KhorasForum

You're right!
I should have selected this solution in my list (even if I don't like it very much ).
I would like to add that it's not by chance that it fit the Earth week length. It's juste because we want to keep 12 months like on Earth (in order to be able to imagine the weather and all that stuff), and approximately 350 days/year like on Earth (otherwise all long duration we know should change (for example lifespan)).
Anyway, we'll perhaps see other opinions...

Woaaaa!
When I said it would be interesting to set the lunar calendar I didn't imagine it would lead to that! Anyway it's a very interesting discussion. Here is a first though.

The calendar with 3 weeks of 9 days has some very good points :

• it's original (I mean not completely similar to our calendar)
• it's not complex because it lead to month and years approximately the same length as ours

In one word, it is well balanced between originality and complexity

But I agree with you there is no reason to cut the year in twelve such strange months. I guess their suns are a lot more important than our moon so I think they actually would divide the year according to star rotation. It would be better for the coherence and the deepness of the World of Khoras.

Now let's see if we can find a way to change that (with some maths, I apologyse ).
As you say if we have 9 days/week, 4 weeks/month, 12 months/year, it leads to 432 days/year (+33% in comparison with actual system). To be coherent it would imply to decrease all durations (I mean interval of time between events) by -25%. Something wich takes 4 years to changes (1296 days) would now take only 3... The question is : is it really necessary to implement that or could we accept that all developpements were 33% slower? I personnally guess it's acceptable.

If not we have several ways to explore :

• change to number of months : 9 months would keep the actual year duration, 10 would lead to the Earth year duration. I think it's not very practical to play in such a system (in addition neither 9 nor 10 months can by divided easily by four seasons). What is the weather in the 5th months? Or in the 8th? Even if it's stupid we make some very strong anthropocentric comparison to draw a mental picture of a scene (cold like in january, snowy like in february, confortably hot like in july of uncofortably hot like in august). What about 8 months/year? It can be divided into seasons and (like 9) could be converted into 12 in a not-too-complex way. But it shortens the year to 288 days.
  
• change the number of days per week : of course 7 days/week is fine (336 days/year) but it is nearly exactly the Earth calendar and I would find it very deceiving to come back to such a very reasonnable solution . 8 days/week would lead to 384 days/year (less than 432 but, well I don't like this solution of 8 days/week ) and 6 to 288 days/year (too short).
• change time duration at small scale (day, hour, second) : hum... it seem dangerous to play with a day of 18 hours, or an hour of 45 minuts (!), or a second of 0.75 Earth' second. One of my friend tried this for his own psychedelic world : hours of 100 minuts and days of 50 hours but with smaller seconds (or something like that). After some years we are still unable to remember that dumb system
• change both months and weeks : as said previously it's hard to change the number of month because it would be very confusing for us. The only way it would seem barely acceptable would be 6 months or 24 months. The first one is not dividable by four seasons (but it's not very complex to translate into human months), but would lead to weeks of 13-14 days to keep the 324 days/year. The second one is dividable by four but in this case, week only last 3 days (288 days/year) or 4 days (384 days/week).
• forget the hypothesis that there is an exact number of star cycle in one year : the year are determined by one complete revolution around the suns, but these stars may rotate a fractional number of time (+/- 0.5 only, to remain "simple"). It is a more natural but very complex solution, even more than the one with 9 months. But I wanted to point out that.

Well... After having listed these possibilities, I think the best ones would be :

• either to set 4 weeks/months and keep all texts as they are (WTF option)
• either to set 4 weeks/months and 9 months/year to keep constant the year duration. After all, perhaps it's not so complex to convert Khoras month in our head to set idea...
• either to set 4 weeks/months, 6 months/year and 13-14 days/week to obtain nearly the same year duration (312 or 336 days/week). The conversion is easier : each Khoras month equals two Earth month (jan/fev => 01 ; mar/apr => 02 ; ... not very complex)

Anyway, again, very interesting topic!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Hi!

