Thought on Seasons

[skeetdaddle]

Throwin' another one out there for people to chew on: how come though there are three seperate months to the Zalanthan year, there never seems to be a change in seasons? Wouldn't it be cool if there was a month where weather was say, ultra-hot and not so windy, (maybe increased endurance penalties for being outside might apply); a month where things were really stormy, (another thing is how come it never rains? I know it's supposed to be a rarity, but I know of an oasis ICly, and I'm just wondering where that water supposedly comes from.); and maybe a third month that's a bit cooler with some storms, (maybe fewer endurance penalties during this time?) Just curious what people think.  

[Delirium]

I don't know if it's just coincidence or not..

But a certain month seems to be a lot stormier than others.

[Xygax]

There are no seasons because it's a desert world.  There is no rain because it's a desert world.  Oasiseseses bubble up from underground, and/or are the result of drain-off from mountain regions you've never seen.

[Tamarin]

I figure because the known world (which isn't all that big by our standards...) is equatorial on Zalanthas.  Therefore, it's relative lattitude keeps it roughly the same season all year long.

[skeetdaddle]

Xygax wrote:

There is no rain because it's a desert world. Oasiseseses bubble up from underground, and/or are the result of drain-off from mountain regions you've never seen.

Oh. Just seemed like there might occasionally be a light drizzle or something. :wink:

Xygax wrote:

There are no seasons because it's a desert world.

Well even RL deserts have quasi-seasons, don't they? They're not as extreme as they are in more temperate climates, but they still have hotter, and cooler, and stormier seasons.[/b][/u]

[SRB]

What High Lawd say be law.

I'd tend to agree with what Xygax says.  :wink:

[Rhyden]

Not only would it be cool, skeetdaddle, but it would also be realistic. I'm no scientist or meteorologist, but I know that a planet has to revolve around a star in order to have any sort of life and with this revolving pattern comes different weather. This occurs on every planet in our solar system at least and -must- occur in order to have life...

-BUT-

...since the known world of Zalanthas is so small...it could of course be in the same hemisphere of the world and therefore -could- have the same climate and weather all year long.

Something that comes odd to me is that there's no rain, at all. This is realistic in the more desert-type areas, but we have a freaking forest with trees and scrub plains to a land full of grass and in this world we humanoids apparently need water to live. So I'm guessing that plants need water as well...so it has to rain right? Or do plants just walk around when nobody's watching and buy a watersking then fill it to the brim with water? Whatever the case, there should be some rain if any at all. Anybody with me on this? Especially those of you majoring in science at university???

-Sorry this completely changed the topic, but it's a conflict that I belived needed to be brought to our attention.

-Rhyden

[Xygax]

Well, probably the more meteorologically correct answer is Tamarin's.  The section of the world that constitutes the "known world" is geographically tiny, and as such experiences only limited seasonal variance.

[Larrath]

Also, the grassy areas around Tuluk aren't full of grass.  They're just big clumps that jut out randomly, but I believe the vast majority of the ground is covered in sand.
The trees probably have water-storing methods (like a cactus does), and some plantlife even lives off of blood.

[Delirium]

Not to mention this is a world with magick.

Maybe the plane of Vivadu leaks over underground. Who knows?

[mansa]

I walked into an alleyway and Vivadu leaked all over the walls!  Boy did she stink!

[FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit]

http://www.zalanthas.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4329&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
I love that old thread of mine. If you have a scientific mind like I do, Rhyden, it offers some explanations for Zalanthas' bizarre water cycle that you should find (at the least) satisfactory.

[Rhyden]

Awesome, reading it as I write,

[Rhyden]

After reading this, FiveDisgruntledMonkeysWit, I can see we're on the exact same level here...where there's plantlife, there's gotta be some rain, although Larrath's reasoning is possible, and magick could be an answer, but meterologically, rain'd be the answer...trees just don't have the same hydrological system as cacti, but this is a fantasy world, rules are meant to be broken!

[Cuusardo]

Does the extreme climates on our work have seasons, like the Sahara Desert, or Antarctica?

I would imagine it would be quite similar to those situations.

[JollyGreenGiant]

You don't need need rain in order to have a water cycle.  When the sun goes down and the temperature drops slightly, dew will form on the underside of surfaces, where it is relatively cool.  Because the ground is so dry, this water is quickly absorbed, meaning that actual moisture forming would be rare.  Some of this water is absorbed by plantlife, the rest is drawn into whatever aquifer system feeds the oases.  Plants have probably adapted to drawing moisture directly from the air.

As for the grey forest, go look at pictures of baobab trees and where they grow.  Madagascar is a pretty harsh looking place.

[Tamarin]

I was thinking something like Egypt, Cuusardo, with the really desert-strewn areas being akin to the areas around Allanak.  And then if you consider the northern areas, there is likely some sort of dispersed water source underground, but it exists in such a way that there aren't really any reservoirs, it's just spread thinly and sparsely enough so that plantlife can at least survive, albeit in meager proportions.  I don't know for sure, because I am not privy to the Staff's concept of the -unknown- world, but I would think that the further north you go, the more likely you are to find rain.

Now we must also consider that all of the known world, and very likely the areas beyond, was pretty much raped by a defiler.  So imagine an area like mid-eastern Manitoba (northern-central US, perhaps), with a decent amount of rain and trees and life in general.  Now take that geographical zone, and subject it to an explosion that is several times more powerful than a hydrogen bomb.  I'm not much of a scientician, but I can imagine this is going to do really fucked up things to an environment, like causing it to stop raining.  Something of this magnitude would very likely be able to physically change an areas attributes to a scale that would also cripple it's typical weather patterns, and all the cycles that accompany it (water, nitrogen, etc).  In my eyes, this is how the known world exists.  Its seasons, therefore, revolve around the frequency, direction, and power of the sandstorms, much like how an angry woman would rage and bitch about how she's just had a brazilian wax forced upon her.

That's right, I said it.

[Stroker]

If the entire world of Zalanthas lacks large bodies of water, then the only source of rainfall would be the vegetation inhabiting the known world. Therefore, since the vegetation in the known world is not abundant by any stretch of an imagination, there would be very little if any rainfall in the known world. This can be empirically proven by looking at areas on Earth (if you're into this whole 'realism' thing). For instance, dense forest ecosystems literarily produce their own rain by a process of transpiration. However, it has been observed that when these forests are destroyed, there is no vegetation to create rainfall; therefore, the once tropical rainforest converts into a semi-arid desert (Northlands for instance).
Ergo, assuming that the environment of the Known World was somewhat hospitable (if not lush) at one point in time, the arrival of the Dragon and the subsequent destruction of the fragile ecosystem by defiling could have transformed a very hospitable environment into a harsh, nearly lifeless, desert.

Sa'alam