerly	50
Sacred Time	0/12	5/6	Southwesterly

Total precipitation 74 cm, including 205 cm of snow. Snow remains in the upper slopes of the valley into early Fire Season.

[Jeff]

Most buildings in Boldhome are made out of stone.  The dwarves built Sartar’s Palace, the West, East, and Top Pockets, the Wall, the Temple of Orlanth Adventurous and the Earth Temple, as well as several other temples. These buildings are architectural wonders, often two, three, or, in the case of the Tower of the Winds in Sartar’s Palace, even twenty stories high, all seamlessly carved out of the stone. Where masonry is used, it consists of precisely cut and shaped polygonal stones that fit without mortar. The stonework is finer than that of any other human settlement in Dragon Pass or the Lunar Provinces.

The dwarf-made Pockets are particularly remarkable. These buildings include residences, workshops, temples, and assembly halls, which were carved out of the stone cliffs, and all have access to water and sewage systems (including private toilets connected to the sewer network). Most buildings are approximately 15-20 meters square, with each floor divided into series of rooms intended for a family unit that include a sleeping area, a shrine, a central room with a cooking fire (ventilated by a chimney), and a water room. Multiple passages exist between these “family units”, and many buildings extend deep into the cliff. The result is a honeycomb-like maze of rooms. 

Most of the buildings in the bottomlands were built by Sartarites, not dwarfs (although they stole the secrets of stone masonry from the dwarfs). They are typically two or three stories high and square. The bottom floor is divided into three rooms, one of which is often a shop, rented by a merchant. The central area is a general cooking and eating room, with a fireplace. There is also a part for the servant’s quarters. Furniture depends on taste and budget. Most furnishings are modest with their grandparents’ styles still common since they made the stuff, or brought it from Sartar.

The second story is usually divided into one large room, often used for entertaining and for more servant sleeping, and a number of smaller ones, usually private rooms for family members and close household. It is common to have a guest room.

There are two fireplaces, one in the downstairs cooking area and one in the upstairs entertainment area. Most civilized houses have a ground floor room set aside as a privy; some even have access to the dwarf-built water and sewer system. Food storage is kept far from this room.

[Joerg]

To be honest, I wasn't expecting the concept of "private rooms" in Sartarite society, whether urban or rural, except for studies and workshops.

The text about the masonry leaves out one of the (at least to me) most crucial facts about the masonry: the kind of stone that was used. Different stones have different durability and ease of workability - as a rule, the easier a type of stone is worked, the less durable are buildings made of it, with chalcite a notable anomaly because while it is pretty hard to work, it isn't very stable chemically (i.e. weathering) and will erode much quicker than silicaceous rock of similar hardness.

Sitting at the foot of Mt. Quivin, a son of Veskarthan and Kero Fin, I expect the available rock to be quite durable and inert to weathering. That will mean a demand for quite hard tools. Even with Gloranthan bronze being harder than terrestrial bronze, and possibly brass from bones of Veskarthan's kin especially able to cut through rock of similar descent, a lot of the fine work is probably done with stone tools, grinding and polishing the surfaces into shape.

"Polygonal stones" probably means polygonal-based prisms. Right angles still seem to dominate the building outlines ("square" doesn't leave much wiggle room, really). Are vaults or domes or just arches used in separating the stories, or are all interior floors wooden planks or weavework, possibly overlaid by clay, held up by massive beams resting in cavities or on ledges protruding from the masonry for this purpose?

One building style I encountered on Cyprus had a stone arch forming the support for the roof ridge of the slanted roof. I could imagine similar constructions upholding the floors, possibly with small tunnel vaults resting on these.) The roof construction in the living areas may well be hidden behind highly decorated textiles in wealthier households, and less well-off households would strive to put up displays of their superior needlework or similar craft, too, or alternatively hung with aromatic herbs left there to dry and to enrich the atmosphere. In the cooking area, roof space is probably occupied by baskets or even pottery hanging down from beams, to keep them out of the reach of most vermin.

