Ghyll talk:Army of Whunn

I'm trying to find the original reference to the date of -333 EC ("the Civil War against King Harandraff the Great ends; entire family tree dead"), which you've since changed to -392 EC. Can you help me out? Where was the original fact of -333 and why did it need to be changed? EDIT: Incidentally, the timeline is intended for facts FROM ENTRIES, not for new facts all by themselves (with no reference in the text). If -392 EC is the real date (now), then it needs to be referred in your entry somewhere (or elsewhere in someone else's entry). --Morbus Iff 14:52, 16 May 2005 (EDT)

oOok. Did some investigation. The original -333 EC must have been some sort of error on my part, cos I can't find anything that would support that at all (and there's a 90% chance I added that date to the timeline). However, the dates of -400 EC for Bute's founding (and not -402 EC) ARE, however, factual, based on this line in Bute University: The buildings are mostly around 200 years of age, dating from its bicentennial; however the new science buildings have only recently been completed. Since the buildings were recently completed at the date that entry was written (0 EC), Bute's 400th would have had to have been -400 EC (and its bicentennial -200) not -402 EC. This, in turn, affects the dates you've used for King Harandraff. So, there are one of two possibilities here: explain in your entry that the science buildings were completed EARLY (using your dates, they shouldn't be completed until 2 EC) or revise your dates to fit around the original -400 EC baseline. --Morbus Iff 15:04, 16 May 2005 (EDT)

Oh, and one more thing (I'm not picking on you, I swear!) - Round 2 allows only ONE new phantom per turn, so you'll have to choose which of your two NEW phantoms you'd like to keep, and then work in an existing phantom somewhere. --Morbus Iff 15:06, 16 May 2005 (EDT)

My bad. I was thinking it was two new phantoms. Lapernees is the lesser of the two, so I'll un-phantomize him and bring in another link as appropriate. As to the timeline, I took the date of -400 EC to be approximate ("around 200 years of age..."). If the -400 EC is exact, then, of course, my dates are off and should be revised accordingly. The Civil War lasted seven years Bute University "as the Kingdom now found itself in a Civil War. This war lasted seven long years..." so the end date correction to -392 EC is closer than the original -333. Not feeling picked on at all. Let me know if the -400 EC date is absolute, or if my interpretation was reasonable, and I'll continue accordingly. --Brother Arfrus 15:56, 16 May 2005 (EDT)

just to add my two cents... I also took -400 as an approximation due to the word "around". I know i saw somewhere that anything older than 100 years is of shakey timeline credibility... that's why we cranky scholars have grist with which to argue! adding the word "circa" to certain old dates can allow writers to put in a number and a train of thought regarding their timeline ideas while giving other writers the ability to still argue their own interpretation of that timeline. --Nikos of Ant 16:07, 16 May 2005 (EDT)

Well, the key text is emphasized/italicized above: the science buildings were completed at the time the entry was written, which was 0 EC. If that's the case, and major new projects are completed every bicentenial (also per the original text of Bute University, which I've not fully snippeted above), then there's no "around" or approximation: it's definitely -400 EC. Largely speaking, only dates on the timeline that say "circa" should be fooled around with (not that I'm accusing Arfrus of "fooling around", of course), or other dates that have no specific point in history (your "around", "soon after", etc. - even "-3 EC" could be expanded to a more specific "-3/5/21 EC"). In this case, however, there WAS a bit of text that firmly nailed the date (through inference) to an exact point. --Morbus Iff 16:38, 16 May 2005 (EDT)

And, your recollection is correct: there WAS, long ago, an edict that scholars should stray from creating entries that referred to dates so long ago, but that was largely because there was a strong lack of cohesion being created, merely different pockets of time that were hard to relate to other pockets of time. That restriction has largely (and lately) been unenforced, as it hasn't proved to be much of a problem with the (now) large amount of text available. It was a much bigger issue in the early game. --Morbus Iff 16:38, 16 May 2005 (EDT)