Post:Eclipses - 10/03/2012 - 05:35

Re: Eclipses · on 10/03/2012 05:35 AM CDT	899
>>With all those moons up there you would think it would be a fairly common event. Keep in mind that it entirely depends on the exact plane each heavy body rotates in (Numbers I don't have handy, and I suspect may not actually exist). Also the fact that the playable area of Elanthia is fairly small relative to the mass of the world, so the vast majority of eclipses (partial and total) will go unseen. A very, very, crude guess would say you could expect a total eclipse of some sort every IG year or so. Maybe less. >>I would expect Moonmage visions to preceed most if not all eclipses and current events would be tied to them. We a few exceptions we actually try and avoid doing stuff like this and letting events flow naturally. Otherwise you end up with GMs up at 3 am trying to run an event when almost no one is around and so forth. >>Solar eclipses happen only in daytime when a moon is full and passes before the sun causing darkness with the sun's corona shining as a ring in the black sky. This darkness would last several roisan before returning to normal. If the eclipsing moon is the only moon out then the darkness during the event is so complete that anyone outdoors would need a light sorce to see. Lunar mana would surge during this event. So far as I know these are not currently part of the Heavens system(s). Keep in mind even at night during a the worst weather you don't need a light source to see, so I don't see why an eclipse would require it. Playability and whatnot. Likewise we've actually put some damping on the sometimes brutally wild swings of lunar mana that use to exist in rare alignments of the Heavens, again, due to playability. >>Lunar eclipses happen at only at night as the shadow of Elanthia passes across the lunar body making the glowing moon fade to black and return to its full state in as much time as the solar eclipse would take. This event would only happen to a single moon at a time except in extremely rare cases. Again, If the eclipsing moon is the only moon out then a light sorce will be needed to see for the event duration. Same as above, though I'm now trying to picture a lunar eclipse with Katamba. >>Alligned Eclipses are when a moon passes slowly across the face of another moon. These are the most common type and the events can take anlaes or days, involving two or all three of the moons, depending on orbits. They may be ignored by most but lunar mages find improved abilities during this time. These, on the other hand, already exist and happen quite a bit. You can notice them both by looking at the moons themselves and watching for your passive messaging about lunar mana as they move into alignment or opposition. This is also a large factor in the wild swings I was mentioning earlier.
This message was originally posted in The Moon Mages \ The Heavens, Predictions, and Divination Tools, by DR-RAESH on the play.net forums.