Weights and Measures

Distances

Kol

A Kol (15cm/6in) is a short distance of about the width of a large person's hand. A typical human is 10-12 Kol in height. A typical horse is 10 Kol at the shoulder.

Gorom

The Gorom (3.2km/2mi) is a long outdoor distance based on a universally agreed standard. The Gorom is the average distance a horse can gallop without a break. The Gorom is a useful distance for other uses. The furthest distance one can see a structure across the horizon is 2 Gorom. This is the same distance a person can see a ship at sea from sea level. From a ship's crow's nest, a sailor can see another ship or an island (with trees, but not mountains) at a distance of 3 Gorom. When herding animals, a typical shepherd can move their flock two Goroms in a day. When riding, a rider can expect to ride a typical horse 10 Goroms in a day. The fastest ships on the sea might take their crews as 40-50 Goroms in a day with a good wind.

Time

Since IM stands for Incipit Mundi (The Beginning of the World), the most logically consistent two-letter designation for the era before the Great Erasure would be AM, standing for Ante Mundi. In Latin, this translates to "Before the World."

It perfectly captures the Otanian philosophical view that whatever existed before the year 1 IM is not just "pre-history," but belonged to an entirely different world that has since been discarded or forgotten. While historians and treasure hunters might find artifacts or ruins from the AM era, those items are treated as remnants of a ghostly, alien reality that has no legal or spiritual claim on the current year 261 IM.