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4/28/2015 3:23 am  #1


Hyperborean weather

From the trivia thread:

capitalbill wrote:

Well, one answer is Thorgunna's Island. This charming weekend getaway locale comes fully equipped with a "naked horde of lotus-chewing wild berserkers." Not sure on the second location. I came across lots of mentions of savage nakedness, but no other specific mention of berserkers unless I missed something.

Anlates Island has savage naked Amazons and Ixians
The Black Forest Inlet has naked cannibalistic men
Onja Cot has naked Pictish cannibals

What are the larger climate patterns in Hyperborea supposed to look like?  When I recently reread the gazetteer, I mainly recall having seen lots of talk about the cold red sun and ice and snow and bitingly-cold winds that will freeze a man solid within seconds.  This doesn't seem entirely compatible with the existence of all these nudist colonies.

Aside from looking for naked savages to party with, this is of particular interest because my concept of swords & sorcery involves a lot of (hot, sandy) deserts and (hot, overgrown) jungles and few, or no, wind-swept snowscapes.  (Perhaps because I grew up in Minnesota - anything that I could see just by looking out the window half the year is hardly an exotic locale!)

 

4/28/2015 3:53 am  #2


Re: Hyperborean weather

Winter is coming...the trees groan now. Fill on the fatty fish of the sea as our (young) fathers once did, harden your spear by fire, cake your hovels in mud and grass, cower to all visitors!!

Last edited by Monkeydono (4/28/2015 4:04 am)


...before fatidic silver pools on a auspicious night stood a Hyperborean Xathoqquan priestess; stripping naked like a beast crawling in on all fours in supplication...
 

4/28/2015 7:31 am  #3


Re: Hyperborean weather

Practically speaking, you can make Hyperborea anything that you want it to be.  The rules share Ghul's Hyperborea.  I'm considering defining it as having more heat and moisture close to the edge of the "disc" and dry cold closer to the central peak.  There will be some seasonal fluctuations on the main continent, but not so much the years-long winters defined by Ghul.

(And to further my apostasy, I will be using RuneQuest 6 rules instead of Ghul's D20 variation.)

Last edited by ThornPlutonius (4/28/2015 7:33 am)

 

4/28/2015 8:05 am  #4


Re: Hyperborean weather

I think the most crucial element is the Celestial Cycle. In the years of near total and total darkness, it is going to be really cold. Rivers freeze, lakes freeze, you get your howling winds and ice and snow. As Helios gets stronger, things warm up, but Hyperborea is not a hot place (though, of course, you can always say *this* part is or *that* part is). In the mountains it is still going to be cold, no matter the year. I think of the coastal forests more as the temperate and sub-Arctic rainforests of Washington state and Alaska.

But the cyclical freezing and thawing is going to make a mark on every aspect of the landscape, from the shape of the watercourses to the kinds of trees. According to the Gaz, after all, there are no deciduous trees, only evergreens. And then you got your lotuses.

 

4/28/2015 8:07 am  #5


Re: Hyperborean weather

ThornPlutonius wrote:

Practically speaking, you can make Hyperborea anything that you want it to be.  The rules share Ghul's Hyperborea.  I'm considering defining it as having more heat and moisture close to the edge of the "disc" and dry cold closer to the central peak.

I've been thinking along similar lines, particularly given that the points of the hexagon are defined as 0 degrees latitude and Mt. Vhuurmithadon as 90 degrees, implying that the edge is equatorial while the center is polar in Old Earth terms, but I'm curious both about how Ghul envisions it and what other GMs have done with it.

ThornPlutonius wrote:

(And to further my apostasy, I will be using RuneQuest 6 rules instead of Ghul's D20 variation.)

 (Don't tell Ghul, but that was actually the reason for my recent rereading of the gazetteer...  I've recently discovered RQ6 and was preparing to start a conversion of the Hyperborean setting.)

     Thread Starter
 

4/28/2015 8:50 am  #6


Re: Hyperborean weather

If they really are proper berserkers, they should be good down to 0 F (-18 C for godless heathens) buck naked.  Below that I guess they drape themselves in an animal skin cloak and are good to go.

nDervish wrote:

Aside from looking for naked savages to party with, this is of particular interest because my concept of swords & sorcery involves a lot of (hot, sandy) deserts and (hot, overgrown) jungles and few, or no, wind-swept snowscapes.

That's interesting.  To me one of the best things about Hyperborea is that it's not another Hyboria clone with a pseudo-Middle East and a pseudo-Africa and a pseudo-China and all the different real world climate zones carefully laid out to allow a full range of different terrain and vegetation.  Rather, it's a very distinctive setting with a certain limited range of weather, climate, and landscapes.  You have to really think about these limitations when designing adventures for the setting, and that can give them a particular flavor.  Instead of the blue millionth adventure with quasi-African headhunters and cannibals in a pseudo-African jungle, why not Keltic headhunters on a glacier?  Or Atlantean cannibals lurking in the Hyperborean equivalent of the Sargasso Sea?  IMO it's simply more flavorful to adapt adventures to the conditions in  Hyperborea, rather than the reverse.