Tanks David! Just to say that this map still contains some things to improve or to correct. If anyone see something, just tell me and I will modify the map.

Delbareth (aka Ludovic)

Hello!

I'm currently playing with one of my player during this war (started in 2705) in the Duthelmian side. In fact he started in 2700 but time is going and the war is finally coming. And I'm a little bit disappointed by the time line given.
Some time ago, the time line said the war was very short (few months between 2705 and 2706). You corrected that and it's now much longer. But I found strange the date of the siege of Myranor. You put it four year after the beginning of the war! I see Duthelmian army as a horde of humanoides and even if Kitar is aware of a war coming, I would guess they cannot withstand alone such a force.

On the contrary I would think  that the horde of Duthelm can effectively reach Myranor in few months, and subsenquently be beaten by the Rukemian forces.

In my game, the arrival of Karthus and his army set in motion the war preparations but Duthelm cannot be ready in one day and Karthus's army quickly head to Myranor, with minor forces from Duthelm. They will conquier the first cities and do the famous siege of Myranor before being routed by Rukemian knights. After that the big part of the Duthelmian army will eventually arrive and fight at their side. Then the front will set not far from Myranor. It will move during the war and it will end with a total rout for Duthelmian forces with breaking in their side (Xorian problem, no Draxorith to help them as "promised" by the Draxorith Cult, ...).
Well it's how I will play that part...  

Hello here!

Some times ago, a friend of mine told me that he thought the mount Durrodis geography was not very realistic. He found that it was a little "fantasy" or "odd" although the rest of the world map was very much like real continents. And I just found an image during my internet surfing :
http://www.lefigaro.fr/medias/2010/04/22/20100422PHOWWW00144.jpg

It's an island south of kamchatka (called Onekotan, other images can be found easily), nor very hospitable, like the Sea of Ash region...

I personnally would be very interested by some quantitative values about size of armies.
I don't think such numbers could be a constraint to the liberty of a GM. Moreover if a GM wants to change that, it would imply to change the equilibrium of forces (Kitaran army crushing Duthelmian one for instance).

The situation is completely different for "historical battles" since too much information on that topic could really reduce the possibilities of a GM to adapt his game. I would say that only the major battles could be given, giving all latitude to put minor battles anywhere needed.

Hello!

During my last game session, I was wondering about the size of an army. How many men/orcs/ogres/whatever compose a typical army?

The only comparison I have is found in Tolkien book (Unfinished Tales). It gives some explainations about the Gondor army. During the War of the Ring, Gondor has sent 7,000 men at the Mordor's door. It is said that this is a quite small army since it corresponds to the rearguard of what was the Gondor's army during the great time. It is said that the Gondor's real army size should be approximately 70,000 men! Well this is an example of the army of a powerfull kingdom.
I don't remeber (shame on me) if a number is given for the Sauron's army. It is said 10,000 orcs in Mordor in the movie but I doubt it's in the books (too low in my opinion).

Now the same question can be applied to Khoras. In particular what would be the size of the Khartus' army. It is said "horde of Khartus" but how many orcs does it represent? 30,000? 50,000? 100,000 perhaps? How many "regular" soldiers of Duthelm join them? Or what would be the army of Kitar?
Here my objective is only to have order of magnitude, not precise numbers. It's just to have an idea...

I would only say two things about this subject :
- The argument that triploid salmon are natural does not mean at all that eating these salmon is harmless. All that is natural is not necessarely without consequence on health. Caricatural example : perhaps we could improve health by avoiding at all cost to eat these strange natural salmons...
- Secondly : Monsanto... Especially you american wants so strongly make money with anything that it could overcome scientific approach.

I don't say it's a bad things. I personally would love that genetically altered food could be used to feed the humanity, but there are plenty of problems on the way. You cannot reject rational "fears" because history has proven at which point a "good idea" can be perverted.

Very interesting answer, as usual!

I won't blame you! It tooks me two years to write it!

While we are still focused on Anquar, I would like to submit another question dealing with demography.