Mankind was able to construct water-proof vaults in megalithic drystone architecture (e.g. Newgrange), so I don't think such vaults would be out of place in our Bronze Age fantasy.

How is the interior of these houses lit? Is there a central light shaft, are there numerous windows, or perhaps systems of mirrors (which could be just white-glazed pottery for lighting purposes), or is artificial lighting (i.e. oil lamps, braziers, candles, or magic) the normal mode?

 

The "thermodynamics" of the Gloranthan Lower Air need a bit mythical explanation if you are with me in thinking that a direct application of the barometrical height formular is unwieldy in a place with 30km high geography. As you fly higher, air density shouldn't decrease as much as it does for terrestrial conditions, although the real measure for storm god presence probably is wind force. We still know that mountain tops are cool enough to maintain ice caps throughout the summers, but how much of that is owed to mere height above the surface, and how much of that can be attributed to vertical air movement around such peaks?

I'd still expect updrafts on steep slopes, so we need a reason how and why they shed heat despite approaching the supposedly fiery sky. But then, a lot might simply come from Umath's statement (through his mere existence) that he was not fire but something new.

Devotees of Orlanth are immune to wind chill, but not to Himile's cold. Valind is the storm that has allied with Himile, bearing that Cold. But then, Orlanth's half-sister Inora is bearing that cold, too.

[kirinyaga]

I don't see how Peloria being so far from sea could have something else that inland continental climate. Ok, I got the gods' role argumentation tho. But not the France/Spain comparison. There is already a huge difference in France between Dunkerque (on north sea shore) and Strasbourg (near Germany), while they are on the same latitude. I suspect even being nearby an interior sea or a huge lake will significatively alter the climate (in our world that is). All that water seems to resist both Yelm and Valind.

When speaking about bronze age, I immediately think to mycenians, minoans, hittites, assyrians, egyptians, ... All around mediterranean sea basically, with associated food and architecture. What sedentary peoples were in inland europe at the time ?

[Sir_Godspeed]

30 minutes ago, kirinyaga said:

What sedentary peoples were in inland europe at the time ?

I'm not a historian or archaeologist, so I might get some things wrong here - but this is my best guess:

There are various archeological cultures (ie. based around similar artifacts left behind, rather than any knowledge of how they viewed themselves) delineated in Europe at that time, but not a lot is known about them. The Corded Ware and Beaker cultures are perhaps the most contemporary with the civilizations you mention. The Corded Ware is associated with pre-proto-Germanic Indo-Europeans, I think, but I'm not sure about the Corded Ware (pre-proto-Celtic? proto-Italo-Celtic? Not Indo-European at all?).

There are also a number of central European cultures which replace each other in turn: Unetice, Tumulus, Urnfeld and then the Hallstatt culture. But the development of metalworking in central/nothern Europe is slower to develop than in the Mediterranean/near east. On the other hand, it lasts longer. By the time of Hallstatt - well, I could be wrong, but they certainly look advanced enough to be comparable to anything the Hittites or Egyptians could put out, even if it is 600-1000 years later or so (and they are contemporary with early classical Greece, iirc.). Hallstatt straddles the Bronze-Iron Age divide, and after a while becomes the (Iron Age) La Tene culture, which is pretty much pre-Roman (Celtic) Gauls (as well as much of the rest of central Europe).

As far as I know, all of these were sedentary, but the earliest ones might've practiced transhumance, or slash-and-burn agriculture, I don't know (I'm not implying the archeologists don'w know, I just don't know off the top off my head). What we do know is that the Nordic Bronze Age (and thus I *assume* other parts of non-Mediterranean Europe) had relatively centralized communities. There were fairly large farm compounds, chieftains and kings built large mounds, there were huge hoards of grave good, etc. Later, in the Iron Age, things become more decentralized and there are fewer prestige construction projects for a while, until the Middle Ages. This is generally seen as a consequence of the necessity for a centralized trade and manufacturing system for bronze, versus the opportunity for more local production of iron. It's possible that this is too simplistic an explanation.

tl;dr: There were probably quite a few sedentary people around during the classical Bronze Age of the large Levantine empires, but they lagged behind in size, urbanization, and state development. They also did not leave any writing behind. The ones we have are generally associated more with the Orlanthi than the Pelorians, even if that makes the aesthetics and landscape a bit flipped, as it were.

