Ramifications of a land world?

[Aristotle]

Yeah... things get sketchy once we move off of the planet. For ease of discussion I am assuming a planet, sun, and moon situation vaguely similar to our own.

 

[Liolel]

Have to agree with several other posters. Don't worry about science from the real world. When mages can cause people to drop dead with a single word, clerics can draw power from gods, druids can wildshape into animals, real science is already thrown out the window. So using it is mostly pointless. By mostly I mean that the basic rules should still apply. There should still be gravitys and that kind of stuff, but you should feel free to bend or break almost any rule of science.

 

[TwoSix]

Hmm...this idea could be kind of fun. You have a desert world like Athas, where water is precious and rare, and the different races have all fought over it for millenia. A hundred years ago, a powerful mage figured out how to tap into the elemental plane of Water, and built a decanter of endless water. Everyone cheered, and people migrated to be near this of boundless, everflowing of water. In the present, the decanter is still flowing. Of course, it's now underneath the ocean that covers 10% of the planet's surface, and is increasing in size every year. No one is all that worried....yet.

 

[Fenris]

Well the biggest thing to be effected.... IMHO.. would be the weather.. Since the hydroglogical cycle would not include larger oceans as a fuel source you have to assume that rain may me scarcer... unless you have a system where the groundwater is quickly recycled into the cycle.. ei the planet is very close to the sun thus making evaporation happen quickly. Another thing would be the temperature, the earth's oceans reflect alot of heat and effect the pressure systems of the earth. If you keep this new planet where earth is in the same typeof situation your temperature is going to be very low or very high, since the lack of evaporated water wont relfect heat back to earth. The earth's albedo will either be dramatically higher or dramatically lower than it is today depending on your preference. If you want plentiful amount of rain put it closer to the sun than the earth is and your world can be fairly wet.. or if you dont want that but still want a warm earth make the atmosphere contain alot of greenhouse gases to keep the earth warm. Look into articles on global warming, there are arguements for the earth cooling and heating up because of global warmring.

Life could not have arisen on such a planet (but may have been brought there). The oceans on earth do affect the weather. The high heat capacity of water is why we haven't crisped up yet. But also remember the the ocean and it's plethora of marine flora are THE primary source of oxygen on our planet. Also Fish has always played a large part of people's diets. You will need to find a new source of Iodine, or give every person a goiter

 

[nameless]

I say you should do something exotic. All the rivers and freshwater lakes empty into big, steaming whirlpools of saltwater that goes beneath the crust of the planet. The salt mysteriously disappears when it goes beneath the waves, and the water comes back through the mountain ranges and geothermal geysers..

Maybe a race of strange and alien underground creatures need the Chlorine from the saltwater to breathe, and they extract it, leaving the sodium in solid form to go back to the surface in volcanoes. And when it rains, the volcanoes erupt due to the sodium's violent reaction to water.

So most of the water on the planet's surface is freshwater, you can have large landmasses without oceans separating most of them, and still have regular land dwellers. As an added bonus, you get lots of volcanoes, which are fantasy staples, and a new race of bad guys.

 

[SSquirrel]

Life could not have arisen on such a planet (but may have been brought there). The oceans on earth do affect the weather. The high heat capacity of water is why we haven't crisped up yet. But also remember the the ocean and it's plethora of marine flora are THE primary source of oxygen on our planet. Also Fish has always played a large part of people's diets. You will need to find a new source of Iodine, or give every person a goiter

Actually life on Earth was developed prior to water. The bacteria from meteors and such would not have bred in water, it bred very well in the heat. Actually, it may have been the lack of oxygen that was more important. Regardless, hard to have water and not have oxygen. Anyway, it is quite possible for it to have happened, especially if you use creation myths like say any non-evolution creation myth. All hail the Discovery channel heh.


Several things to point out in this thread/ideas I had so far:

1)Instead of airships, maybe teleportation magic is very refined....less chance of bad things happening, lower level as much more common, stable rifts/portals everywhere. Good examples of this are found in Feist's Riftwar Saga and the RIFTS RPG.

2)Stable portals draw interdimensional baddies to the planet ala the Splugorth in RIFTS or maybe the Lovecraft Elder Gods as anyone who has stable rift tech MUST be powerful.

3)If teleportation magic is much better, it may be of a lower spell level and MUCH less chance of bad things happening. Possibly has a smaller range making teleportation "repeaters" (ala wireless internet)

4)Easy to envision escort missions to desolate unexplored areas so that teleportation routes can be established there.

I had several other ideas while I was working on the dishes but I forgot what they were. I'l ledit my post as soon as I recall them.

Hagen

 

[I'm A Banana]

Gysers.

They put the groundwater into the rain cycle!

 

[Umbra]

G'day,

You could use real world examples like the Lake Eyre Basin. Lake Eyre is a giant salt lake that occassionally floods but normally looks like miles of ice (actually salt).

From this site http://www.lakeeyrebasin.org.au/pages/page01.html ...

It is considered to be one of the world's last unregulated, wild river systems. Unlike other river systems, flows in the Basin are highly variable and unpredictable.

Lake Eyre itself, at 15 metres below sea level, is Australia’s lowest point. It is also the fifth largest (9,690 square kilometres) terminal lake in the world although it usually contains little or no water.

All the rivers and creeks are ephemeral with short periods of flow following rain and extended periods of no flow. The volume of flow decreases downstream reflecting increasing aridity towards Lake Eyre and the huge dispersal system of braided channels, floodplains, waterholes and wetlands on the way. The many large permanent waterholes in the system provide vital habitat for wildlife and are important to towns, communities and pastoral holdings.

 

[Gez]

Mongolians seem to get by OK...

I meant, for vegetation. You would not have lush forests. Animal is another thing, 'cause when it's animated it can build a shelter and hide in it to protect itself. Vegetals don't have this luxury.

So, yeah, you'll have people and preys and predators... But probably no agriculture, apart of mushroom caves...

 

[Meeki]

Life could not have arisen on such a planet (but may have been brought there). The oceans on earth do affect the weather. The high heat capacity of water is why we haven't crisped up yet. But also remember the the ocean and it's plethora of marine flora are THE primary source of oxygen on our planet. Also Fish has always played a large part of people's diets. You will need to find a new source of Iodine, or give every person a goiter

no... the reason we havent friend yet is a combination of having an atmosphere and being this far away from the sun, and i know that the ocean is a big factor in the upkeep of our atmosphere.. If you look at the deserts of the world.. the biggest one never gets warm enough to even melt snow.... none of the ocean currents bring much warm water to this area and the albedo of snow is anywhere from .6~1. In the center of the desert the ocean hardly effects the weather because it is effected i believe only by a continental air mass. And your statement about oxygen and the ocean.. well on a primarily land based planet.. there's going to be more land based plants. You assume that this planet is just going to be exactly like earth and no adapted it seems. Fish wouldnt be as big as a part in people's diets and maybe goiters dont even exist on this planet. I fail to see why life couldn't have come about... since we dont know how exactly life came about.. but if your thinking pure evolution then the planet would have adapted itself by now or the Dm wouldnt be playing on it..