Krynn has also a very defined cosmology, with constellations, and planets, and moons, tied to the gods of that universe.
And yet, few things are clearly known about Krynn.
And that can actually be harnessed to both offer a drastically different experience to the players, while tying to an (even more) apocalyptic vision of the universe of Dragonlance.
The State of the Art
Order! Order! Order!
The first thing to recognize is that Krynn is a very ordered system: Months are strictly 28 days long, moons have respectively a strict orbit of 8, 28 and 36 days, and years are composed of 12 months (in total, 336 days):
- Which means the Solar month is exactly the same as the Lunar (Lunitari) month.
- Which also means that in one year, Nuitari makes exactly 42 orbits around Krynn, Lunitari makes exactly 12 orbits.
- Which also means that in three years, Solinari makes exactly 28 orbits (i.e. 9+1⁄3 orbits per year).
- In other words, each and every years, at the same day, the sun and Nuitari and Lunitari are exactly at the same position in the skies.
- and, each and every 3 years, at the same day, the sun and Nuitari, Lunitari and Solinari are exactly at the same position in the skies.
(i.e. most numbers here are integers, there's at most one smallish rational number, and no real number.)
Where's the leap year? Where's the slow divergence between the calendar years and the real years we experience in the real world? Where's the slow divergence between the moon months and the real months, and at the same time, where are the months with seemingly random length?
One might argue that Krynn's cycles are "round" because, worldbuilding-wise, it's much simpler than create a fully-fledged calendar with all its quirks (e.g. the Antique Egyptian calendar, and its 5 additional days). And that one is most probably right (this is why D&D's Mystara has exactly the same calendar).
But I'd like to take an inverted approach: Our real world cycles are not perfectly rounded down because this is the real universe, which is very complex, is full or irrational numbers, and which works as-is. In contrast, Krynn is governed by gods who are mostly of lawful alignment, i.e., who are obsessed with Order (as opposed to Chaos).
In that case, it would make sense to have a Krynn whose perfect cycles are actually enforced by the gods themselves. This might even be considered as another proof that Krynn's gods exist in the universe of Krynn (in the case the existence of cleric's divine magic wasn't enough for you) (see P.S.).
So, the conclusion here is that the gods of Krynn, again, cannot be ignored, and that in case we find a correlation between two observations in the Krynn's universe, there's a greater chance this correlation is, instead, causation.
The Continent(s)
“We have seen the lands beyond the seas, haven’t we, apprentice. When we look into the flaming water, we can see them and those who dwell there. To control them would be simplicity itself—”
— Raistlin, to Dalamar
Legend of the Twins
Despite all the fan-made content like Adlatum, and even the official expansions like Taladas, the core novels and rulebooks focus only on one continent: Ansalon.
I can't find the source right now, but I seem to remember that, for Tracy Hickman, like Middle Earth, Ansalon was still full of unexplored zones that could lead to new adventures, and that we did not need more continents, which were published more for monetary reasons than real creative need.
Don't get me wrong: While I don't know Adlatum, so I won't speak about it, I respect the work done on Taladas, even if I only really care for the Minotaur League (which, in retrospect, seems like Mithas and Kothas had a child).
But in the end, the gods of Krynn seem awfully focused on Ansalon, with the Queen of Darkness trying to conquer it for eons.
One could argue that this fight of Good vs. Evil also happens elsewhere, but if that it's the case, then doesn't it seem like some kind of copy-paste? So, I'll pass on that idea.
The Constellations
The constellations of Krynn are awesome... I mean, no other D&D universe has this kind of map:
Even if the rest of Dragonlance's specifics were not already awesome, that map alone would have sold that universe, to me.
And yet, there's something missing, isn't it?
Don't you see it?
Are you sure?
Let me help you with a similar constellation map, for our Earth:
Yeah, there's something different: There's a whole hemisphere missing in the Dragonlance constellation map!
And that's not surprising, because as a universe so focused on Ansalon, what was the need for the northern sky hemisphere?
Also, if ALL the gods have constellations on the southern atmosphere... can we extrapolate the northern atmosphere's content? Not really.
The cheap solution would be to say the northern hemisphere to be a mirror image, or a symmetric image, of the southern hemisphere.
But we've seen that even the position of the constellation in the sky was important, with the major gods nearest to the pole, unless they have been vanquished by Raistlin in an alternate timeline and their constellations was drifting towards the equatorial plane. So the mirror/symmetric image doesn't really fit.
