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8/25/2019 8:52 am  #1


Flora/Fauna

Question - if there is a whole year equivalent with no growing season, how do wild animals survive?  People can stockpile supplies, but animals?  Has this been discussed previously?


Missing Hackmaster 4e.
 

8/25/2019 10:27 am  #2


Re: Flora/Fauna

Jeff would have to give you an "official" answer, but my interpretation would be that the herbivores eat plants that they dig out of the ice, and the carnivores eat the herbivores. That's more or less what happens in the Arctic Circle on Earth, where animals have to survive without light for six months at a time.


Michael Sipe 1979-2018
Rest in peace, brother.
 

8/25/2019 5:57 pm  #3


Re: Flora/Fauna

Not to try to rock the boat, but I have some issues with the climate, sans magic.  The 6 month darkness on Earth is truly only at the north pole itself.  I lived 12 years in Alaska, and spent 10 weeks in Barrow, north of the Arctic Circle (summer, fall, and winter).  The winter is brutal, and almost all mammals that can migrate have - caribou south of the Brooks range, so not near the Arctic coast.  And they return annually to calve, since the annual summer provides tons of plants on the tundra.  
In Anchorage in December, Astronomical twilight starts and ends roughly 3 hours prior to dawn and after dusk.  So even with 5 hours of true daylight, you still have 7-8 hours of usable light.  In the summer of course, the sun goes down each day but is sitting just below the horizon so it doesn't get dark/dim for at least a month on either end of the solstice.
In Barrow, it's admittedly stranger.  In the winter you have a twilight that lasts roughly 10 hours a day in December.  True the sun never actually comes up, but is sitting just below the horizon, so you actually have some 'dusk' light to work with in the middle of the 'awake' period of 4 hours or so.  It's weird, but I've seen it - we would joke that the 'dim' had arrived.  Summer of course it is 24 hour sun for like 2.5 months and probably doesn't get 'dark' for at least two weeks on either end.
https://www.sunrisesunset.com

The tree line is another potential issue - In Barrow, no trees.  Trees are like 200+ miles to the south.  Comparing Anchorage itself to the 'Coastal Mainland' range, the winter temperatures averages aren't too out of line, but years 5-9 would be low if compared to months.  I like the concept, but the growing season requires certain daylight and heat for crops, otherwise, no barley for beer.  Interior mainland - maybe like going into Denali.  I'd think years 5-9 would be low if compared to months, but not like you're growing crops there. 

Just my 2 cents.


Missing Hackmaster 4e.
     Thread Starter
 

8/25/2019 10:13 pm  #4


Re: Flora/Fauna

Hyperborea clearly is supported by magic. Something unnatural has to recycle the water that spills over the sides, and artificially maintain an atmosphere and gravity which the mass of Hyperborea couldn't support on its own. I suppose the same force (which some speculate to be contained in the Great Obelisks) must lend an extraordinary vigor to the trees and other plants. That's how I see it anyway.


Michael Sipe 1979-2018
Rest in peace, brother.
 

8/27/2019 3:09 pm  #5


Re: Flora/Fauna

I don't think you can impose mechanisms into a fictional setting from a non-fictional one.

Hyperborea for the most part has an internally consistent environment. I don't think one should worry too much about life finding a way.

Having communities planning for Nightfall totally makes sense. I've been adding underground granaries to towns of any size. Those are easier to construct than any above ground structure in my opinion.

What happens in the uncivilized parts of Hyperborea? Who knows, that's the makings of a great adventure I bet.


What? Me worry?
 

8/28/2019 9:48 am  #6


Re: Flora/Fauna

Magic to support the supernatural is easy (obelisks, slice of the arctic, etc.), magic for the mundane...I have a really hard time with.  If i ever get a chance to play, I have to alter/adjust the calendar/cosmology to explain.  Wheat needs certain temps to ripen, no sun for that long at those temps would seem to destroy the ability to have trees, even in boreal forest, from what I've seen.  Myself, I'd make a calendar where there is a period each year of no sun, maybe making it a few days at the peak of the cycle and two months or more in nightfall, and a month in the years in between peak and antipeak.  Can definitely see the weather/light in nightfall causing many crops to fail, but the lack of a growing season at all for such an extended time + the life cycle of animals needing 'some' regularity.  Anyways, that's me.


Missing Hackmaster 4e.
     Thread Starter
 

8/28/2019 3:24 pm  #7


Re: Flora/Fauna

You're not even talking about the presence of predator gigantism, which implies huge numbers of prey animals, all of whom gotta eat! 
I say there is a diffused luminous radiation (ala Lovecraft's "red-litten" N'kai or "blue-litten" Kn'yan) that seeps up from the vaults of Underborea, allowing plants to survive without sunlight.


"Role-playing isn't storytelling. If the dungeon master is directing it, it's not a game."  ~ Gary Gygax
 

8/28/2019 3:55 pm  #8


Re: Flora/Fauna

Hyperborea is more akin to a space ship or cosmic petri dish than a planet with natural biomes. There's all kinds of things about Hyperborea that don't make sense without powerful sorcery and alien science (e.g. Earth-like gravity, breathable air, seas spilling over the edge, hollow interior with mythic underworld, Lemurian Remnant's spatial anomaly). Why are you drawing your line in the sand over sunlight?

 

8/29/2019 4:24 pm  #9


Re: Flora/Fauna

Not trying to draw a line in the sand at all.  Again, suspending disbelief over the big items (everything Brock Savage noted) that don't impact the day to day life is easy.  I just can't suspend disbelief on a 13 year year with regards to animal/crop/plant growth and health. Again, not applying my standard to anyone else.


Missing Hackmaster 4e.
     Thread Starter
 

8/29/2019 5:10 pm  #10


Re: Flora/Fauna

Kevmo wrote:

Not trying to draw a line in the sand at all.

Sorry man, that was a poor choice of words, I was hastily posting from work.

 

8/30/2019 6:13 am  #11


Re: Flora/Fauna

Kevmo wrote:

I just can't suspend disbelief on a 13 year year with regards to animal/crop/plant growth and health

Also you have to consider that Hyperborea also is rumored to have a considerable UnderBorea, so they live an function without light all the time, so life can exist without lite for extended periods of time, also think of the possibility that even though there is no visible light, there may still be Ultraviolet, Infrared or other spectrum energies in Hyperborea that are possibly always on. Though there are a lot of Native to Old earth like plants and animals, they may have adapted or blended with other Hyperborean native plants to adapt.  Or Hell, it's a kind of magic world...


-- 
BlackKnight, AKA Sausage
Older than Dirt, Crusty, and set in my ways. Been playing TTRPGs for over 45 years...
 

8/30/2019 6:42 am  #12


Re: Flora/Fauna

BlackKnight wrote:

Kevmo wrote:

I just can't suspend disbelief on a 13 year year with regards to animal/crop/plant growth and health

...  Or Hell, it's a kind of magic world...

This exactly. I don't sweat the need for a simulacram.

But to each their own. You might worry about it your game, but it's not a concern in mine.


What? Me worry?
 

Board footera






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