Discussion: The World

daggerhart · March 29, 2006, 02:13:11 PM

hi,

i'm going to post the questions from the Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions to get some more ideas out of all of us.

Quote from: The World; Basics on non-Earth
Are there different human races, whether or not there are non-humans like elves or dwarves? How does the cultural and ethnic diversity of this world compare to the real world?
*How long have there been people on this world? Did they evolve, or did they migrate from somewhere/when else?
*How many people are there in this country? How does this compare with world population? What is considered a small town/large town/city in terms of number of people?

[/i]
[note] Just keep in mind that we don't actually have to answer all of these questions. I'm just atempting to provoke thought.[/note]
How does this world differ physically from earth? Is it the same size (same density, same gravity), same ratio of land/water, same atmosphere, etc.? Does it have more than one sun or moon? Rings? Are there spectacular constellations/comets, etc. visible at night or by day?
*Are there non-human inhabitants of this planet (elves, dwarves, aliens)? If so, how numerous? How openly present? What areas do they occupy?
*How are the continents laid out? If there is more than one moon/sun, how does this affect winds, tides, and weather generally?
*How much land is there, and how much of it is habitable?
[/i]

daggerhart · March 29, 2006, 02:30:02 PM

we should totally start taking submissions for world-maps too. ;).

if we had somethign to look at, it would help us decide how the world interacts with itself (due to the lcoationof resources and what-not).

I hope this thread will help us with some details, once we've officially agreed upon the major theme.

Captain Obvious · March 30, 2006, 01:01:09 AM

a just a really quick and simpe way to brainstorm quick continent layouts, i present this.
http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~putn4403/Campaign_World/MapCreator.html

this is a random continent generator made by Areas from the wizards boards that he made when we we working on his "indistinguishable from magic" setting.

they are really rough continents, but they help to inspire basic layouts and proportions (i used them when making my setting)

as for those questions, i think we should stick with the laws of physics since the rules mechanics are already set for them. we should change the time measurements though (i.e. calendar, year length, maybe # of moons)

as for magic, we started to work on that over in the brainstorming thread a bit

Túrin · March 30, 2006, 08:33:18 AM

A magic thread will be up soon, as well as a classes thread. If this thread is just here to discuss geography, I suggest we turn our attention to other topics first.
Túrin

Xathan · March 30, 2006, 05:21:16 PM

It isn't just geography, though - Daggerharts original questions merit thinking, though alot of them are answered simply because we are playing DnD, and there are certian things that go with DnD.

Ishmayl-Retired · March 30, 2006, 05:38:14 PM

Yeah, and geography is pretty important too. For instance, I find that it makes much more sense to have a map first, and base events around that map, instead of creating a map based on events. You get a much more realistic-feeling setting that way, one that feels as though it actually chronologically and geographically evolved, as opposed to just coming out of nowhere.

daggerhart · March 30, 2006, 09:26:09 PM

i trimmed the questions some more.

with geography, we can invent history (which is generally 'resource' driven).

i vote we have an archapelago somewhere....
doesnt have to be big, i just really dig them.

wonderful cultures develop in archipelagos. :)

.. and im not so sure the BFG and te CSs have to be seperated by mountains. ...

spread them out all over the place. <-- my vote.

daggerhart · March 31, 2006, 09:58:04 AM

QuoteHow does this world differ physically from earth? Is it the same size (same density, same gravity), same ratio of land/water, same atmosphere, etc.? Does it have more than one sun or moon? Rings? Are there spectacular constellations/comets, etc. visible at night or by day?

How about a ring around the planet?
im not sure this matters too much, but it would be pretty neat to have meteor showers randomly.

how do rings normally effect a world ? can you see them from the surface?

QuoteHow much land is there, and how much of it is habitable?

I would say 30-40% of the world is land, and about 50% of that is inhabitable, and about 40% of that is actually inhabited.

so,7-10% of the world is inhabited. (that right ?)

gives us a good amount of wilderness and civilization.

Ishmayl-Retired · March 31, 2006, 05:31:55 PM

You can definitely see the ring from the surface. There's concept art all over the internet of "Views from Saturn," that generally have a pretty realistic feel to them. The thing about a ring is, physically, the planet is generally extremely large to support a ring. For instance, in our solar system, the four "gas giants" have rings, while none of the others do. Now, that's probably not to say that a smaller, rocky-terrained planet couldn't have a ring (I honestly don't know 100%), but I think it's unlikely.

I don't think you would notice any effects of the ring, though, except for shadoww (which I'll get to in a moment). Most likely, it would be decoration and backdrop, though it really depends on what the ring is made out of. This is a fantasy world, so the ring could be a solid ring all the way around that powerful mages build their homes on; or it could be where all the demons live.

The shadow could make some interesting things. Any part of the world that has the ring between it and the sun is going to be almost constantly in shadow (depending, of course, on how wobbly the orbit of the planet is). This could mean that there are parts of the equator that never see the sun, and suffer blizzards year-round, or it could mean other things as well.

I actually like the idea of a ring, but I think we should figure out if it's astronomically correct (and thus, just decoration basically), or if it's a fantasy version of a ring, in which case, it could be anything we wanted.

(brainface may be able to expand a bit more on this issue, I'm not sure if he's kept up with his astronomy in recent years).

Ishmayl-Retired · March 31, 2006, 05:33:33 PM

Quote from: daggerhart
QuoteHow much land is there, and how much of it is habitable?
I would say 30-40% of the world is land, and about 50% of that is inhabitable, and about 40% of that is actually inhabited.

so,7-10% of the world is inhabited. (that right ?)

gives us a good amount of wilderness and civilization.

You should take a look at this:

http://www.lysator.liu.se/~johol/fwmg/fwmg.html

Play around with it and see what you think of a world that is 30-40% land and the rest water.

Ishmayl-Retired · March 31, 2006, 05:34:15 PM

The only problem with that program I linked you to is that it seems to focus all the land on pretty much just one contient... I'm having trouble finding any random patterns that have several continents spread across the globe.

Ishmayl-Retired · March 31, 2006, 05:41:26 PM

Gaaar, figured it out... it's based somehow on the number of iterations you input.

Ishmayl-Retired · April 01, 2006, 11:49:39 AM

(All the maps are a few posts down now so they can be compared to each other easily)

daggerhart · April 01, 2006, 12:02:44 PM

that totally looks like a final fastasy map...

I dig it .

daggerhart · April 01, 2006, 12:16:32 PM

please copy the coede for these if you get good ones.. ;-) .. that way we can recreate it.

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