Please not that I'm aware there are probably more stars than just the ones forming constellations. In fact, stars are supposed to be the souls of Krynn's mortals. I'm just discussing the constellations, assuming the stars that compose them somehow stand out (like in the real world).
One way to make all these peculiarities count
Instead of just assuming the missing continents (in the core sources), or missing sky hemisphere, is explained by an unwillingness to describe them, for creative or simply economic reasons, let's assume that there is an in-universe reason for that.
What if Ansalon was the last interesting continent on Krynn?
One could assume the other continents (for there are others) are so uninteresting there's no point in making the effort to explore them, or even visit them: For the gods, the important bits of history happens on Ansalon, and for the mortals, with their current maritime science, the continents are so far away travel by sea is doomed from the start.
So, about these extra continents...?
Let's start from a clean state: all previous continents, fanmade and canon (including the blue-painted celts barbarians) do not exist. Then, let's see what we can have in their stead, that obey our premise of "they cannot be more interesting than Ansalon".
Brainstorming out of my head:
- A continent of large beasts, Skull-Island style, with dinosaurs, giants, possibly dragons (whose life there is much, much more dangerous), and possibly dragonborn! It might be the original continent where the first dragon war happened.
- A continent devastated by a cataclysm. Building crumbling, barely any life, and ground actually hostile to life (i.e. something like irradiated matter contamination, everywhere), rampant with mindless undead. It might be the original continent of the Irda, and Ansalon might be the continent where refugees fleeing that settled on? What secrets about the past could be discovered by exploring the ruins of this continent?
- A continent devastated by a chaos magic. Aberrations like beholders, or even demon-style creatures, might thrive, there. Of course, all this chaos magic irradiating anyone visiting this continent cannot be good for their health.
- A continent with a lava sea in its middle (like the lava sea on Taladas), but actually situated on the exact opposite side of Ansalon. The explanation would be that the mountain of fire that fell on Istar actually went through Krynn, and emerged from the other side. Imagine like a bullet going through a body, with a tiny hole on the entrance, and a large one on exit. This continent would be new, having emerged during the cataclysm, and its volcanic ash would have helped worsen the conditions of life on Krynn during the first decades after the Cataclysm (as any volcanic cataclysm would do). This continent would be very very fertile on its borders, colonized by birds, fish, and plants, and, of course, in the middle, the sea of lava, inhabited by alien creatures adapted to the extreme conditions. As the maelstrom of the Blood Sea is supposed to lead to the Abyss, the center of the lava see might be the exit of some other plane (the elemental plane of fire? a plane of chaos?)
All these examples seem designed with the Star Wars Universe design notes in mind (i.e. a planet of ice, a planet of desert, a planet of jungle, etc.).
But in the current case, this is acceptable, because, again, Ansalon must remain the central continent of Krynn, and to be interesting, these other continents must be extreme in one way or another.
And what about the constellations?
Whatever what people would discover if moving well into the northern hemisphere, which would be more than 2000 km up the northern edge of Ansalon, would change everything:
- If there are no constellations, then that might mean the gods are really focused on the southern hemisphere, and thus, probably Ansalon
- If there are constellations, and these are not of the known gods, then there might be other gods, which would be really bonkers
- Perhaps there is a patch of sky that is fully dark, with no constellations, nor even stars. What could this mean?
One should remember that, unlike the constellations, which are in the southern hemisphere, the moons kinda see both hemispheres of the planet, only one half at a time, with a period of around 24 hours. The same could be said about the planets, who probably are on the same orbital plane as the sun of Krynn, and Krynn itself. So it might be said the most of the gods of neutrality and the gods of magic always have a direct sight on both hemispheres of Krynn, unlike Gilean, and the gods of Good and Evil.
<to be continued...>
P.S.: What about... π ?
Krynn numerologists would certainly agree with my assertions that all these integer (and one rational) numbers have a significance, and in fact, even more advanced Krynn scientists would. And they would all see in this kind of ordered perfection a sign of the gods' influence on Krynn's universe.
But then, take a look at π.
This is an unavoidable geometric constant, the ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter. And π is an... irrational number (no matter what some U.S. general assembly congress might legislate).
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pi-unrolled-720.gif
The mere existence of π in Krynn might be interpreted as: "No matter how much order the gods might try to impose, chaos will always be part of it." And this view might seem heretic to some...
This might be a way to enrich a D&D campaign conflict with a fundamental discrepancy that any player who went to high school could understand and appreciate.
Food for thoughts.
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