The Dyson Sphere
The campaign is set in a Dyson Sphere world, where the world is build around the sun. As such, the surface area of the world is vast. In this case it is 1.02 x 10^17 square miles in area, or about 520,000,000 million times the surface area of the earth. The sphere is about 5000 miles in thickness and has extensive underground caves.
Day and Night
There is a night and day cycle. The night shield (called that, and the dark, the kiss and just night) circles the star. The cycle is 32 hours long, with true night lasting about 8 hours. There is a twilight period of about an hour leading into and out of true night, during which the night shield blocks direct sunlight in a particular area but in which the reflected light from the land not blocked still provides some illumination. The darkness of true night makes infravision and other senses that allow for activity in darkness more common than in some worlds. It is also important to note that the night shield has a slight wobble. That and the geometry of the shield mean that the areas near the north and south poles of the sphere have long periods of no night followed by shorter but still months long periods of no sunlight.
Seasons
Because there is no appreciable change in the angle of sunlight in particular regions, there are not seasons in the same that we have them on earth. There are significant climatic and terrain differences, so there are deserts, swamps, jungles, forests, plains and the like. Some places are naturally warmer or cooler. But there is no earth like transition of seasons. There are however, winters. Winters are triggered by excess heat in a given region. When the heat across a region is too great, the magic which set up the sphere will rapidly remove heat, causing a winter. On the average, winters occur in a given region every 3-4 years. But some regions are more prone to winters and some less prone. Winters occur less frequently and last less time near oceans, because oceans provide a means to regulate the temperature without triggering a winter. A typical winter will last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. On very rare occasions winters have lasted close to a year.
Navigation
In a world without stars to use as reference points, navigation is difficult. There is too much scattering of light by the atmosphere to be able to look across and see "the other side" of the sphere, or even things on the same side that appear to be overhead. There are magnetic fields which skilled spellcasters can read to give an idea of north / south distance. But the main method of navigation is by really tall lighthouses (for navigation within as much as a hundred or so miles for the really tall ones) and by magical navigation beacons, which are often places on top of light houses. These beacons have a range of anywhere from 30-40 miles up to about 10000 miles for really tall and powerful beacons. Trained spellcasters can identify the signal from such beacons, and from the signal determine their relative direction and distance from the beacon. A good navigational map and some basic trigonometry thus allows for position determination. Good maps are fairly expensive. The bigger the area covered by maps, the more expensive and the more closely guarded they are. Maps which allow for navigation over thousands of miles of open ocean are pretty rare, and thus very valuable. A merchant who figures out how to navigate to another country thousands of miles away will guard the secret of navigation because it is going to be very, very difficult for competitors to be able to ply that route without their own maps.
Day and Night
There is a night and day cycle. The night shield (called that, and the dark, the kiss and just night) circles the star. The cycle is 32 hours long, with true night lasting about 8 hours. There is a twilight period of about an hour leading into and out of true night, during which the night shield blocks direct sunlight in a particular area but in which the reflected light from the land not blocked still provides some illumination. The darkness of true night makes infravision and other senses that allow for activity in darkness more common than in some worlds. It is also important to note that the night shield has a slight wobble. That and the geometry of the shield mean that the areas near the north and south poles of the sphere have long periods of no night followed by shorter but still months long periods of no sunlight.
Seasons
Because there is no appreciable change in the angle of sunlight in particular regions, there are not seasons in the same that we have them on earth. There are significant climatic and terrain differences, so there are deserts, swamps, jungles, forests, plains and the like. Some places are naturally warmer or cooler. But there is no earth like transition of seasons. There are however, winters. Winters are triggered by excess heat in a given region. When the heat across a region is too great, the magic which set up the sphere will rapidly remove heat, causing a winter. On the average, winters occur in a given region every 3-4 years. But some regions are more prone to winters and some less prone. Winters occur less frequently and last less time near oceans, because oceans provide a means to regulate the temperature without triggering a winter. A typical winter will last anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. On very rare occasions winters have lasted close to a year.
Navigation
In a world without stars to use as reference points, navigation is difficult. There is too much scattering of light by the atmosphere to be able to look across and see "the other side" of the sphere, or even things on the same side that appear to be overhead. There are magnetic fields which skilled spellcasters can read to give an idea of north / south distance. But the main method of navigation is by really tall lighthouses (for navigation within as much as a hundred or so miles for the really tall ones) and by magical navigation beacons, which are often places on top of light houses. These beacons have a range of anywhere from 30-40 miles up to about 10000 miles for really tall and powerful beacons. Trained spellcasters can identify the signal from such beacons, and from the signal determine their relative direction and distance from the beacon. A good navigational map and some basic trigonometry thus allows for position determination. Good maps are fairly expensive. The bigger the area covered by maps, the more expensive and the more closely guarded they are. Maps which allow for navigation over thousands of miles of open ocean are pretty rare, and thus very valuable. A merchant who figures out how to navigate to another country thousands of miles away will guard the secret of navigation because it is going to be very, very difficult for competitors to be able to ply that route without their own maps.
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