Forrested Mountains don't exist

[jester47]

I think most fantasy RPG maps make the assumption that there is some vegetation in places where there is not a labeled forest.

I know that the FR maps are like this. The nether mountains are covered with coniferous trees below treeline.

I think these maps are made on the assumption that a mountain range is forested or in the least vegetated. The same with the hills. I believe that forest houtlines are the borders of old growth double canopied woods. Single canopy old growth is typically too much associated with mountains to be drawn on most maps. Anything less than that is not mapworthy at all. Double canopy old growth or greater however is a serious terrain factor and is typically separate from mountains.

I would suspect that forest coverage in the mountains is not typically mapped because the mountains themselves are a more dominate terrain feature than the forest they are surrounded by. When the forest is large enough to encase mountains, but also extends far enough from the mountains to be a terrain feature in its own right, we get mountains peeking out of the forest, much like the High Forest in FR.

Thats how I handle it. Just because it is not in a forest does not mean that there are not trees there. It just means that there is not tree coverage of the variety and the thickness of a rainforest there.

Aaron.

 

[Chimera]

There are no trees in the mountains because the Dwarves cut them all down for firewood, tools and furniture.


Nah, as above, it's the mountains that are the dominant feature on the map and sometimes it's difficult to convey all the various features of an area.

And then again, there might not be any trees on the mountains due to the local climate.

On my own maps, I use the common terrain types, but these are only a broad guideline of what you might find in the area. After all, if you looked at the Twin Cities (pre-settlement) as a broad region, you'd find it as a combination of forest and plains coming together in this immediate area. However, there are still plenty of hills and quite a lot of lowlands (swamps) in the general region, along with a lot of lakes and small rivers that wouldn't make the larger map.

 

[Davelozzi]

Growing up, all the mountains I ever knew were forested (except of course above the treeline) so I always thought it was assumed that mountains included forest. I was surprised when I first started traveling out west and realized that there were whole ranges mostly bare of vegetation.

At any rate, the poster maps in the FR Maztica boxed set feature forested mountains. So do the maps of my homebrew. In general, I just assume that mountains that rise up out of mostly forested terrain are assumed to be forested. For example, in the Forgotten Realms, I'd figure that all of the mountains in the Savage Frontier (the North) are forested at low elevations, except for the easternmost ridges/slopes nearest to Anauroch.

 

[Committed Hero]

Pretty sure Darlene's map of the World of Greyhawk had some forested mountains in it.

IIRC they were "forested hills" but I agree.

What about the "cloud forest" biome of the Andes?