There's this old thread where I wondered sort of the same thing based on the line that's in all the gazetteers about the 12 Lairs of the Zodiac. I must have missed the bit about the four zodiacal constellations you named. In the thread rasgon mentioned that "The Stars Are Right - Astrology in D&D" in Dragon #340, p. 25, gives a fantasy zodiac that people could work with or be inspired by.
I thought someone had written an article or two on the zodiac/constellations over the years, too, but I can't seem to find them. Huh. _________________ Allan Grohe<br />https://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/greyhawk.html<br />https://grodog.blogspot.com/
I'm with you on that, smillan, as I'm reading them for the first time in the Wiki. The Sisters, on the other hand, is definitely in the Greyspace book. Checked out the link too. I see you have thought of this question as well! It would be nice to have something to build a prophesy around.
grodog, if you can find that article that would be pretty awesome!
Duh! Didn't notice you had mentioned the GHwiki article. Looks like rasgon wrote most of it. On my reading he's saying that those named constellations are others besides the constellations of the zodiac. It's probably safe to make up your own to build that prophecy around. Sounds interesting.
Oerth Journal #22 has a massive article on Oerth's constellations by Andy Miller. Sensibly, he based the zodiac on the Flan names for the months. He didn't account for the constellations mentioned in Ivid the Undying, but I assume those are alternate names for constellations he did mention. Probably none of them are in the zodiac.
He solved the problem of the festival weeks by giving them each their own star.
Most of the officially named constellations are from this passage in Ivid the Undying, by the way (in the chapter on North Province):
Carl Sargent wrote:
Anxann is convinced that astrology is the only way to predict when, and how, Ivid can be overthrown. He has become very reliant on a complete charlatan, Zwingell, who makes all manner of predictions pertaining to "The Dancer of Swords in the Heavens," "The Singing Sisters of Revenge in the constellation of the Druid," and the like.
We have to bear in mind that the astrologer Zwingell is a charlatan and may possibly be making constellations up out of whole cloth, though I assume Prince Anxann is at least bright enough that he'd notice if he'd never heard of any of those constellations before. I may be wrong; it seems to be Carl Sargent's intention to make Zwingell a pretty ridiculous figure. Since astrologers in real life don't invent their own constellations, though, I think it's reasonable to assume the Dancer of Swords, the Druid, and the Singing Sisters exist in some form, although Zwingell may be elaborating on their traditional names to seem more dramatic and to help support his wild claims.
So the "Singing Sisters of Revenge" might well be the astronomical feature that Greyspace calls the Sisters. Andy Miller's article includes a constellation called the Sword and one called the Treant, and these might correspond to what Zwingell called the Dancer of Swords and the Druid. According to Andy Miller's article the Sisters wander throughout the sky, so they'll inevitably appear in the constellation of the Treant eventually. If the explosion of the planet Borka happened when it overlapped with the Sisters from Oerth's perspective, it might explain why some know them as the Sisters of Revenge.
The Swan is mentioned in Howl From the North by Dale "Slade" Henson. In that module, the followers of the barbarian chief Kabloona Starskull believe their leader's madness is a result of his mind living in the Swan, "a constellation in the northern winter skies." While Kabloona is insane and his people are delusional, it seems likely that the Swan is a real constellation, at least by the reckoning of Kelten's barbarians. Maybe the Swan is the same as what Andy Miller's article calls the Blue Jay, which the article says is venerated by the Ice Barbarians. It might also conceivably be the same as the Hawk.
Hey there, Rasgon ... here's a question for you: So ... stars (as we know them) wander in the night sky, even if in a fixed route. Considering that in Greyspace, stars are ginormous magical gems fixed to the inside surface of the Crystal Sphere, how would we explain stars moving at different rates than others, and being seen in different positions "in" other constellations?
I'd never paused on that to think about it, until you pointed out that in Miller's article, it mentions it. I *love* Miller's article, and keep a printed version of it. I even hoped, as I scrolled down, that I would get to be the first to mention it - and a little surprised that it isn't more widely known. But, nevertheless ... I hadn't ever stopped to consider precisely how fixed the stellar rotation would be since Oerth is the center of the Solar System/Crystal Sphere. _________________ Owner and Lead Admin: https://greyhawkonline.com<div>Editor-in-Chief of the Oerth Journal: https://greyhawkonline.com/oerthjournal</div><div>Visit my professional art gallery: https://wkristophnolen.daportfolio.com</div>
Actually, the crystal sphere must spin in relation to the Oerth, just as the sphere of fixed stars was believed to turn in the Ptolemaic cosmology.
The "stars" that appear (temporarily, as opposed to permanently) in various constellations are actually planets or astronomical bodies like the Sisters, all of which orbit the Oerth and aren't true stars.
It works more or less like Tycho Brahe's view of the cosmos, except without epicycles.
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It would be nice to have something to build a prophesy around.
