[WIP] Starfall World Map

[Humabout]

I have re-begun work on a world map for Starfall.  This is based on a map of Venus I found on Google.  Starfall itself is not necessarily round (I don't have any preference either way, but if it's flat, there's room for expansion), but the map is being developed as though it were for the sake of determining climates and weather patterns.  To that end, I started by making the land look pretty, adding in some mountains, and then working on its climate.  Below are a number of examples depicting seasonal extremes (winter and summer) with regard to precipitation, prevailing winds, and temperature.  This should allow me to begin working on climates, rivers, and forests.  Let me know what you all think!

[spoiler=Basic Map]

[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Winter Winds & Precipitation]

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[spoiler=Winter Temperatures]

[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Summer Winds & Previpitation]

[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Summer Temperatures]

[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Major Currents]

[/spoiler]

For sense of scale, 1 pixel = about 4.5 miles.  The big landmass in the middle right (Terra, if I'm not mistaken) is about the size of Eurasia.

[Elemental_Elf]

That post is made of so much win! I love the amount of detail presented in these maps! They make the world feel very realistic!

[Humabout]

Thank you!  I did this initially just to sort out terrain types, as it evolved it just got more and more interesting.  I'm hoping to have a finished map within a month. I'll keep posting progress

[Humabout]

Here's an update on this map.  I redid the precipitation and temperature maps while paying more attention to the Climate Cookbook, and did (I think) a better job making it look pretty.

Something I found initially disconcerting until I really looked at the map was that it kept turning out a lot hotter than initially expected.  Then I realized that unlike Earth, the majority of the land on this map lies in the tropics.  That through me off for a bit, but now I'm starting to like that little tidbit.  It fits in well with the "Oh crap, the world is melting" thing going on in Starfall.

Winter Precipitation & Trade Winds

Winter Temperatures

Summer Precipitation & Trade Winds

Summer Temperatures

[Humabout]

I am now starting to zoom in on specific areas (that interest me) and work up their climates.  From there, I'll be able to sort out their flora and fauna, start placing rivers and forests, and finally settlements.  For now, here's another map:

[spoiler=Region 1]

This map spans from about N 30 to N 83 and from E 8 to E 98.  This assumes the prime meridian runs down the center of the map.  The area depicted is 6,030 miles from east to west and 3,551 miles from north to south, and covers about 21 million square miles.  To put that in perspective, a ship sailing around the clock by dead reckoning that encounters no issues will take 2.5 months to cross the map in a straight line; a typical ship that only sails during the day will take about 150 days to make a similar journey.  By foot or horse on relatively good roads, a man would take roughly 50 days to walk the length of the big island, assuming no issues and time to hunt, eat, find shelter, and sleep.

Needless to say, this region is vast.  I eventually intend to zoom in more, most likely on the big central island or the coast in the northwest of this map.  We will see which catches my fancy.[/spoiler]

Region	Climate
Northern Coast and Fjordlands in Northwest	Boreal
Southern Coast in Northwest	Hemiboreal
Northern Islands	Boreal
Central East-West Band of Islands	Hemiboreal
Southern Central Islands and Peninsula in Southwest of the Map	Mediterranean
Rest of the Southern Continent	Humid Subtropical

I will eventually begin naming these, but for now, I'm still learning more about the different climates and placing geographical features.  Expect a much larger version of the above map in the next couple of days with a scale of 1 px = 2 miles (as opposed to the 1:4.5 of this one).

[Elemental_Elf]

150 days to sail!? That's enormous!

Love the zoomed in map. I look forward to more!

[Humabout]

There are two things to respond to here.

First, remember that nighttime navigation is relatively limited in medieval times.  The quadrant, let alone the sextant, and celestial navigation is in its infancy.  Without celestial navigation, most ships can only sale during daylight hours and beach overnight, but those who can sail around the clock can average about double the pace.  This is an inherent limitation of the technology.

Second, this map is huge.  The map is of the entirety of Venus, which is 90% the size of earth.  This map also covers Venus from pole to pole.  That zoomed in region covers an area larger than Africa.  Perhaps my next post will include an overlay of something like that for reference.  As I mentioned, the "island" in the middle of the map is about 1,000 miles long - about as long as the southern border of California, up the coast to the northern border of Oregon.

I am slowly working on zooming in to find an interesting area to map in some more detail for a game I want to eventually run.  And thanks for having a ridiculously huge map, I won't have to keep them somewhat corralled while I expand.  It's a huge project, but I like worldbuilding.

One question I do have is just how large of a map do you usually like to have when you start a somewhat sandboxy game?  I'd like the option to let the PCs thrown in on a ship and go exploring/raiding/pillaging.  Land travel is sufficiently slow and dangerous to keep them somewhat penned in if they stay land bound at least.  Either way, the journey would itself end up an adventure.

[Humabout]

Now that photobucket is back up, I have more maps!

[spoiler=Climate Map]


Dark Blue is water
White is the Ice Cap
Grey is Tundra/Mountain Tops
Blue is Boreal
Purple is Hemiboreal
Green is Cool Mediterranean
Yellow is Humid Subtropical
Mustard is Warm Savannah-ish (and possibly too wide)
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=New Regional Map]


Redid this at better resolution and reworked the icecap after speaking a bit with Weave.  I think this is looking better now.
[/spoiler]

[Elemental_Elf]

I believe the most lauded size of a hex in 6 miles. This is due to the fact that it has relatively easy to calculate distances (6 miles from side corner to side corner, 7 miles across, 3.5 miles from the center to any corer). It can be easily sub divided into half-mile sub-hexes, which can be further divided into 1/24th sub-sub-hexes. Additionally map skewing isn't an issue, so you can use the same size hex graph paper for each hex or sub hex, which makes transferring from map to map much easier.

