A few questions for a a book, universe, game, whatever...

[Durakken]

Hello, I'm not sure if this fits hear well enough or should go int the off topic section, but I figure your mods will move it if it should be moved.

The reason I am posting here is because I am creating a book, universe, game, whatever... it's a creative endeavor that is creating a "world" and in that world there are dwarves, who as most people know, are forgers by trade...My conundrum arose when I realized that a civilization that spends its time underground, almost exclusively, wouldn't tell time like we humans tell time, because there is no sun or moon and thus something else had to dictate how they thought of time and I can't make a calender of a civilization that has no measurement of time so...

It occurred to me that given these creatures would spend most of their days doing metal work they'd base their time on something about forging or something geological. I can't think of anything geological (but I will be asking a geologist soon) so my primary thought is what is there in forging that has an amount of time that remains relatively even and stable?

My thoughts on this were that heating a forge might take about the same time every time its done and perhaps the amount of work it takes to forge an item. I've heard some places that it takes roughly 20 days to forge and put together a sword, but I'm not sure on that.

So my question that is probably several question if I knew more about the subject is, "Are there anythings in Blacksmithing that occur at regular intervals that one could use as a way to tell time and ultimately formulate a calender?"



Thank you for your answers, and sorry for the intrusion and if this is in the wrong place.

[mike-hr]

I seem to be ready for a beer at 5:00 every afternoon...

[ThomasPowers]

Well if you had standardized bellows then the time it took between pumps for a standard forge doing a standard heat might make a "second"

However *everything* is really dependent on what you are doing---forging a knife could take you 1 hour or 6 days *depending*. Heating iron---well a 1/4" piece heats a heck of a lot faster than a 1" sq piece.

Do they need a standardized clock? I would think only when they deal with outsiders in which case they might have a "town clock" set up to tell "outside time" for those who need to know it. (could be weight or waterfall driven...) Probably include time of year too---"outside it's the twelth of zaaume, the harvest is over and the traders will be bringing grain soon"

[Frosty]

First off, welcome aboard, glad to have you. And a couple questions of my own. First, are you a gamer? Or are you writing, book, short story(ies), illustrated novels, etc? I've done more than a little of all of them.

Some parameters. Are the dwarves local, continent wide or world wide, OR? What kind of communications do the dwarven have? If you're writing about a local clan then time keeping is a lot less critical and more needs based. Perhaps meals, bed time and dealing with humans are the only time concerns. Meal and bed time would be pretty personal and time may only count for clan meetings or the trading tunnel-market. A gong on the surface at the mouth of a tunnel could summon all( dwarves and Surfacers) to meetings, trade/market time, etc.

If you're talking about country, continent wide a more universal time piece may be necessary. How about a continent wide famous geyser? Old Faithful for instance but underground. Large cave and tunnel systems breath, often depending on surface heating/sunlight. Breath is surprisingly regular in some cases and Dwarven kind being masters of all things below surface could easily engineer a standardized tunnel system that breathed very regularly/accurately.

Also, just because you live subsurface doesn't mean you wouldn't know about tides, you only have to get close to the ocean to be affected. This would also be an excellent drive for supplying fresh air below ground. Dwarves like fresh air too, my neice sure does.

Something smithing related eh? How about annealing time for a specific standardized coupon of high carbon steel? The heating technique could call for an unblasted charcoal fire of say one small bucket of Willow charcoal. Charcoal would be a better standard than coal as it's more uniform all things being equal. Just as Thomas says there are just too many arbitrary variables for this to be very accurate but. . . How about how long it takes a 1lb. piece of iron to cool to touching temp in a two hands depth of manticore dung ash? Oh yeah, touching temp would be cool enough you could touch a 1 year old dwarf baby on the cheek without it fussing. Okay, so the baby may be a tough one or a wuss, so how about cool enough a Night crawler doesn't squirm?

A standardized water clock might do it. Oooh, how about the length of time it takes a standardized gold goblet with a standardized pinhole in it to sink in a fount of wine. Maybe how long it takes good dwarvish ale to go flat? NAW, No dwarf worth his/er whiskers would let ale go flat, nevermind.

How about a "Surface Watch." This would be a "department" of whatever passes for dwarvish police, army, ?. The Surface Watch would have the job of keeping uninvited humans from exploring, raiding, etc., Keep watch on threatening "Surfacer" villages, roads, bays/harbors, etc., guard, "Trade Town, Surfacer market/meeting place," perhaps important access routes, etc. I'm liking this one better myself but you get the idea. Oh yeah, time, they'd also keep track of day/night with short durations like hours timed by how long it takes to play a game of bones, cards, etc.

