Sun, moon, and sky

Which places have a sky

Outdoor areas and the overworld lie under the open sky. They are lit by the sun and the sky by day, and by the moon at night. Dungeons never are. Terrain with a roof, such as the floor under a gazebo, never gets sun, moon, or sky light, even on an outdoor level.

Everything on this page is for a clear sky. Clouds dim the sun, the sky, and the moon, and soften their shadows; see Weather.

The sun’s path

The sun follows the same path every day. It rises at dawn (06:00) due east, which is the right side of the map. It climbs to its highest point at noon, due south (the bottom of the map), where it stands 60 degrees above the horizon, and sets at dusk (18:00) in the west (the left of the map). Days are always 12 hours of sun, since there are no seasons yet.

Its light changes with its height:

• Just after sunrise it is dim and deep orange. It turns orange, then warm gold, then warm white as it climbs, and from 40 degrees up it is a bright neutral white.
• The evening runs the same way in reverse.

Sky light

By day every cell under the sky also gets a dim, bluish sky light, whether it is in the sun or in shadow. It is what keeps the shade from being black. Sky light is dimmer and more violet while the sun is low.

Around dawn and dusk there is a short twilight glow, from about 23 minutes before dawn until dawn and from dusk until about 23 minutes after.

Shadows

Terrain stands a number of cells tall (see the height column in the terrain table): trees 2, pines 3, standing stones 3, bushes and reeds 1, and walls 1. Anything tall casts a shadow away from the sun. Cells in a shadow get no direct sunlight, only sky light. Shadows are long when the sun is low, at dawn and dusk, and short at noon, when a tree’s shadow falls just a cell or so from it. Shadows turn as the sun moves.

Creatures cast soft shadows too, but those are only for show and do not change what you can see.

Night and the moon

At night there is neither sun nor sky light. What light there is comes from the moon.

Phases

The moon waxes and wanes once a month: its cycle from new moon to new moon is 30 days, the length of a month, so its phases fall on the same days every month.

• New moon on the 1st: the moon is dark and gives no light at all.
• It waxes through the first half of the month. Around the 8th it is half lit (the first quarter).
• Full moon on the night from the 15th to the 16th: the whole moon is lit.
• It wanes through the second half, half lit again around the 23rd (the last quarter).

The pause menu tells the phase; see Time and the calendar.

The moon’s path

The moon crosses the sky along the same path as the sun, east to south to west, but it lags behind the sun by its phase:

• A new moon rises and sets with the sun, so it is never in the night sky.
• A first-quarter moon rises around noon, stands high at dusk, and sets around midnight.
• A full moon rises at dusk, stands high in the south at midnight, and sets at dawn.
• A last-quarter moon rises around midnight and stands high at dawn.

So the moon rises about 50 minutes later every day.

Moonlight

Moonlight is faint and slightly purple. It is brightest when the moon is full and high in the sky. It is weaker when only part of the moon is lit, and faint just after the moon rises and just before it sets. By day there is none: the sun drowns it out. So moonlight grows as the evening twilight fades, and fades away in the morning twilight. Besides its direct light, the moon gives a very faint glow from the whole sky, on every cell under the sky.

Tall things cast moon shadows away from the moon, just as they cast shadows from the sun: long while the moon is low, short when it is high. In a moon shadow there is only the faint glow of the sky.

What you can see by moonlight depends on your eyes:

• Normal eyes can just make out open ground, dimly, under a full or nearly full moon high in the sky, but nothing in its shadows. Under a half moon, a low moon, or a new moon they see nothing without a light.
• Low-light eyes see by a half moon too, and under a full moon some of the shade as well.
• Darkvision sees what normal eyes see, and everything within its radius as always.

Clouds hide the moon too: under an overcast or rainy sky even a full moon is too faint for normal eyes (see Weather).

When the moon is new or down, outdoor areas are dark unless you bring a light of your own, so light your lantern. A few things, such as a torch-carrying creature or a glowing altar, shine on any night.

The overworld is a special case. At night it is drawn by a faint cold light, so you can tell the cells you see from the ones you only remember, and moonlight comes on top of that. The cold light does not decide what you see there, but the moon does widen your sight. See The overworld.

See also: Sight and memory and Temperature and ice.