These are a few things to know about the world Misfit Magic is set in before you dive in. Well, to be honest, you can likely get away with not knowing any of this, but maybe it adds a little colour.
Draconia is about 2% smaller than the Earth and it’s average distance from its star (a G2V, just like our Sun) is 0.93AU. It has one moon, which is tide-locked to the planet (like ours) so that you always see the same face, but that moon takes 12 days to orbit Draconia.
The 12-day lunar cycle is reflected in a 12-month year of 328 days. Most months are 27 days, except for the three summer months and the last month of the year, which have 28 days. Weeks are seven days long (because there are seven colours of dragons). Days are 24 hours in length (actually; I did the maths).
As far as seasons go, Draconia diverges from Earth in a couple of ways. Earth has quite a pronounced axial tilt and a fairly circular orbit. This means that our seasons are largely governed by our axial tilt: summer when our hemisphere has longer days, winter when they are shorter. Draconia has, basically, the same seasons in both hemispheres because its orbital eccentricity dominates. The average surface temperature in summer is 52.6C/126.6F, while in winter this falls to 6.9C/44.4F. The axial tilt is also smaller than Earth’s and faces ‘the other way.’ Winter days in the northern hemisphere are longer than summer days, but the differences are smaller overall.
There are two (known) major continents and one fairly large island on the planet. In the north is Frostfall, noted for having a number of fairly tall mountains and a region of permafrost up around the pole. In the south is Greenland, a continent largely composed of savannah, forest, and jungle. Greenland tends to get more extremes of weather since the axial tilt adds to the effect of the orbital eccentricity. Between Frostfall and Greenland lies Concordance, and on Concordance is Concord City, which is where our story will unfold. Concordance is an island about 620 miles east-west and 510 miles north-south. It’s just north of the equator, which makes for a fairly equitable climate, though it can get pretty hot in summer.
Concordance used to be the home of one of the royal dragon families until the Majesty War almost 1000 years ago. Following that war, the other families decided that they needed to settle their differences without (too much) bloodshed, and since they had wiped out the rulers of the island, they would make the newly renamed Concordance the place to meet and discuss problems. Concord City was created specifically as a meeting place and the island’s government is more or less democratic since none of the families wanted any of the others owning the place. Thus Concordance has a fairly liberal legal system, fairly just taxes, actual representation for all dragons on the ruling counsel, etc.
Under the True Freedom For Women Act of 634, all bra manufacturing on Concordance was made punishable by hanging and all female dragons under the age of 600 were banned from wearing bras. After 600, scaffolding was made a state medical benefit. The legal system is that good.
One of the paragraphs above is a joke. Which one is left as an exercise to the reader. I’m trying to do a map of the planet, though you won’t really need it for this book. Fantasy worlds are supposed to have maps. If I can get the software to do what I tell it to do.
Additional: I was asked for the days and month names. This is copied straight from my OneNote reference.
Weekdays: Royalday, Indigoday, Redday, Blueday, Greenday, Yellowday, Silverday.
Months
- Snowfall, 27 days.
- Springate, 27 days.
- Planting, 27 days.
- Newling, 27 days.
- Summergate, 28 days.
- Midsummer, 28 days. Leap years add an extra day.
- Highsummer, 28 days.
- Autumngate, 27 days.
- Harvest, 27 days.
- Autumn, 27 days.
- Wintergate, 27 days.
- Midwinter, 28 days. Leap years add an extra day during the midwinter festival.
