I once listened to a presentation by Michael Goodchild that included a short introduction on this. Somewhere there is a group who revolves around this. Creating the cause-effect production of topography is not a simple matter. To understand these matters would take an intense introduction to physical geography. Spatially autocorrelated elevations are easier to create via fractals, etc. How about taking a random USGS DEM and then do your analyses? You could compare it to the geography of the real world to see how well they align.

If you want to really get into this method of world creation, look into spatial evolutionary models.