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Thread: Continent of Narridia

  1. #1
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    Wip Continent of Narridia

    Starting a new map, from scratch. I wanted to create a broad world view, and build top down, but ended up really with just one continent.

    I knew when I started out that I needed some kind of world-changing Cataclysm, as every proper world story has one. (Earth's would be "the Flood")
    In this one, a giiiiiigantic meteor hit, and splintered the lands into pieces. This continent shows this in part. Right now, its just a black blob on a white sea.

    However, I'm having issues tackling size, I think. My initial idea was to have a scale similar to "Europe", that is, containing Europe and the western part of Russia. (Like in the map here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe ), but I think I was going too large. For example, I envisioned the Horsehead Penninsula to be about the size of Scandinavia. Or, the area of the ring about equal to the size of the Gulf of Mexico.

    Like I said, I'm having issues tackling the right scale.

    Comments, criticisms, ideas, hints, all are welcome. Thanks.

    Edit: Whoops, forgot to attach. Silly me.
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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    Looks like a dragon head, good start.
    If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
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    Neat shape to the land mass...
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    I expanded it, I wanted to get an overall world view of what the results of the impact could be. I sorta thought the lands would splinter and spiderweb kind of like a windshield when struck by a rock. How plausable to you think this is?

    See attached.
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    Guild Adept Aenigma's Avatar
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    To me it feels like there is too much land vs too little water. Maybe if you delete/sink a few of those islands to the west of the "dragonhead-island"?
    I don't wanna be an asshole, but to be honest, I don't really feel it's plausable that those islands are shaped like that... but hey! Who says fantasy maps have to make sense from a geographical standpoint? Look at the land of Oz
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    You could be right. I was thinking it was pretty crowded myself. To be honest, I have no idea what is plausable or not, this is why I was asking all you smarter people. I like the crater idea, and I kinda want to stick with it.

    Perhaps it's too large, it does take up the north-western end of Africa. I'll take another stab at it and see what I can come up with.

    Thanks for your response.

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    I'm not one to judge realism but if you have a fantasy world it's usually okay - as long as you know why it's so (and you have a cosmologically sound explanation) it's alright if it isn't exactly logical. I second the 'too crowded' opinion. The shards look neat though, so maybe you could try making them smaller? I like the semi-circle of triangles in the middle. A world can never have enough things that look like pie.

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    Professional Artist Facebook Connected Coyotemax's Avatar
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    Here's an idea, you could try looking online for a pic of a good shattered window ( or something similar) with a nice circular impact, and use some of the cracks to base your shapes on..

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    I am neither a geologist, nor a planetary scientist, however, I do have some technical knowledge of both fields (which includes a sizable amount of cratering). At first glance, this doesn't seem all that likely-craters tend to make big bowls.

    HOWEVER!

    Upon thinking a little bit, I recalled several basic facts about large craters (as you have):

    1) They tend to have ring structures and a central peak in the middle of them-sometimes several rings.
    2) The edges tend to be uplifted, and the bottom of the crater (if it is a large crater) is usually pretty flat
    3) They CAN cause extensional cracks (radially outwards from the crater), but this effect is much smaller (read less wide- the length of the cracks actually seems about right) than what you have shown with the various landmasses in your map, even with an impact of that size.

    For example, here's an image of the crater Orientale on the Moon:


    (The reason I chose Orientale is because most other large impact basins are filled in with lava or are old enough that the structure is eroded).

    So, really the only major geological problem with the crater here is that the 'spiderweb cracks' are just too large. I think you could explain that away by saying that over the eons, rivers and other weathering have eroded the extensional cracks so that they're extremely large. Cool concept, I think you should run with it!

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    Quote Originally Posted by the-golem View Post
    I expanded it, I wanted to get an overall world view of what the results of the impact could be. I sorta thought the lands would splinter and spiderweb kind of like a windshield when struck by a rock. How plausable to you think this is?
    I'm not sure about the plausibility of that shattering pattern, though i would tend to question it, if i found it in a book. But if this is fantasy i wouldn't worry about it too much.

    But i think i can offer a helpful comment on making the whole thing look more plausible. The continental shapes you have now are in general too uniform. If you look at our world, all the continents are very different in size and shape. At the moment yours fall too easily into patterns. Your original continent has an interesting shape. But south of it you've placed another continent of roughly the same size, shape and orientation. Then your continent on the far right, is roughly equidistant in all direction to the adjacent two continents. Your radiating shatter continents are all about the same size and length The remaining continents on the left have some interesting shapes, but they feels like they have been jammed in between the curved edge of the ghosted projection behind and the radiating skinny continents.

    This feels artificial to me.

    Try mixing things up more. Take some of your continents and resize them and move them around, looking at both the negative and positive space, and going for variety in both. Remove some of your radiating continents, radically alter some of their lengths, and/or chop some of them into two or three pieces laterally.

    Or if you want to try a more rigorous approach, make your landforms before the cataclysm, and then use a selection lasso and start breaking things apart and moving them around.

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