EDIT: It should probably be noted that Glorantha, regardless of temperature, also has a completely different resource-technology-basis than Bronze Age Europe, so there's a serious danger of staring oneself blind on history books when trying to make Glorantha feel cool and immersive.

Edited March 8, 2019 by Sir_Godspeed

[Joerg]

1 hour ago, kirinyaga said:

I don't see how Peloria being so far from sea could have something else that inland continental climate. Ok, I got the gods' role argumentation tho. But not the France/Spain comparison. There is already a huge difference in France between Dunkerque (on north sea shore) and Strasbourg (near Germany), while they are on the same latitude. I suspect even being nearby an interior sea or a huge lake will significatively alter the climate (in our world that is). All that water seems to resist both Yelm and Valind.

When speaking about bronze age, I immediately think to mycenians, minoans, hittites, assyrians, egyptians, ... All around mediterranean sea basically, with associated food and architecture. What sedentary peoples were in inland europe at the time ?

Not an archaeologist either, but a big fan of the Hallstatt Late Bronze Age Early Iron Age period that followed the Urnfield culture covering much of the upper Danubian watershed and reaching into the Rhine watershed, too. In the Carpathian basin there is the hardly known (and not that easily googled if you don't know the names) but very productive in archaeological finds of metal Noua Culture that presumably provided metal for the Nordic Bronze Age (that continued almost up to the Roman Iron Age) even after the Mediterranean/Fertile Crescent Bronze Age Collapse.

Not being a literate society helped dampen the impact of the Bronze Age collapse with its loss of literacy. Having chalcolithic technology and experience to fall back to in the times of the worst shortages probably was extremely helpful. Doing well without having to put effort into irrigation prevented a negative impact of the loss of irrigation technology and know-how lost along with literacy. The down side is that we get at best exonyms from literate texts in neigboring regions, and at worst we have to make do with archaeological material culture names that don't necessary correspond well to the actual areas sharing ethnicity.

We don't have names for the factions meeting at the Tollense Crossing, but we know that the presumed attackers were from basically all over the later Hallstatt area and some parts further north, and the defenders had more or less lived in the region - according to the isotopic composition of their teeth which does little miracles in placing dead bodies in a geological and thereby geographic context.

According to the Nordic Bronze Age video that I posted in this thread, Central Europe lagged at most two or three centuries behind Greece or the Levante with the introduction of bronze smelting, and copper-working was known well earlier as proved by the Ötztal ice mummy with his copper implements. The question is how long it took them to promote the cult of the divine individual that permeates the divine rulers of the Mesopotamian, Nile and Mediterranean cultures, and which reappeared at the height of the Hallstatt culture e.g. with the Glauberg burial after the intermittent collapse of trade with the Mediterranean.

How the collapse of Mediterranean trade affects a civilized central European empire is nicely shown by the late Merowingian era of the Frankish kingdom that succeeded the West Roman empire, and which at first was more or less a continuation of the Empire with just a new layer of government/military caste added. What soured this state of being was the loss of all the southern Mediterranean territories and trade to the expanding caliphate(s). It didn't really matter much to the everyday life in the Frankish kingdom whether the Ostrogoths or Byzantium held Italy, as long as the established trade routes continued to operate normally, but the paradigm shift to the Caliphates created the collapse of late Roman culture in Romanized western and central Europe.

The high Bronze Age trade network was on par with that of the Roman Empire, though the means and volumes of transportation may have differed somewhat. Not that much, judging from the shipwrecks known to archaeology.

