Fantasy world maps and real world geology

[Quasqueton]

No continent cutting rivers

Like the Mississippi? (There's a silly fantasy name.)

Such as having a trade hub on the circumference of a reasonably round continent

Like North America? NA is not round, but the major trading centers are on opposite coasts. In the 18th and 19th century, most people sailed all the way around the southern tip of South America to get from New York to San Francisco, instead of trekking across the land.

I guess I'm just really accepting of fantasy geology. I'm surprised that so many other people are not. Does everyone also have problems with fantasy ecology? Fantasy biology? Magic.

"A great undead dragon lives in the forest near this lone volcano in the swamp. His lair us guarded by owlbears. There is an entrance to the vast Underdark at the back of his lair where he can trade with the ancient lived dark elves."

Quasqueton

 

[Piratecat]

8 people have voted, but the main page shows only 3 views. Huh?

Quasqueton

To save server resources, views have always updated once an hour.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Like the Mississippi? (There's a silly fantasy name.)

I think the point is no rivers that actually cut a continent clean through. The Mississippi doesn't do that. The Krandai/Streel in Mystara seem to come close (beginning just 24 miles from a fjord in Vestland in the northeast and going about 1000 miles southwest to Darokin) but in fact what it's doing is coming close to cutting off a small part of a big continent. Even so, it's fairly odd.

I have enough of a grasp of geology and geography to know that I should do better than I usually do when designing maps. How many large rivers and lakes for a given climate, placement of mountain ranges, coastlines, island chains, making sure my elevations are consistent, and so on. I make an effort and am usually reasonably satisfied with the realism of my maps. Not great, but okay.

 

[fusangite]

I think the point is no rivers that actually cut a continent clean through. The Mississippi doesn't do that. The Krandai/Streel in Mystara seem to come close (beginning just 24 miles from a fjord in Vestland in the northeast and going about 1000 miles southwest to Darokin) but in fact what it's doing is coming close to cutting off a small part of a big continent. Even so, it's fairly odd.

Try looking at the Rocky Mountains in Alberta for continent-cutting rivers. Check out the proximity of the sources of the Columbia, Fraser, Nelson and Mackenzie systems. Continental divides are so-called for good reason.

Now, that stated, I'd also be inclined to evaluate what we can infer of Mystara's hydrology rules from the materials produced for the setting because when I see something improbable or impossible in our world described in setting materials, I take it to indicate something important about how the setting's physics differ from our own.

I have enough of a grasp of geology and geography to know that I should do better than I usually do when designing maps. How many large rivers and lakes for a given climate, placement of mountain ranges, coastlines, island chains, making sure my elevations are consistent, and so on. I make an effort and am usually reasonably satisfied with the realism of my maps.

What matters about a game world is not how consistent it is with our world but how consistent it is with itself. We all accept that some of the physical laws of game worlds are different from those that govern our world; given that water and earth are elements and that elements, as a class of thing, have different properties than those in our world (such as the capacity to create/support elementals). Given that what we already know of water and earth in D&D indicates very strongly that they have different properties than the things we call by those names in our world, it seems a leap, at best, to decide that they will generate topography in exactly the same way as exists in our world.

 

[helium3]

I'm shocked that the people that know and care are in the lead. I've always assumed that most people don't care.

Also, IMHO, using ancient cataclysmic magical events to explain bizarre and impossible features in a campaign world is so overdone these days. When I look at a fantasy map, I always almost immediately try to guess which feature is the "ancient magical nuclear war" region.

 

[Tonguez]

Next you're going to say Oz doesn't make sense, either!

Please Australia doesn't make any sense at all!

You have made me develop a mental image with this thread:

A world lovingly assembled by powerful wizards, with all the terrain types where they wanted. Only to discover that physical laws can't be held at bay without constant effort.

So all of the weather forces are destroying the lovely landscape, leaving vast jungles frozen to tundra and tumbling hillsides baking into deserts. Volcanoes erupting in the fertile plains where the continental shelves didn't quite fit right. That sort of thing.

I like this idea it coulkd be a cool campaign

An advanced civilisation comes to a primitive planet and terraforms it turning it all into a temperate plains and forest. The civilisation then exits but leave a number of artifacts in place to maintain the terraformed world.
The natives advance to the start of the game at which point the artifacts start to fail and the natural world starts to reassert itself through massive climatic and geological upheaval

What do the PCs do? Do they attempt to fix the artifacts and restore their ideal world or do they let nature run its course?

 

[hong]

I think the point is no rivers that actually cut a continent clean through. The Mississippi doesn't do that. The Krandai/Streel in Mystara seem to come close (beginning just 24 miles from a fjord in Vestland in the northeast and going about 1000 miles southwest to Darokin) but in fact what it's doing is coming close to cutting off a small part of a big continent. Even so, it's fairly odd.

Check out the Traverse Gap. On a rainy day, you could split a continent in two!

 

[CruelSummerLord]

My problem is that I simply can't tell when a map violates real-world geology. If I could design a map (which I can't-I can't draw) I wouldn't really care, because I wouldn't know what to look for.

And, again, when you consider the presence of monsters and demihumans, the fact that magic violates some of the basic laws of physics (fireballs and lightning bolts essentially create energy out of nothing; the Negative Material Plane's energy destroys matter and atomic particles), and the presence of a wide variety of different minerals and plants that have no equivalent in our real world, would it even make sense if your standard D&D campaign setting was totally based on real-world principles?

Remember: Sorcery, not science, rules in your standard D&D world, even more so if you arbitrarily (as I do) decide that mankind will never industrialize or develop firearms. So geology doesn't play nearly as important a role.

 

[Tonguez]

The only rules you need is

1.Rivers flow down from mountains
2 Plants need water
3. Topography is what you want it to be

After that anything goes

 

[Coplen]

I care about real world geology. When I was remaking the map for my fantasy world I had a friend place the mountains so they'd be placed correctly. Heh.