Quote:
Originally Posted by Terquem
I have not witnessed it myself, but I've been told the stars look different in the southern hemisphere than they do in the northern hemisphere.
I can only imagine that a sailor, who navigates by the same stars above her head for her entire life, who suddenly, in the blink of an eye, is below a set of stars unfamiliar to her would either first, accept that they have moved to another part of the world where the stars above are not the same, or second, moved to another world. Since measurements of longitude are practically impossible if time is not accurate while moving across distances, and latitude is generally derived from the position of the sun above the horizon in the sky relative to north or south, and with all these things changing instantaneously, north south, east west, regardless of time. The stars above would be no real help to someone who moved from New Hampshire to Perth with no way of ever going back.
Without sophisticated technology or advanced magic, it would be difficult to prove one theory over the other, wouldn't it?
and without rapid forms of physical travel, actually knowing the difference is useless. Sailing around any, "Earth" sized planet, under sail, should take years...
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Yes.
Also, if on a world with a much larger diameter (somehow... a hollow planet requires a lot more super-explanation than a natural solid one) the visible effect on the stars would be reduced in proportion with the difference in circumference.
So if Cidri were all one huge world that can hold all the campaigns of all the GMs who will ever map campaigns and more... then the effect of surface travel on the visible stars would be extremely small, because it would be nearly impossible to travel any significant fraction of the planet's size without using a gate.
Navigating by the stars would only let you get your bearing, but not your change in position by surface travel.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Terquem
... accidentally moving to another world while at sea could be something the sailors would only realized happened if a different sun or moon rose in the sky, or the stars appeared different, but for the traveler, the water beneath the ship doesn't change, and to them it feels like they have only moved to another "place" on a very large "world"
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This is a nice interesting possibility to add mystery to ocean travel... and I've included similar phenomena...
However it seems to me that in many ways this would require a very different sort of gate:
* The gates have to be large enough to transport entire ships.
* The gates have to be numerous enough that there's much chance of any ship ever happening to accidentally hit one while in the middle of nowhere so far from land that none is in sight.
* The gates have to either have rules to not transport birds and fish, or to not have much/any chance of breakdown when they transport things.
* Either the places they gate between need to be aligned so that they are synchronized in day/night cycle, and/or the gate rules only transport ships in overcast/foggy weather at times when there will be no noticeable changes in the situation.
* The bar for "no noticeable changes" seems to me would be extremely low in most cases. Even in similar sea conditions, the effect of instantly teleporting into different water would cause a ship to lurch suddenly, and any difference in air temperature and wind direction would be noticeable, as would any position changes of clouds, waves, birds, etc. Becalmed in heavy fog with identical brightness might work, though.