Flat World design

[Gilladian]

I recommend you read Niven's Ringworld novels (especially The Ringworld Engineers). He's already done some of the idea-work for you.

Decades ago.

 

[Gilladian]

Are you going to run Tabaxi or Rakshasha as the main antagonists? You know...because they want to push everything over the edge?

That's really good... what sort of villains would Tabaxi make, even? They seem more victim than aggressor. And any individual Rakshasa is a fine villain, but they're too solitary, too arrogant, to be team players and form any sort of villainous power.

I suspect Dragons would be the arch-villains. 4 dragon "gods" rule over the 4 seasons, and say 12 apex predator dragons rule the world. 8 on the land, one in the central sea, and 3 underground, in the underdark realm.

But what sort of backstory would there be? How would adventure happen? What's the way to give characters a space to inhabit?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

That's really good... what sort of villains would Tabaxi make, even? They seem more victim than aggressor. And any individual Rakshasa is a fine villain, but they're too solitary, too arrogant, to be team players and form any sort of villainous power.

Perhaps a Rakshasha- or small group of them- pulling the strings* of Tabaxi enclaves, eventually honing them into a dangerous threat? Perhaps telling lies about their racial past, telling tales of a lost empire erased from history.

Infernal catnip unleashing a flood of heretofore only rumored Tabaxi berserkers?





* so to speak

 

[Tony Vargas]

Just as an exercise, because I've thought about it off and on for years, ...
Questions: Seasons? What's "up there?" and "down below"? What does the source of a river look like? Are there other planes? Is there an underdark? Is there a "backside" to the world disc? Is there really even a "disc" if there's a wraparound effect?
What would your answers be? What other questions need to be answered?

So, way back when, I guess c1985, I did decide on a flat world.

It was contained in a rotating iron sphere, so the 'fixed stars' were actually on the sphere, as were the planets, which moved independently - and literally wandered, not following orbits. What they were - crystals, flames, holes, angels, cities, spiders - was something that was never confirmed.

The sun was a deity (though which deity seemed to depend on who was looking), crossing the sky every day, with schedule & route determining the season. One consequence of that is there is no difference in the length of the day or the season, however far north or south you travel. But quite a difference in the declination of the sun and the warmth received. The moon, OTOH, was a habitable terrestrial land in its own right (which the PCs actually visited at one point).

The in habited land masses were towards the center of the world-disc, surrounded by ocean - presumed, in theory, to be held in by a ring of hills along the world's perimeter, also never confirmed.

The world was thicker than the greatest mountain was tall - plenty of room for an Underdark, though there wasn't anything quite that extensive - but, legend had it that dwarves once did, in fact, dig a mine so deep they fell from the bottom of the world.

 

[Sadras]

Perhaps Yuan-ti run this world with a Marilith at the apex - so essentially this just one or part of one of the 666 levels of the Abyss.

 

[Panda-s1]

uh, is no one gonna bring up discworld? I was pretty sure that figured out how a flat world can emulate our round one (albeit with some comedic flourish I'm sure).

 

[Tonguez]

Giving the ocean a supervolcano at its center would explain how the ocean is heated to steam which rises to the crystal dome where the water evaporates to form rain. Make it like a regular geyser that blast water into the sky, thus accounting for both clouds and tides. This way you dont need the hot spot in the sky (you’ve got a hot spot in the ocean instead)

Seasons could be due to rotation of the hot water from the source flowing in a constant current around the disc. The head of the flow is hottest (summer) but dissapates as it goes around leaving a cold tail (winter). Winds blowing inland and flow into bays etc cause regional weather effects but there would be a constant swell pattern and rim-wide trade wind too which would make navigation easy with the current, but difficult against it.


Addendum: Have the Geyser blast cause the Crystal dome to glow brightly and then dim, causing the same day and night cycle to occur simultaneously across the disc

uh, is no one gonna bring up discworld? I was pretty sure that figured out how a flat world can emulate our round one (albeit with some comedic flourish I'm sure).

Pratchett essentially handwaved it as narrativium, however

“Since the disc's tiny orbiting sunlet maintains a fixed orbit while the majestic disc turns slowly beneath it, it will be readily deduced that a disc year consists of not four but eight seasons. The summers are those times when the sun rises or sets at the nearest point on the Rim, the winters those occasions when it rises or sets at a point around ninety degrees along the circumference."
—The Colour of Magic, footnotes, page 5

 

[Blue]

2) There is no sun, and no moon(s). Day is simply "when the sky gets light" and Night is the opposite. There are times of "nightglow" but there is no actual moon (unless we invent a way to have one).

Have you thought of the ancient Greeks, where the sun was thought to be a chariot that was driven across the sky every day? In a non-Heliocentric approach the sun and the moon do not need to be large nor at astronomical distances.

3) burrowing through (or climbing over) the mountains in the outer ring would only end up "coming out the other side"; the dwarves probably make a lot of money creating travel short-cuts this way.

There's a shape that does that, a torus. But it's not flat.

Questions: Seasons? What's "up there?" and "down below"? What does the source of a river look like? Are there other planes? Is there an underdark? Is there a "backside" to the world disc? Is there really even a "disc" if there's a wraparound effect?

Just more questions. What causes the daylight and nightglow? Why do plants bloom? Can you dig deep enough and fall off the bottom?

 

[Umbran]

uh, is no one gonna bring up discworld? I was pretty sure that figured out how a flat world can emulate our round one (albeit with some comedic flourish I'm sure).

I don't think it "figured out" a flat world, in the way we are talking. For instance, at the rim of Discworld, the water just cascades off in a great waterfall. Pratchett does not discuss how the Discworld gets new water - it is limited to the statement that, "arrangements are made".

There is no problem with just hand waving that. Water comes from somewhere. It rains... because rain is a thing that happens. Don't worry too much about it.

 

[Panda-s1]

I don't think it "figured out" a flat world, in the way we are talking. For instance, at the rim of Discworld, the water just cascades off in a great waterfall. Pratchett does not discuss how the Discworld gets new water - it is limited to the statement that, "arrangements are made".

There is no problem with just hand waving that. Water comes from somewhere. It rains... because rain is a thing that happens. Don't worry too much about it.

I mean okay, but I know he figured out the sun and the moon by having light move at an incredibly slow speed. or something like that. the point is he figured some stuff out, even if it was hand wavey.