For short intervals, an echo in a paced off tunnel, three spans wide and two tall, could supply seconds or similar durations.

Okay, I gotta go do something else and I'm getting WAY too into this line of thinking.

Frosty The Lucky.

[rockstar.esq]

I typically get my forge lit with a bucket and half of coal. I leave a second bucket next to the forge to add as I work. By the time I've emptied the bucket, my working day is done. If they mined their own coal, they'd have consistent burn times as well.

[ThomasPowers]

Now if one day you are forge welding a bunch of 1: stock and the next day you are bending 1/4" stock is your coal usage still the same?

Service Watch---probably something every young adult dwarf has to take a turn at before they can "graduate" to the good stuff-----mining and forging down deep.

Keeping time in early medieval times was generally done by eye given the passage of the sun. Sundials were used too. But they didn't measure it too tightly, save for churches using the canonical hours.

When clocks were first installed on towers they didn't have a minute hand only an hour hand as that was good enough. Bells were rung to alert people to standard times. (Alfred the Great used marked candles to tell time as he wanted to be sure to pray at the correct hours of the day and night)

How about the great hourglass in the great cavern that used gold dust, gems or even plain sand that would be watched and turned and a great bell rung---much like timekeeping was done aboard warships of the Napoleonic period...perhaps there could be a shaft bored to the surface that once a year daylight would enter it and strike the hourglass at the solstice and so be a "reset" point.

[Fe-Wood]

I seem to be ready for a beer at 5:00 every afternoon...

Oh come now Mike, 5:00?

[Durakken]

I am creating a world for the purposes of doing various things with it. There is a lot of things I want to do with it and so to say it is a book or a game or what not isn't completely accurate. One project is to make a 70ish chapter book somewhat like a bible, Another is a 5 video game saga and yet another is a pen and paper rpg.

To explain more about the culture, they have personalities similar to that of the common ones most people think of as dwarves... though this time system is for not just Dwarves, but Dwarves are the main part of the civilization. The civilization is actually made up of...
Dwarves as the planners, smiths, miners, and warriors
Jotunn (giants more or less) as the rulers and judges of the city
Gnomes as mining scouts, miners, and guards
Leprechaun as traders between the various cities.

Most of the races never go out into the world. Leprechauns are the only ones to do so.
Most races never come to the surface due to the danger involved from one of the other races, and when that race backed off attacking them they just traditionally didn't go to the surface much any more

There are currently 3 major Dwarven city areas, 2 minor ones in my plans. They are on 1 or 2 continents. Their "rival" civilization also has about the same spread, but again, the surface threat limits contacts between the two civilizations.

This civilization formed long before humans existed in this world, around 8000 years before. So this system is not based on anything human related and would be ingrained long before then. The dating system however is the primary system in the world for those 8000 years as the 6 civilizations it has the most contact between the other 5.

I was speaking with TechnicusJoe and he brought up the fermentation process and after thinking about it, that seems to work for days, weeks, and months (21 days of 40 earth hour lengths evenly divided into 3 groups of 7 days for a week), but I still have nothing for year, hour, minute, or second. Current candidates are "the time between the ring of an anvil" "the time between hammer strikes upon a blade being smithed" for seconds. For hours I may create something as their mythology (which i haven't worked on yet) but I'm also considering "the time it takes to get a forge up to temp" or "the time it to boil beer at before fermenting it for the perfect brew"

Another thing that was brought up that i hadn't thought of before is i might need a measurement system for standardized weights and such. Again those would likely come from a smith culture so likely have something to do with smithing.

As far as an day watch I don't see them as doing that. the surface is dangerous and their cities would have to be big so they would have to be deep underground which means far away from entrances. It would likely seem like a wasteful and dangerous job that didn't have to be done and would have no baring on the culture itself since day and night would be the same, lit by whatever source of light they have.

I don't see an hourglass as quite right because it seems to me that you need a measurement of time before you decide how to make something like an hourglass.


Thanks for all the input thus far. If it seems like I ignored anyone I'm not it's just I haven't got anything to respond with. I don't want to post stuff that is too far removed from smithing so I'm refraining from going into too much detail on my end and trying to post only helpful info.

