Saturday 15 September 2018

Climatology

The last step of world design that affects the entire planet is the creation of a world climate. For purposes of an AD&D campaign, a region's climate falls into one of five different categories: arctic, sub-arctic, temperate, sub-tropical, and tropical.
Remember, you don't have to justify everything with a scientific explanation; for example, if your world has two suns, one above each pole, it could be that the poles are the tropics while the equator is the coldest region of planet.

Mean Planetary Temperature


16-30 - Hot
All climate bands are one step warmer than normal; the tropical zone is super-tropical.
Super-tropical regions are warmer than humans can comfortably tolerate, but an unprotected human can survive in such areas, at least temporarily. The average temperature is well over 100 Fahrenheit, usually in the 110 to 140 range. Human societies in such conditions may become nocturnal or do their best to avoid the heat of the middle of the day.
This works out pretty well. The seas are hot, unbearably so towards the equator, but we end up with a chunk of polar landmass that is tolerable. The centers of the two polar pentagons should get to sub-arctic, but if they are kind of flat faces of the polyhedron, they kind of wouldn't so I'm ok with that.

Seasonal Variations

11-30 - Mild.
The planet has only a slight axial tilt, and seasons are present but reduced in effect. The Tropics and sub-tropics experience no seasonal variation, and the temperate and sub-arctic regions tend to have warmer winters and colder summers than normal (for Earth).






Prevailing Winds and Ocean Currents

Take your world display and examine each ocean or major sea. If the body of water is north of the equator, draw a current circling the ocean clockwise. If the body is south of the equator, draw a current circling the ocean counter-clockwise. If the sea is on the equator, pretend that the equator forms a boundary dividing the sea into two parts, and draw north-hemisphere and south hemisphere currents on either side of the line.
Then do the same thing with land and wind. I always knew this clockwise stuff was a thing, but it wasn't until college that I was formally taught it.

So, it looks like we have some favorable currents from the continent westward to the islands, and between wind and currents the southeast islands are pretty well connected. Weather-wise, it is probably hot and humid all the damn time. With one of our themes being Caves, maybe that was a thing early people did in the super-tropical southern top of the continent and equatorial islands to beat the heat.

What's Next? Zoom in on an area!

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