>I asked Steve how big the planet was (for the mapping project) and he said, >"I use 'roughly Earth' for convenience." "Roughly Earth". Well, I guess this depends on how rough you're talking about. Many (including me) would call Venus "Roughly Earth-Sized". The figures I'm speculating on are midway between Venus and Earth (a bit closer to Venus-sized, and denser). I don't know how well my figures jive with yours in terms of distance (Have you been able to make a good guess about the distance from the pole to the equator, for example? Or have you just been using Earth as a template for the maps' distances?) I'm speculating that gravity on Dragaera lighter than Earth, based on the following: 1. There are a number of fairly large flying creatures (Jhereg, Dragons, Tiassa, etc) that would have an easier time of it with a lighter gravity to overcome. 2. At the same time, lighter gravity means that the atmosphere is likely to be thicker than ours (so that the air-pressure is able to sustain life), which would also help the flying critters (a thicker atmosphere makes it easier to generate lift) and would also help to moderate the seasonal variations due to the increased atmospheric mass aiding the convection currents that even out the surface temperatures. 3. In /Issola/ Our heroes go to another world which is noticeably heavier, yet has a (somewhat) breathable atmosphere. If this world is, say at the 1.2g level, it'd be a very noticeable difference to a Dragaeran, without being so far from Earth-normal to make a breathable atmosphere unlikely. Of course, since the Density of Dragaera may be remarkably different than it is for Earth, mass calculations and surface area calculations don't really have to correspond to each other there the same as they do here. >From Dzur Mountain (which is about as far north as any jungle or other >tropical condition is attributed) to the North Sea north of Fenario >(Brokedown Palace describes the bitter cold of the north sea) appears to be >about 2,800 miles, and if the planet is the same size as the Earth, that >works out to be about 41 degrees of latitude between the tropics and the >arctic. The "axial tilt" number I'm using is from the Small Invisible Lights site, which gave a formula for calculating it as Seconds in a Day/Days in a year = Axial Tilt * 10 For Earth this works out as (24*60*60)/365 = 23.67 * 10 For Dragaera is works out as (30*60*60)/289 = 37.37 * 10 I haven't been able to confirm that this formula is correct, however, and I can't quite wrap my head around why this works. It seems to me that the rotational speed of the planet may have very little to do with its orbital speed, if the planet has undergone some kind of event to dramatically affect it's rotation (such as Venus). >That puts Dzur Mountain at approximately 45-(41/2)= 24.5 degrees latitude, >which is very close to the Earth's tropical extent of 23.5 degrees, which, >at least on the Earth, is due to the tilt (that is, the Earth is tilted at >23.5 degrees, which marks the northernmost/southernmost latitude which ever >bears the full brunt of the sun). > >Of course, the two big problems with the above are, > >1. It's based on my work on release 2 of the map of Dragaera, which is not >yet published. > >2. I am nearly convinced that the Enclouding moderates (or at least affects) >the weather within the Empire. It's interesting that the enclouding doesn't seem to adversely effect the production of many crops that on Earth depend greatly on sunlight. For example, there are some excellent wine-producing regions that are apparently within the Empire (Khaavren, for example). To me, this says that either: 1. The enclouding, being magical in origin, doesn't actually block the sun's rays, it's all just an illusion. 2. The farmers on Dragaera use sorcery to make up for the lack of sunlight. (This might help explain why things were so bad during the Interregnum...) I have trouble buying this last theory, however, based on the fact that flax-farmers in /Athyra/ didn't seem to get any kind of magical assistance. Majikjon