[Dogsoldat]

I like the the tides idea. large underground aquifers are going to rise and fall. Heck even the smaller ones do. Was talking to a guy that worked in where a new housing development was being set up. Witching and drilling wells varied with moon position or so he says. As well larger water wheels would make for time pieces.
Discover channel had a show on ancient technologies and the ? chinese had a large gear driven clock that did minute hours days weeks years, as well as planting and harvest times moon cycles. Any dwarven smith guilds worth thier ale would have something similiar built as a presentation piece for thier royalty.

[David Einhorn]

....As well larger water wheels would make for time pieces.....

I like the water wheel(s) idea as a time piece. Provide a hammer powered by water wheel. The water wheel will provide a consistent measure of time since it turns at a predictable rate.

[mat]

foke lore is full of people entering the world of the little people having a dram and dancing a jig, all the time getting caught up in the music.they return at daybreak to find 20 years have past.aks me i was one of these people in my 20s in scotland drank fine whisky danced many jigs i woke up 20 years later married with kids in australia i still cant account for the time lol. do your self a favour and watch darby ogill and the little people.

[gator13]

this seems to be alot like WoW... good stuff though

[Durakken]

Thanks, still don't have an idea with the hour count but i'm pretty good with the rest ^.^

gator13, WoW is based on generic fantasy which is based on D&D which based on Tolkien which is based on stardard mythology, but it depends how deep you want to draw from in that and differentiate. To a degree it's meant to be reminiscent, but not exact. WoW tries to be pretty much exact to generic fantasy.

[gator13]

i was kinda pointin towards the underground dwarf blacksmith part.. but ya most of em are pretty similar

[GRiley904]

Assuming they're always underground and and close to a water source. Would this be similar to a beach or more a well. Personally I think well, them being super smith, they could fashion a metal bucket that would resist rust and corrosion. Said bucket would float in the well and they could judge time by the slack in the rope or t the position of the crank. Their day would be souly dependent on the moon. Two cycles per day or they have really short days.

[Maillemaker]

Water dripping from a stalagtite. One specific stalagtite, in the center of town. From which, all other dwarven time pieces (water powered, mechanical, magical) are calibrated.

There was a study done several years ago where a soldier volunteered to spend several months in a facility where there were no clocks, or any other way to judge time. Eventually, scientists determined that without outside influence, his body ran on an approximately 25 hour schedule.

[Durakken]

Assuming they're always underground and and close to a water source. Would this be similar to a beach or more a well. Personally I think well, them being super smith, they could fashion a metal bucket that would resist rust and corrosion. Said bucket would float in the well and they could judge time by the slack in the rope or t the position of the crank. Their day would be souly dependent on the moon. Two cycles per day or they have really short days.

They are likely always by a water source and tend to be under mountains rather than just underground. The water source would differentiate by area I'd assume, some areas having large underground lakes while other having rivers. Given that they could build a machine to do it they could even build something like a horizontal or vertical well.

I'm reducing the day to 36 hour cycles now because I can say that since they are in the dark with no light they fall back on their internal clocks and like humans we tend to be 36hour based and not 24 hour based. This also ties into the tides because then there would be 3 tides a day.

Although again this really doesn't help with "hours" or "minutes" or "seconds." I mean not unless I want to go with really long hours like "between mid-day and night tide" which would make 6 hours in all with tide to mid tide equally 1 hour but that 1 hour would equal 6 hours in hour clocks and that just seems like too big a time interval

[GRiley904]

Tides go in and out slowly yes, but because the water level changes by a foot or 2 you could judge in regular intervals what stage the tide is in. low tide quarter past, half past, quarter till, high. And back down to low for three cycles per day, no it isn't exact you won't have minutes or seconds but hours yes. I also think that giving them a human concept of time could be a mistake, maybe call it something else.
Witch ever path you go, good luck
Riley

[David Einhorn]

They are likely always by a water source and tend to be under mountains rather than just underground. The water source would differentiate by area I'd assume, some areas having large underground lakes while other having rivers. Given that they could build a machine to do it they could even build something like a horizontal or vertical well....

An underground stream can drive a wood or metal water-wheel. The water-wheel driving a clock mechanism is controlled by an "escapement"
- http://videos.howstuffworks.com/howstuffworks/15-how-pendulum-clocks-work-video.htm
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escapement

I suggest not over-thinking and not over-complicating the measurement of time.

[Durakken]

Tides go in and out slowly yes, but because the water level changes by a foot or 2 you could judge in regular intervals what stage the tide is in. low tide quarter past, half past, quarter till, high. And back down to low for three cycles per day, no it isn't exact you won't have minutes or seconds but hours yes. I also think that giving them a human concept of time could be a mistake, maybe call it something else.
Witch ever path you go, good luck
Riley

Assuming I use this method, it would be 18 dwarven hours which would equate to about 36 earth hours. I'm thinking tidal change is 3 meter so there is;
high
2 meters
1 meter
low
1 meter
2 meter

Of course I could make that bigger or smaller based on Imperial style units of measurements.
And Still looking for a year measurement.


David, i know how to measure time, but time is based on regular events. Such as the sun/moon rising and setting constantly. That is what I'm trying to figure out.

[Dogsoldat]

What do they farm for food? is there a life cycle on a fungi or other under ground animal that is a regular food source. could get seasons that way. another thought is the gestation period of a dwarf as a year or part of a year

[Durakken]

The thing with that is that I imagine that they can farm year round since they would have no seasons and have to provide their own heat. Not sure about animals, but I'll be thinking on that.

[george m.]

Dear Newbie,

I think that your proposed world needs surface dwellers and Dwarven interaction with them to provide food, particularly plant food and possibly food from animals. If you don't you are going to have to come up with some wierd metabolism based on a different source of energy such as sulfurous hot springs, etc.. Even troglydite life forms such as blind fish or shrimp pretty much derive their food from the sun, sometimes several steps removed. I'm not at all sure that you could base a food source, particularly for a culture that you want your human readers to identify with and understand, on non-solar bacteria and animals similar to those found at deep sea "black smoker" hydrothermal vents. Doing so could have the effect of making your Dwarves too "wierd" for a 21st century human audience.

What geologic questions do you have? My wife and I are old geologists and she is also a Tolkien scholar and may have more input on the time keeping issue. I'll ask her in the morning.

Advisedly,
George M.

[ThomasPowers]

Several issues here: Brewing is based on grains, grains are grown in Sunlight.

Also the time between hammer blows when forging a sword varied by a factor of 4 depending on what I am doing, how rested I am, the type of sword.

Tides: tides vary in strength so you couldn't use intermediate stages---a spring tide will lift the bucket/crank a whole lot more than will a neap tide

from all the suggestions I feel that the dripping stalactite might be the most accurate long term source---for a certain stalactite at a certain place. I'd set up one regular at a minute or hour; from that I would suggest going to hour glass for multiples of your "reference" How about them carving a deep hole under the 'standard drip with a gong suspended at the base that would "ring every hour" when the drip hits?

Note that for humans a lot of short timekeeping was done by counting heartbeats before clocks with second hands were available. You can read about renaissance experimenters commenting on trying to keep their heartbeat regular and *not* getting excited during the experiments.

[george m.]

Mr. Powers makes an excellent point: No grain = no beer.

There are several medieval recipies which give times as "as long as it takes to say 3 Pater Nosters (the Lord's Prayer)" or "as long as it takes to walk half a mile."

Also, the rate of growth of speleothems (including stalactites and stalagmites) is dependent on the amount and acidity of the groundwater. Both can change because of surface environmental conditions. e.g. a drought may decrease the flow of ground water depending on how closely the groundwater is associated with the surface water. Also, accretion of flowstone is usually so slow that accurate measurements would be difficult. With growth of only few milimeters per year would be difficult to accurately measure to determine dates. At the very best, I think it would be difficult to determine a particular date plus or minus a couple of months per year. The error would compound over time.

A geologic factoid that you may be able to use: The temperature in a mine or cave equals the average annual temperature of the surface which is why caves are warmer than the outside in winter and cooler in the summer. If the average local temperature is lower than 32 degrees F. you will get an ice cave with ice speleothems (very pretty but very fragile). Also, fairly shallow caves are slightly warmer in winter than they are in summer because it takes the pulse of summer heat that long to penetrate through the rock. It is a small effect, no more than a couple of degrees, but measurable.

Finally, if your Dwarves do major mining remember that they have to transport and dispose of the waste rock. That's why you see large tipple piles outside of old mines.

If you want to look at a good reference for medieval mining techniques look at "De Re Metallica" by Georgis Agricola. It was published in 1556 and translated into English a century ago by Herbert and Lou Hoover (The former US President and his wife. He was a mining engineer by training.) It is available from Dover Publications in paperback.

Geologically,
George M.