Measurement of time in Conan

[MGBM]

While rereading the Howard stories about Conan, I came upon a peculiar passage in Rogues In The House. Murillo and Conan find the priest laying down on the floor, unsconscious. The Red Priest wakes up and says this:

"I do not know what time it is now. But it lacked an hour or so of midnight when I was set upon."

Which brings me to my question. How do people in the Hyborian Age measure time? According to the passage, it seems that they can measure hours, but how do they do this? How can they know the exact time, like the Red Priest seems to know?

 

[Oly]

They wouldn't know the exact time as we consider it but there were plenty of devices that would give it pretty accurately.

Waterclocks date back about 3,500 years, Sundials were around after that.

Depending on the technical level of the country then you'd have hourglasses filled with sand too. They were invaluable for seaborn navigation. They date back to possibly around 1000 years ago.

So there's plenty of ways for time to be tracked and measured.

 

[Kemper Boyd]

The Messiantia sourcebooks mention Argossean clockmakers, I think.

 

[slaughterj]

And with these various measuring devices (e.g., hourglasses), towns can do things like ring a bell or (at night) display a light from a tower to mark the hour.

 

[argo]

Keep in mind though that the Red Priest was explicitly stated to be thousands of years "ahead of his time" when it came to mechanical do-dads. Witness Murillo's reaction to his periscope/security monitor contraption.

Sundials and hourglasses would be easy as would candles marked to keep time. In most western cities you would probably have somebody whose job is to keep track of the time and cry out the hour (or ring bells, sound trumpets, etc) so people living in the cities can probably do business by that method. The person who gets the job could be military, priest or civil servant depending on the culture.

Outside such urban areas and not counting military orginizations people probably go by the sun and rough gut-instinct: mid-morning, noon, sunset, etc. Though I imagine that most people probably can grasp the concept of "hours" even if they don't care.

Water clocks and other such neat-o devices could exist but are probably reserved for wizards (who maybe make them themselves) or toys for rich nobles/temples. I suppose I could see somebody making a pendulum clock too in very advanced regions like Argos, Aquilonia, Nemedia, Khitai or maybe Vhendya. Note that all these devices are not portable as shaking them ruins the timekeeping method.

I do not think I would allow spring-dirven clocks to exist. Such devices allow the possibility of accurate and portable timekeeping and that brings too many changes to the world (for one thing it makes it possible to acurately calculate longitude on the open ocean).

Later.

 

[MGBM]

Ok, thanks for all the help, guys!

 

[Oly]

Water clocks and other such neat-o devices could exist but are probably reserved for wizards (who maybe make them themselves) or toys for rich nobles/temples.

I think they'd certainly be used by relatively organised bodies. Plato apparently used a water clock based alarm clock to wake his students about 380BCE at his academy.

I do not think I would allow spring-dirven clocks to exist. Such devices allow the possibility of accurate and portable timekeeping and that brings too many changes to the world (for one thing it makes it possible to acurately calculate longitude on the open ocean).

Mechanical clocks began to appear in Europe around about 1300. There is then a big gap from that to making them portable enough to keep time on a ship.

Pendulum clocks didn't begin to appear until the mid 1650's some 300 years later. It's a fairly advanced concept compared compared to getting a mechanical clock working.

Ship board clocks themselves were invented in 1761 rather famously by John Harrison.

So I do see a big gap there where large mechanical non-pendulum clocks could relatively easily be around in the more advance cultures of Hyboria. Something large that would require regular maintenance. They might need to be adjusted every day for the time that they'd lost or gained over the last 24 hours.

 

[argo]

Water clocks and other such neat-o devices could exist but are probably reserved for wizards (who maybe make them themselves) or toys for rich nobles/temples.

I think they'd certainly be used by relatively organised bodies. Plato apparently used a water clock based alarm clock to wake his students about 380BCE at his academy.

Well, I think that in so far as the flavor of the Hyborian age is concerned that Plato falls squarely in the "wizard" category. As in, a dude who can read and stays up late at night to stare at the stars. :wink:

I do not think I would allow spring-dirven clocks to exist. Such devices allow the possibility of accurate and portable timekeeping and that brings too many changes to the world (for one thing it makes it possible to acurately calculate longitude on the open ocean).

