The world of Albia is, bizzarely, a disc rather than the usual sphere. This coin-shaped world spins rapidly on its axis (a day being only a couple of hours long), and produces such a strong centrifugal force that life has been unable to colonise the broad ‘faces’ of the planet, and instead has been confined to its edge. The inhabitants thus live on a narrow rim, where ‘east’ and ‘west’ are the dominant directions, and ‘north’ and ‘south’ correspond to the very much smaller (and largely irrelevant) distance from one face to the other. Living on Albia is therefore rather like being in a narrow corridor: travel is possible to east and west, but there is only space to north and south for limited storage, etc. Most attempts at development have therefore chosen ‘down’ as the most fruitful direction in which to proceed, and so the inhabitants of Albia tend to live in burrows (there being a little more space below ground for walls and such, due to the lenticular shape of the tiny planet). Liquid water exists on the surface, but has been bunched up by the centrifugal force until it too rides on the edge of the planet, forming narrow ‘seas’, trapped by higher ground to east and west.
The tension between the centrifugal force, which tries to fling everything outwards, and the force of gravity, which tries to hold them in again, is a major influence in dictating the oddities of Albian existence. Gravity is clearly strongest where the thickest amount of rock exists, ie. acting towards the centre through the radius of the disc, thus objects on the rim of the disc do not fly off into space, but remain firmly, if gently, attached. On the faces of the disc, gravity acts more weakly, and also at an angle of less than 180° to the centrifugal force. The resultant of these two forces is thus planetwards and outwards, making the faces untenable for anything not firmly fixed to the ground. This interaction of gravity and spin causes important groundwater and atmospheric circulation patterns (see Climate, below).
Astronomy
Albia has a single sun, which moves across the sky from west to east Because the plane of Albia's rotation coincides with its plane of orbit, the sun appears to slide directly overhead. The viewpoint of someone of the serface will therefore never allow the sun to be visible, but the colours of the sky, etc. will change from dawn through to dusk. At night, stars will be visible.
Because Albia is merely a thin disc, sunlight is scattered easily from the edges of the atmosphere, partially illuminating the night side of the planet. Nights are therefore never totally black, and Albians have never needed to develop lighting.
Two discoid planets could not orbit each other without crashing, and close proximity between Albia and a conventional, spherical planet would have prevented Albia forming as a disc in the first place. Therefore, Albia has no moons.
Incidentally, the inhabitants of Albia had once assumed (incorrectly) that the sun and other planets in that solar system are discs too, and they have often marvelled at how all of the other heavenly bodies are aligned so that their ‘faces’ are turned towards Albia (one never sees a planet edge-on). They cited this as conclusive proof that Albia is the most important world in the Universe until telecopes and later space travel was invented.
The Geography of Albia
The rim of the world is divided by mountain, desert and sea into three regions: Outgard, a realm of desert and forest; Midgard, ruled by the dwellers of the city of Niflheim; and Asgard, a land in which lies the great World Tree Yggdrasill, that was once considered to hold up the Sky.
Outgard is divided from Midgard by the Desert of Volund (named after a mythical metal-smith, as its wind blows as hot as bellows in a forge); Midgard in turn is split from Asgard by the Mountains of the Ragnarok, and Asgard from Outgard by the Meniscus Sea.
Besides the gross geography described above, each area is divided into smaller regions of forest, lake, plain, marsh, etc.
Throughout Albia are found the burrows, towns and cities of the shee and their pet norns.
Climate & Conditions
The plane of Albia's orbit is roughly the same as its plane of rotation, and so the planet has no seasons to speak of. However, the discoid nature of Albia leads to a strange atmospheric circulation: moisture evaporates from the seas at the rim, then this less-dense moist air moves inwards (displaced by the higher density dry air, which is flung outwards more by the centrifugal force) towards the centre of the disc, where the moisture condenses into rain. The precipitated water is swallowed underground and returns under centrifugal force to the rim, where it emerges from springs that replenish the seas (Urdr's Well is one such spring). This circulation system is distorted by protruberances on the uninhabited ‘faces’ of the planet, and this creates several climatic zones:-
Outgard is a fairly dry, barren land, with pockets of semi-desert that merge together at the east to form the hot, dry Desert of Volund.
Midgard is altogether greener and more lush, being protected somewhat by the Mountains of the Ragnarok. The more equable climate of Midgard explains why the shee of Midgard abandoned their semi-nomadic lifestyle in favour of city dwelling a few thousand years ago starting the rise of the city into the ruleing one of albia.
The Mountains of the Ragnarok are extremely cold, but this is of little consequence, as they are impassable on foot anyway. The only ways of crossing them known have been by spacecraft or ballon.
Asgard is still more lush, being between mountain and sea, and presents a tropical appearance. This partially explains its Elysian connotations in myth, and certainly rewards the weary traveller.
The Meniscus Sea is warm and has a gentle wind, which occasionally drops to a flat calm. The atmospheric circulation causes the wind to cross the sea from west to east during the first part of the day, and east to west later. Leaving one's sails hoisted all day long is therefore a surefire way to end up back where one started!
Night time on Albia is very cold, due to the limited heat capacity of such a narrow atmosphere. Particularly in the dryer areas, shelter is an important requirement once night falls.