But the Roman Empire trade network did extend into the Germanic Barbaricum and Scandinavia, and so did apparently the High Bronze Age network into the lands that produced Amber, Jet, Saponite and other such mineral curiosities deemed precious by the core Bronze Age cultures of the Crescent. The Tin sources mostly lay in the Bronze Age barbaricum, too, like Cornwall, Ireland, Carpathia, or Afghanistan.

Climate was different from today - the Sahara being significantly greener caused significant changes to updraft patterns dominating today's climate (or that of 500 years ago when anthropogenic climate gas emission was hardly measurable in ice core bubbles). Central Europe was a lot closer to Mediterranean conditions despite the frontier of permafrost soil still receding in parts of Scandinavia nowadays completely free of permafrost, and the North Sea only slowly approaching the modern day coast lines from the basin devastated by the late mesolithic great Tsunami that drowned Doggerland and much of the British peninsula and the Danish coast on the Oslofjord although those regions were rising up by themselves rather than drowning, due to having been freed of 3 km of glacier.

 

Unless I am misremembering my research of the recent weeks, there seems to be a shift from some material cultures identified by archaeologists around the same time the Linear A culture in the Aegean area disappeared and was replaced by the Linear B culture of the Myceneans, three to four centuries before the Bronze Age Collapse. This is at least true for the Carpathian basin and the adjacent Danubian area. The Urnfield culture started to take off roughly around the same period, too. Avoiding much of that intermediary decline, the Nordic Bronze Age was able to catch up further on the Fertile Crescent cultures in many aspects, but not in literacy.

But then, the La Tene culture produced the Druid caste which consciously forwent literacy in their lore-keeping, and they were the heirs of the Hallstatt and thus indirectly the Urnfield culture. The shift from Urnfield to Hallstatt appears to have been gradual, without much signs of decline for the Urnfield culture. The shift from Hallstatt to La Tene on the other hand appears to have followed a century or a little more of cultural hiatus or decline, at least measured in the bigger population centres.

La Tene oppida were built using Greek city planning, like Manching or Kelheim. Despite being an illiterate society (or if they were literate, they must have used extremely perishable writing material, similar to the misapplied use of papyrus in the wet parts of the Frankish kingdoms where vellum was the much more stable form of writing material), they were well aware about things that created a polis. I see little reason why Hallstatt shouldn't have had similar trade contacts, although the Greek and Phoenician colonies south of their lands were a lot smaller, and trade volume necessarily too.

[RHW]

5 hours ago, Sir_Godspeed said:

There were probably quite a few sedentary people around during the classical Bronze Age of the large Levantine empires, but they lagged behind in size, urbanization, and state development. They also did not leave any writing behind. The ones we have are generally associated more with the Orlanthi than the Pelorians, even if that makes the aesthetics and landscape a bit flipped, as it were.

I think that's my biggest issue. For me, the aesthetics of the Lunars, Dara Happans, Darjinni and other Pelorian cultures don't match their reported climate/environment. I'm not an archaeologist, but I have a wee bit of experience with fictional world building and those sorts of things gnaw at me. All major signifiers of Pelorian civilization scream "Mediterranean climate" to me. And while their geographical location flies in the face of this, the magical nature of Glorantha makes it pretty easy to imagine a temperate Peloria. I guess I have an easier time believing the Lunar basin is temperate than justifying how the various Pelorian civilizations evolved the way they did in a climate like the upper Mississippi.

Edited March 8, 2019 by RHW
Boggles influenced my spelling.

[Sir_Godspeed]

6 hours ago, RHW said:

I think that's my biggest issue. For me, the aesthetics of the Lunars, Dara Happans, Darjinni and other Peloria cultures don't match their reported climate/environment. I'm not an archaeologist, but I have a wee bit of experience with fictional world building and those sorts of things gnaw at me. All major signifiers of Pelorian civilization scream "Mediterranean climate" to me. And while their geographical location flies in the face of this, the magical nature of Glorantha makes it pretty easy to imagine a temperate Pelorian. I guess I have an easier time believing the Lunar basin is temperate than justifying how the various Pelorian civilizations evolved the way they did in a climate like the upper Mississippi.

I have the same issue. I might be coming around to accepting how this are presented now, but I'm not sure.

I am still influenced by the Germanic-Celtic-looking Orlanthi, and while the Mycenaean look does have a number of similarities (and there are elements of Hallstatt worked into them as well), there are things I have a (possibly irrational) fondness for, like pants/hose, or sloped rather than flat roofs. At least in Dragon Pass.

But my impression of Glorantha has changed astronomically since I joined this forum just a few months ago, so it's not like any of my impressions are set in stone. I have a lot of sympathy for the people who've been running campaigns for years and years, and been involved in the setting for decades - even if radical changes are probably a staple of the hobby by now, and personal tailoring IS welcomed.

[Julian Lord]

It's often forgotten that the Red Moon is warm, and the closer you get to Glamour and the Crater, the warmer it is.

The Moon that's more like our own is the White Moon of the 4th Age.

Boldhome is unquestionably colder in Winter.

On 3/7/2019 at 9:08 AM, Jeff said:

At 1700 meters in elevation, Boldhome has a cool subalpine climate.

Doesn't sound very subalpine at those altitudes -- the RL subalps are far lower than that generally, and whilst the northerly subalps on the German side can be fairly cool, those on the Italian and French sides tend to be hot in summer and temperate in winter (with the Alps themselves varying in winter from place to place -- I live on an Alp, and snow here is a rarity).

But 1700M in elevation is 700M higher than Chamonix, which is bang on the Mont Blanc, which is of course itself the very highest point in the Alps.

It's an alpine ski resort altitude -- bearing in mind that many ski resorts are very warm places indeed most summers (though careful with those summer rains and summer storms which can get quite chilly).

[Jeff]

On 3/9/2019 at 4:46 AM, Julian Lord said:

It's often forgotten that the Red Moon is warm, and the closer you get to Glamour and the Crater, the warmer it is.

The Moon that's more like our own is the White Moon of the 4th Age.

Boldhome is unquestionably colder in Winter.

Doesn't sound very subalpine at those altitudes -- the RL subalps are far lower than that generally, and whilst the northerly subalps on the German side can be fairly cool, those on the Italian and French sides tend to be hot in summer and temperate in winter (with the Alps themselves varying in winter from place to place -- I live on an Alp, and snow here is a rarity).

But 1700M in elevation is 700M higher than Chamonix, which is bang on the Mont Blanc, which is of course itself the very highest point in the Alps.

It's an alpine ski resort altitude -- bearing in mind that many ski resorts are very warm places indeed most summers (though careful with those summer rains and summer storms which can get quite chilly).

Who says that the Red Moon is a source of warmth?

[KingofElfland]

Well, the art direction clearly implies warmth from somewhere. 

[Jeff]

4 minutes ago, KingofElfland said:

Well, the art direction clearly implies warmth from somewhere. 

Which art direction? Of the Red Moon? The Red Moon as described in the Guide exists outside of the mundane world, and so its temperatures are not connected with those of lowland Peloria. 

For most of its history, Peloria has had very cold winters and hot summers. In the last two generations it has more mild winters, but still hot summers.

Boldhome has a cool subalpine temperature. Tuolumne Meadows (elevation 2,627 m) is cool subalpine, as is Yosemite Valley itself.

[Julian Lord]

7 hours ago, Jeff said:

Who says that the Red Moon is a source of warmth?

Greg did -- I honestly cannot remember where or when.

I think that the idea was that it has some solar characteristics from its location in close to an original location of Yelm in the God Time.

[RHW]

7 minutes ago, Julian Lord said:

Greg did -- I honestly cannot remember where or when.

I think that the idea was that it has some solar characteristics from its location in close to an original location of Yelm in the God Time.

I totally buy the the Red Moon is a semi-successful attempt to reproduce Yelm in God Time and thus it might always be a bit warmer inside the Glowline. 

I also feel like as long as there's a Dara Happan Emperor (Moonson qualifies) in Peloria, it's also a bit warmer. 

[Julian Lord]

7 hours ago, Jeff said:

Boldhome has a cool subalpine temperature. Tuolumne Meadows (elevation 2,627 m) is cool subalpine, as is Yosemite Valley itself.

Your photos are lovely, but the terrain that they depict resembles the Alps not in the slightest (some parts of the Pyrenees look somewhat like that).

OED 2nd Edition 2009 :

1.1 Belonging to regions lying about the foot of the Alps.

b.1.b n. An inhabitant of such regions. rare.

2.2 Partly alpine in character or formation; pertaining to or characteristic of elevations next below that called alpine; belonging to the higher slopes of mountains (of an altitude of about 4,000 to 5,500 feet). 

The Alps are young mountains, and the subalps per se are constituted of older continental terrain that has been raised up around the rise of this mountain range.

Your Yosemite photos might be more how I'd view these or those parts of the Mislari, Nidan, or Rockwood Mountains.

And whilst the map info is fairly variable, the Stormwalks IMO seem to resemble the Alps north of Italy than anything else ... and they're certainly nowhere near as dry as the Yosemites !!

Edited March 11, 2019 by Julian Lord

[EricW]

Let’s not forget the Lunars use magic to tamper with the weather, conducting a hero quest to defeat Valind every winter.

One of the things Argarath does in King of Sartar from memory is defeat the Lunar attack on Winter, resulting in a far colder winter in Lunar territory.

[Darius West]

4 hours ago, EricW said:

Let’s not forget the Lunars use magic to tamper with the weather, conducting a hero quest to defeat Valind every winter.

One of the things Argarath does in King of Sartar from memory is defeat the Lunar attack on Winter, resulting in a far colder winter in Lunar territory.

Agreed.  When the Kalikos heroquest is successful, which during the days of the Empire has been most years, then Glamour has warmer winters.  Should the Kalikos hero quest fail, then Glamour might get colder than Boldhome, but Boldhome will be cold and rainy most of the year, so on average, Boldhome will be colder during the hero wars, especially during the Great Winter.

Edited March 12, 2019 by Darius West

[Jeff]

6 hours ago, Darius West said:

Agreed.  When the Kalikos heroquest is successful, which during the days of the Empire has been most years, then Glamour has warmer winters.  Should the Kalikos hero quest fail, then Glamour might get colder than Boldhome, but Boldhome will be cold and rainy most of the year, so on average, Boldhome will be colder during the hero wars, especially during the Great Winter.

Keep in mind that the Kalikos hero quest is a new thing. The first one was performed in 1593. It has changed the climate of Peloria significantly, but agricultural practices tend to be very conservative.

[jajagappa]

4 hours ago, Jeff said:

The first one was performed in 1593.

While the 1593 date is noted in the Glorantha Sourcebook, RQG p. 128 has this note: "For over a century, the annual Lunar Kalikos Expedition has moderated the harsh winters."

[Jeff]

7 hours ago, jajagappa said:

While the 1593 date is noted in the Glorantha Sourcebook, RQG p. 128 has this note: "For over a century, the annual Lunar Kalikos Expedition has moderated the harsh winters."

Yeah, well the Glorantha Sourcebook date is correct. 

[Julian Lord]

On 3/12/2019 at 11:18 PM, jajagappa said:

While the 1593 date is noted in the Glorantha Sourcebook, RQG p. 128 has this note: "For over a century, the annual Lunar Kalikos Expedition has moderated the harsh winters."

IIRC it's an old discrepancy, dating back possibly even to the RQ3 era .. someone, I can't remember who (Peter Metcalfe ? Joerg ? Nick Brooke ?) suggested that whilst the Kalikos HQ has been attempted for over a century, 1593 was the first time that it was completely successful. We do know anyway that unsuccessful attempts were made for several years prior to 1593.

It's possible too that the original much more locally limited HQ has existed for over a century, but that the first Empire-wide one was in 1593.

Though as always, YGWV.