If I recall correctly, RA Salvatore saying he really only needed a hundred square miles of the Forgotten Realms to call his own for the Drizzt novels.

Depending on how large you want to go, I'd say 1,000 square miles should be sufficient for a many campaign. Although, with the map you have created, that may be a less than stellar option.

[Humabout]

I'm mostly looking to get some use out of this massive map.  I'm totally open to a game where people might go exploring, so having an entire world map available certainly helps.  My next map will likely be down to the size of Greece and cover a city-state or two, along with any notable places.

I still think the bigger maps are totally worth it, since it's produced good climate, weather patterns, currents, etc.  And god forbid some PCs decide to go Adventures of Sinbad on me or try to Magellan it up, I'll have a map ready at least!

[Elemental_Elf]

I think a Sinbad campaign would be a lot of fun in your world!

How densely is the world populated? Is it like the real world (a village every mile) or a standard fantasy world (a village every 3 or 4 miles)? Obviously this will vary by region but in general which does the setting emulate more?

If you had to start your campaign some where, I'd go straight for that big island in the center of regional map looks like a fun place to start (at least geographically speaking).

I noticed that there is that massive inland sea on the western half of the continent lies along the Northern Tropics. What are the wind patterns like in there? What is the climate like? Has the existence of that sea helped to propagate civilization?

[Humabout]

The world is relatively sparsely populated.  Isolates often serve as places to spend the night, although they won't have an inn proper.  Travelers will need to find a resident to stay with.  Farming villages are typically small with fields rarely more than half a mile from the village center; these are merely isolates that have some trade connections to larger villages.  Some slightly larger villages are usually about half a day's travel (5 to 10 miles) by oxcart from their surrounding farming villages; these hold markets every other week and trade with still larger market villages.  Market villages are usually a day or two (10 to 20 miles) by oxcart from their biweekly markets.  Towns exist in the center of a dense web of trade in relatively densely populated areas.  They hold market daily and may draw goods from as far away as a week's travel (roughly 100 miles average).

Populations get denser near city-states, which have generally tamed the nearby lands and allowed them to be settled.  Inversely, populations thin out on frontiers, where settlements of any kind are typically a full day's travel apart by foot (25 miles average).  Generally, there are few factors that influence the dispersion of the population:  the governing body's ability to protect its people, the dangers in the area, the number of people, and the arability of the land.  Weak protection and large threats will cause people to cluster as closely as possible, while the arability of the land may force people to diffuse somewhat.  And the more people there are in an area, the more densely they'll cluster together, provided there's arable land to feed them all.

As for the big, weird inland sea . . . In the summer, the trade winds that run east to west dip into the sea, and circle down it's eastern bank, across its southern bank, and up its western bank before continuing westward.  This overrides all other wind patterns in the area.  In the winter, local low pressure systems over the land drive coastal winds.  As the equatorial low pressure belt shifts southward in the winter, a strong high develops over the sea and its surrounding land.  This high largely stops precipitation between the 30th and 45th parallel.  Within this high, pressures over land tend to be slightly lower than those over water during the day and slightly warmer overnight.  This creates sea breezes on western coasts during the day and on eastern coasts at night.  Inland, winds are typically driven by pressure fronts.

[EDIT]
I still find that massive inland sea to be a bit odd, but considering this is taken from the map of an actual planet, I'm not going to dispute its existence.  Of course, it's not actually a sea on Venus, but still, the formation occurred, so who am I to say that Venus is wrong?  It still looks odd.

[Humabout]

I have been working feverishly on a new Starfall map, as some of you know.  At this point, I have worked up climate through seasonal precipitation and am about 30% through cleaning up landmasses and coastlines. I figured I'd post what I have so far.  Neat lines mark out 15 degree increments.  A pixel at the equator is 4 miles on a side.

I'm curious to know if anyone sees any features that look interesting or that you're curious about.  I have some fantastic locations already in mind, but I'd love some feedback on places that look to warrant further description.

Once I finish cleaning up the land mask, I'll be able to work up the seasonal temperature variations and climate zones.

Regular Map

Ocean Currents


January Precipitation

July Precipitation

[Seraph]

This is some fantastic progress on that map, my friend!  Apart from the weird coloration (is that intentional?) it looks quite photo-realistic.  There is some weird artifacting on the middle right continent with some very vertical stripes of land that seem to be missing, but otherwise this looks very cool.  Are you going to build up some more depth on the mountains?

[Humabout]

This is a topographical map of Venus from NASA that I've altered a bit to add in oceans.  The vertical strips are teserae and actually look like that.  I may still toy with the pallet a little, but for now, this is what I'm working with.  The odd coloring you're referring to, is it the brightness in the middle and darkness toward the poles?  If so, that was just to give it a rounded appearance and can easily be tweaked.

The main thing I'm trying to go for feel-wise is that sea level rose in the very recent geological past, flooding a number of regions and sinking a lot of islands.  Does that sort of thing come across at all?  Does anything make sense, considering that?