The Gazetteer has this:

"The Hyperborean Sea is moderately windy. Prevailing air currents tend to circulate betwixt the 18th and 36th parallels, an effect referred to as River Okeanos. Here the winds flow in opposing belts, looping and crisscrossing at different junctures depending on seasons and other conditions.

"These wuthering airstreams are a navigational nightmare to most. Veteran mariners (viz. Amazons, Ixians, Vikings, and Zangeriosans) understand the River Okeanos and use it to their advantage. In Tempest (Year 4, Hare), River Okeanos is plagued by deadly whirlpools. Sea ice forms from Coda (Year 12, Fox) to Genesis (Year 1, Bear), and icebergs are a constant threat."

And in "Waterborne Expeditions":

"Hyperborea’s roiling seas are unpredictably windy and teem with frightful leviathans. The realm is flat, its seas perpetually spilling off the edge of the world in massive falls. Ice sheets consume many bays and inlets during winter; icebergs present ofter in spring; and in summer, storms at sea are more frequent.

"In Hyperborea the enormous red sun never rises to a true zenith; rather, it wheels around the horizon, rising and falling in subtle degrees. Measurements are taken by employing a type of sextant, subtle differences in the sun’s position relative to the horizon indicating heading (although skilled seamen can find their bearings without need of an instrument). On the open sea, celestial navigation generally is easier, though no less hazardous."

Skilled seamen. Heh.

Anyhoo:

"Few vessels are appropriate for open sea expeditions. The finest seaworthy vessels in Hyperborea include the Amazon carrack and the large Viking longship (drekar); other sizeable vessels such as the cog and galley are fine seaworthy ships, though usually do not operate on the open sea."

So it's pretty clear that most ship voyages hug the coasts and go from settlement to settlement, probably along known routes. I would think that most would carry as many combat-capable guards and sailors as possible since in Hyperborea everyone is a pirate.

Navigating the open seas is probably a highly specialized skill. If my players tried to do it without expert advice, I have a feeling it would eventually go very badly for them. They have stolen, lost, restolen, captured, infected with monsterism, and ultimately sold at a steep discount the odd knarr or three, and I have let them pilot it around the coasts with only the normal dangers. But if they were going to take it to Zangeiros or someplace, yeah, I'd want some "Uh-Oh Tables" in a hurry.

Though "Seaman, Navigator" is available as an expert hireling for 100 gp/month. If, you know, you have time to do some hiring and are not running from the Vikings whose longhouse you infected with weresealism and then fireballed when you jump in the ship.

So I'd say making up any system one wants for prevailing and shifting currents makes fine sense, with no need to pay much attention even to fake physics. Just decide what's most fun and put it in place. Whirlpools and icebergs are good entries on any event tables you might want to make. (Oh, hey, look at that).

Given that so much Hyperborean life congregates on the coasts -- and given that coastal water travel is still moderately safer than going overland in most cases -- what I wonder about often are the tides. I have zero idea what two moons around a disk would do to tides. I am not even sure how to make something up! Eight tides a day? Tides differing east to west? No clue. Didn't we have a geophysicist around here at some point?

grodog wrote:

There's some good discussion on Canonfire! about Greyhawk's two moons' effects on tides, among other things. I'll dig up some links for you after work.

Allan.

Cool!

grodog wrote:

Links:  http://www.canonfire.com/cf//modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=3751 which points to https://www.nirgal.com/games/rpg/greyhawk/tides and https://www.nirgal.com/games/rpg/greyhawk/tides_math

Allan.

That is extensive. Someone really got into it.

I guess Hyperborea is complicated by not being a sphere. Does it even rotate? I would guess not! Gravity definitely seems to be artificial. Probably a side effect of whatever yanked it off Old Earth in the first place.

Probably simplest (and I am a lazy, lazy person) to say that tides are twice daily, lower as Selene wanes, higher as Selene waxes, and reaching extremes of high and low when the fullness (festivals) and newness coincide. Extremes enough to cover low docks and inundate soft shores or, conversely, expose vast reaches of muck and wrack to the ruddy light.

Handy Haversack wrote:

SNIP
So I'd say making up any system one wants for prevailing and shifting currents makes fine sense, with no need to pay much attention even to fake physics. Just decide what's most fun and put it in place. Whirlpools and icebergs are good entries on any event tables you might want to make. (Oh, hey, look at that).
SNIP

And for those too lazy to read a pdf or even print it out...

http://gizmomathboy.com/he_app

gizmomathboy wrote:

Handy Haversack wrote:

SNIP
So I'd say making up any system one wants for prevailing and shifting currents makes fine sense, with no need to pay much attention even to fake physics. Just decide what's most fun and put it in place. Whirlpools and icebergs are good entries on any event tables you might want to make. (Oh, hey, look at that).
SNIP

And for those too lazy to read a pdf or even print it out...

http://gizmomathboy.com/he_app

Um. Um. UM!!!

How is it that I didn't know about these until today, gizmo? That's it. I am taking back the +0 sword I was going to give you in Wisconsin.
 

Handy Haversack wrote:

Handy Haversack wrote:

gizmomathboy wrote:

And for those too lazy to read a pdf or even print it out...

http://gizmomathboy.com/he_app

Um. Um. UM!!!

How is it that I didn't know about these until today, gizmo? That's it. I am taking back the +0 sword I was going to give you in Wisconsin.
 

(Also, if you do the same with the weather tables in the appendix, all is forgiven.)

Glory Me, bloodbag but I did!

In the same thread as the announcement for the new version:

http://hyperborea.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?pid=14031#p14031


However, I think doing the weather tables is gonna be a lot easier that finishing up the work to pull in the appendices for BA's wonderful encounter tables (to fully flesh out all the parts you can hit in the tables...oi vey).

I doubt I'll get it down before Gary Con...but we'll see ;-)

Oh, I know you meant the 2e weather stuff.

The NPC stuff is a bit more involved to code in a way that works they way I've already coded it.

I wanted to offer an update as the party's pirate plans altered:

By the time the party went from where they came up with the idea to get a ship (a small fishing village located on south shore of the big lake west of Yithorium) to the place where one gets a ship, Xambaala(Yay!), plans altered a bit.

Instead of stealing a ship, the party would pool their meager treasures and buy a coaster. Even then, funds were light. Thankfully, it being the 2nd week of the 13th month in the year of the Wolf at that time, ships were going cheaply as the year of the Tempest was nearly at hand.

a little while later, after an epic battle at sea, the bigger questions now were:
1)"What really is an Ixian carrack?" we played it off as a Cog with 2 masts.
2)"What happens when you take an Ixian ship? How does it move without needing the wind?" Some magical item only Ixian captains carry, I'm thinking a medallion that holds a genie.

The party's patron, the debauched lord Arsenios of Pentos, is now one ship richer, and the party now has at least one new arch enemy; a particularly wet and cold Ixian necromancer who survived losing his ship and has washed up on a beach, some miles south of Xambaala.