Let me summarize what is written.
On anquar page we have : "Human (Anquar) 76%, Human (Ithrian Southerners) 5%, Orc 4%, Ogre 3%, Grum 3%, Saurian 2%, Hurkyte 2%, Urtas 2%, Sea Gypsies 1%, Mandalar1%, Other 1%"
On Ipotal page we have : "Human (Quaryn) 70%, Human (Southern) 9%, Human (Padashi) 7%, Ogre 5%, Orc 3%, Mandalar 2%, Urtas 2%, Hurkari 1%, Other 1%"

My question is the following: where and how are organized the mandalars and the hurkytes?
It is said they are quite brutal races, trying to be the strongest, competing to the chiefclan position before being defeated by a younger opponent... It is explicitely said that theses -stupid- beings do not like civilization and cities and we understand why! So are they organized in small villages appart from big cities ? Perhaps much more present in the north-east ? In this case how are organized those who are said to be in cities ? Are they slaves? Is there a civilized part of these races who agree to mix with humans ?

Hello all!

I have a very simple question : does Drellis effect works at night? 

I know I know as GM we can do whatever we want but I like coherent explanations. The magic section brings a lot of idea concerning the Drellis effect but it leads to somethings strange to me : if drellisian effect is due to "radiations" from Drellis, such radiation should not reach Khoras surface on the night side of the planet... And everybody knows that these radiations are absorbed by large amount of material (i.e kilometers of ground)

Personnally I do not want to obtain only a daily Drellis effect. Huuuugh! 
If anyone has an idea?

Well, it's not that obvious if you look at statistic since there are very few people with tha capability of doing magic. Ok I guess probabilities could be increased through genetic since mage parents could give more mage childrens (for instance 1/10 instead of 1/1000). Moreover a ruler has to find somebody with a good spirit/soul : he has to be wise and to look for the benefit of the nation before its own benefit.

Concerning the talisman I think we nearly agree. I think that only a mage (specialy a powerful mage) is able to understand the talisman and obtain complex powers from it. Let's give example :

• a non-mage would be able to extract raw magical energy, enough to launch fireballs and death rays, to move objets, to paralyse telekinetically, to protect with invisible force fields
• a mage would be able to shape raw energy into more complex spells, like fire prisons, healing, flight, read mind, control people  
• a talented mage would then be able to cast really complex spell : animate objets, divination spells, invocations, gravity modification, wormholes/teleportation

... and each of these one could be cast on a tremendous scale because powered by the talisman. And of course a new wielder may be taught by the ruler how to control the talisman.

And I remind that they are wise rulers : all this is only to prevent somebody to try to take the throne by force, not help them convicing their advisors with a magical burning cold. So a non-mage could be chosen by a ruler just because he has the right spirit/mind/soul to be a wise king.

Going further into this hypothesis it implies that Dalmoran (ok perhaps a good guy at the beginning, but too ambitious for the charge, like Anakin for example ) was a great mage capable of magical prowess with the talisman. With this mastery he managed to find a flaw in the raw energy defense of one of his collegue. The others were not able to withstand the power of two or three pieces, even if they were better than him.

At the end, if somebody want to overthrow Dalmoran, he would have to wield the four pieces (obviously), to be able to understand this magic (a talented mage), and take the time to master it.

Well, this is how I see it.

Tanis, You implicitely guess that only mage may effectively use the talisman. For myself, I'm not completely decided concerning this point.
In fact if a piece provides long life, it would enable a king to wait for a magically-gifted heir. It changes my previous point of view where each king has to give his piece to his son, whatever is its magical skill.
Well I guess I would say that the talisman may be used by anybody, but only mages -and specially talented mages- can obtain complex powers with it (concentrating energy to launch fireballs is only for dummies).

After thinking about that I think it's not an easy life than being such a king. As they had a long life, they certainly had seen their wife, their children, and their grand-children died before finding the proper heir, giving the talisman, and quietly dying.
Anark must have gone completely mad!!!