Mechanical clocks began to appear in Europe around about 1300. There is then a big gap from that to making them portable enough to keep time on a ship.

Pendulum clocks didn't begin to appear until the mid 1650's some 300 years later. It's a fairly advanced concept compared compared to getting a mechanical clock working.

Ship board clocks themselves were invented in 1761 rather famously by John Harrison.

So I do see a big gap there where large mechanical non-pendulum clocks could relatively easily be around in the more advance cultures of Hyboria. Something large that would require regular maintenance. They might need to be adjusted every day for the time that they'd lost or gained over the last 24 hours.

Ok, you are correct about pendulum clocks. The point still stands though that large clocks which require regular mantainance and cannot be moved without screwing up their accuracy are a different species from accurate and portable timekeepers. Those sorts of clocks are the kind of thing that changes a campaign setting.

Later.

 

[slaughterj]

Ok, you are correct about pendulum clocks. The point still stands though that large clocks which require regular mantainance and cannot be moved without screwing up their accuracy are a different species from accurate and portable timekeepers. Those sorts of clocks are the kind of thing that changes a campaign setting.

Later.

How does that significantly change a campaign setting? Gunpowder, printing presses, electricity, etc., perhaps, but even if every king, baron, etc. had a clock, how would it significantly matter?

 

[argo]

Ok, you are correct about pendulum clocks. The point still stands though that large clocks which require regular mantainance and cannot be moved without screwing up their accuracy are a different species from accurate and portable timekeepers. Those sorts of clocks are the kind of thing that changes a campaign setting.

Later.

How does that significantly change a campaign setting? Gunpowder, printing presses, electricity, etc., perhaps, but even if every king, baron, etc. had a clock, how would it significantly matter?

Well, for starters as mentioned it allows accurate open-ocean navigation. You basically cannot calculate longitude without such a device.

It would also allow people who are geographically seperated to coordinate their actions with a higher degree of precision. The military applications are obvious but there would also be affects on mercantile life as well. Think of how many people live life "on the clock" now.

And that brings me to what may be the biggest point of all. Accurate timekeeping changes people's perception of the universe. Its an Age of Reason concept, having a clock over every mantlepiece, and just really doesn't fit in with the Hyborian age.

Again, consider Murillo's aittitude towards the Red Priest (to say nothing of Conan's aittitude :lol: ) and you will see what I mean when I say that clocks are the toys of wizards!

Later.

 

[Starkus]

IMC there really is no time measurement out of the short term. I keep track of game mechanic time, as well as the time that passes for short term events in days, hours and weeks depending. But I make use of no calander, I don't feel that one is needed to run the game. As is made quite clear, slayers of the Hyborian age concern themselves primarily with today.

Stark

 

[Bregales]

Water clocks and other such neat-o devices could exist but are probably reserved for wizards (who maybe make them themselves) or toys for rich nobles/temples.

I think they'd certainly be used by relatively organised bodies. Plato apparently used a water clock based alarm clock to wake his students about 380BCE at his academy.

Well, I think that in so far as the flavor of the Hyborian age is concerned that Plato falls squarely in the "wizard" category. As in, a dude who can read and stays up late at night to stare at the stars. :wink:

How about Scholars? :wink:

Back to the question of time, good comments about him being ahead of his time argo. But I also tend to think of most of the peoples of the Hyborian world using solar and lunar times as per old astonomers. Definitely a barbarian or outdoorsman, but even farmers would have a loose estimate of time based on the position of the sun (noon being when the sun was directly overhead) and moon, and lunar cycles (waxing, waning, crescent, full and new) determining not only relative time but fortune. In the Middle Ages in Europe, a person's birth was rated by the lunar cycle. This was a Christian as well as a heathen practice.

Anyways, except for a few cases where Conan was without his senses (such as when he's in the dungeons in which he meets his future wife Zenobia), he has a relative time reckoning based on his barbarian instincts, having witnessed countless passages of the heavenly bodies.

But I've typed too long, time for sleep. :lol: