Campion & Clitherow has just released THE ALMANAC of FANTASY WEATHER. It's available on DriveThruRPG and Lulu.
THE ALMANAC of FANTASY WEATHER is a new and greatly expanded edition of SEVEN YEARS of FANTASY WEATHER, published by Campion & Clitherow in 2017. The most obvious difference is that while SEVEN YEARS included seven years of weather for one geographical area or climate type, THE ALMANAC has eight years of weather for each of ten different climate types. Here you will find cyclone lashed coasts, burning deserts, steaming jungles, ice-covered wastes and more—enough (we hope) to provide realistic and interesting weather for an entire “Sword & Sorcery” world in the style of Burroughs, Howard or Leiber.
We have also made some other changes. Some of them are “internal” and, therefore, not immediately noticeable. I think the data sets and algorithm for SEVEN YEARS were pretty rich, but we couldn't resist tweaking them and expanding on them. We increased the number of data points and redesigned the internal format for how initial information for each climate type was represented, allowing for more diversity, complexity and pattern in the generated weather results. Thus, many precipitation events now come at the head of “real” warm and cold fronts, cloud cover varies by month and season, wind speed and precipitation often vary according to whether it is day or evening, “exogenous” factors may cause cold or warm spells for days, weeks or months, and so on.
The most noticeable external changes to the weather charts are a slightly expanded list of precipitation types, the addition of a wind-chill/heat index rating and the addition of a new category of weather events—those directly caused by “supernatural” forces.
THE ALMANAC clocks in at 1,130 extensively bookmarked virtual pages (960 pages of weather charts - 12 x 8 x 10 - plus 70 pages of text, climate summaries and spaces for notes). It sounds like a sort of monster, and in a way it is, but the bookmarks allow you to get around quickly to find or use (on your phone, tablet, computer or hard-copy print-out) only what you want or need at the moment.
Because of its size and diversity, I think it makes for a more useful product, giving the referee many more options to choose from and match with the specifics of his or her campaign. I should note, though, that the climate types and weather charts for MEDIEVAL ENGLAND, THE ICELAND OF THE SAGAS and INDEA remain unique, and have not been "rolled-in" to THE ALMANAC.
Previous purchasers of SEVEN YEARS may purchase THE ALMANAC at a discount ($12.95 - the list price of $19.95 less the $7.00 price of SEVEN YEARS).
An email has just gone out to most purchasers of SEVEN YEARS on DriveThruRPG. However some purchasers did not include contact information on the DriveThruRPG list. If you purchased SEVEN YEARS and do not receive an email in the next few hours, send me an email at zylarthen@gmail.com and I'll shoot you the discount code.
These tables (from the Introduction) detail some characteristics of the new climate types:
And here are two months of weather from "Climate Template 102: Southern Desert", roughly modeled on the Arabian Desert:
The desert has a higher proportion of relatively rare "supernatural" weather events. (They occur, on average, roughly twice a year in most other climates but roughly six times a year in the desert.) The "ef" next to whirlwind denotes that it was caused by an Efreeti. Why was there a sudden downpour? Because it was caused by a demon or demons ("dm"). Obviously, the player-characters may not know that an event had a direct supernatural cause, though there may be signs - the clouds form unusually quickly, they can dimly see an outline of a figure or figures in the sky, etc. As always, the referee is free to alter or mix and match things to suit the specifics of his or her campaign, and ideas for how to do this are included in the introductory notes.
I had a blast designing THE ALMANAC of FANTASY WEATHER. It brought out by inner weather nerd (which I never knew existed). And I'm very excited by how it turned out.
I hope you enjoy it!
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