That said, if you really want jungles in Hyperborea I think you should add some.  If you want to justify them with the prevailing conditions, you can use hot springs, magic, or divine intervention.  However, my personal preference would be to not explain them at all!

 

Last edited by Blackadder23 (4/28/2015 8:51 am)


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Rest in peace, brother.
 

4/28/2015 6:08 pm  #7


Re: Hyperborean weather

I've put together a comprehensive weather system for Hyperborea, with an eye toward its inclusion in our hardback edition (c. 2016). What follows is subject to change after Jeff has a chance to tinker with it, but here are some basic numbers that I extrapolated from the Gazetteer:

The islands near the Rim of the World are near-tropical for the most part, averaging 75–85°F throughout the cycle. Even Port Zangerios generally remains above freezing in the dark years, with summer temperatures in the low 70s. The mainland is definitely colder, though, averaging around 15°F in the winter years and 50s in the summer. In the depths of the Spiral Mountain Array, of course, summer temperatures scarcely reach double digits and in the years of darkness can plummet as low as –45°F (with a wind chill equivalent of –85°F!).

 

4/28/2015 9:06 pm  #8


Re: Hyperborean weather

I would posit that Vikland, Ullr's Isle, and Mt. Ymir area would be an abberation, being unusually cold for it's distance from the pole.  Owing primarily to the presense of Ymir himself, I would imagine.

 

4/28/2015 11:00 pm  #9


Re: Hyperborean weather

Mix it up. How about geothermally heated valleys ringed by snow-capped mountains in some places. Maybe the walls between reality and Otherworld are thinner in places and the sulphur choked mouth of hell vomits forth its hot bile.

Getting hung up on "this is how it should work in the real world" in a weird fantasy setting seems awfully limiting and contrary to the whole reason for running a weird fiction RPG.

Last edited by NAJones (4/28/2015 11:01 pm)

 

4/29/2015 5:14 am  #10


Re: Hyperborean weather

Blackadder23 wrote:

To me one of the best things about Hyperborea is that it's not another Hyboria clone with a pseudo-Middle East and a pseudo-Africa and a pseudo-China and all the different real world climate zones carefully laid out to allow a full range of different terrain and vegetation.  Rather, it's a very distinctive setting with a certain limited range of weather, climate, and landscapes.

 
I agree with this statement as far as it goes.  It's just that, like I said in the OP, I grew up in Minnesota.  I now live in Sweden.  For me, at least, "snow as far as the eye can see, and then more snow after that" is the most ungodly boring landscape I can imagine, even if it's snow-covered forests and snow-covered mountains instead of a flat, snow-covered plain.

I have nothing against dumping the carefully arranged pseudo-real-world regions and replacing them with a limited range of weather, climate, and landscapes, so long as the limited range which is used is an interesting range.

DMPrata wrote:

The islands near the Rim of the World are near-tropical for the most part, averaging 75–85°F throughout the cycle. Even Port Zangerios generally remains above freezing in the dark years, with summer temperatures in the low 70s. The mainland is definitely colder, though, averaging around 15°F in the winter years and 50s in the summer. In the depths of the Spiral Mountain Array, of course, summer temperatures scarcely reach double digits and in the years of darkness can plummet as low as –45°F (with a wind chill equivalent of –85°F!).

Thanks!  That sounds roughly similar to what I was thinking, although I hadn't gotten to the point of putting numbers on it yet.

     Thread Starter
 

4/29/2015 6:36 am  #11


Re: Hyperborean weather

This is an interesting discussion because the Xamboola adventure I'm writing is set in a desert climate - I've often wondered whether a desert is actually hot in Hyperborea! Of course one can make it as hot/cold as they like, but having an 'official' answer is certainly valuable. 

 

4/29/2015 7:42 am  #12


Re: Hyperborean weather

For a general guideline of latitudinal patterns, David is spot on, but anomalies are indeed widespread. Francisca points out a notable one, and NAJones makes a good point about geothermic valleys and supernatural phenomena being as prevalent as the individual referee prefers. And Rastus, yes, most deserts in Hyperborea are cold deserts. I think David's charts are going to be a very valuable addition to the next printing of the game; they've found immediate use in my own campaign.


HYPERBOREA- A Role-Playing Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Science-Fantasy
 

5/24/2015 9:09 pm  #13


Re: Hyperborean weather

If anyone is running something sort of 'out there' and truly wants the weather to be a factor - check out the Post Apoc weather chart printed in AFS 1


I filled my palace with deadly traps so trap admirers will come and visit me

AFS magazine - pulp literature meets old school gaming http://hallsoftizunthane.blogspot.com/
 

5/25/2015 6:27 am  #14


Re: Hyperborean weather

i've generally gone with the islands further out from the mainland being warmer and the mainland being very influenced by the multi year climate cycle.

 

5/25/2015 8:13 pm  #15


Re: Hyperborean weather

Nice that this has come up again and that it's relevant, because I was just testing David's charts last Tuesday night, and it worked out really well.

TGL -- That is a decent way to go about it, and it mirrors how I handle it, too. 


HYPERBOREA- A Role-Playing Game of Swords, Sorcery, and Weird Science-Fantasy
 

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