WIP - The Floating World

[Sinan]

Thanks for all the comments. I'm glad you like it and I'll keep working on it.

The idea with the climate is that the sun (which is relatively tiny) rises in the gap in the east, climbs over the equator and sets in the gap in the west. The sun rises higher in the summer with longer days, and is lower with shorter days in the winter, giving the world recognisable seasons (and allowing crops to grow normally). The part of the world along the equator is hotter, and I think the climate here should be more even throughout the year - the sun rises higher above the equator during the summer so is a bit less intense, but the days are longer. The land furthest from the equator is coldest, and has more extreme seasons. Most of the civilizations (including the Romans) will be in the northern half of the world, with the equatorial desert creating a barrier that makes the smaller southern regions more mysterious. I'll need to make this a lot clearer on the main map, although I'm not quite sure how to represent this yet.

I'm not quite sure how the weather would work in this setup. I presume the "sun" will heat the surrounding atmosphere and create an updraft which will draw in air from across the world, so the winds will be blowing towards the sun during the day, picking up water as it flows over the ocean and dumping it on the land.

The water is magically generated in a maelstrom in the very centre of the world and then flows out from there to fill the oceans. There must be some very strong currents through the straits leading to the seas and eventually over the waterfalls, and I might add in some extra sources of water - I like the idea of a few magic springs on land somewhere as well. I'm not sure if the seas are salt or fresh water - if they are salt water the salts must be generated along with the water, but that's a minor details.

As well as the Romans, most of the cultures are going to be from Europe and the Near East - Persians, Greeks, Arabs, with the most advanced states from the crusader kingdoms. I think gunpowder will have been introduced, but only on a very limited scale. There will be more outlying civilizations from more distant times and places in more remote spots so they can retain their unique culture while still having some contact with the other civilizations. I was thinking of putting a Japanese shogunate on one of the far eastern islands (a land of the rising sun)

[Zach]

Ah, I see. That makes a lot more sense now. Except it also raises some more solar questions.
If the sun is lower in the winter, wouldn't it also be closer to the land, giving it more light and radiant heat, making winter actually hotter than summer?
What mechanism makes the sun go higher/lower in accordance with the seasons? ("Magic" is acceptable, I guess.)
What happens to the sun at night? So if I were standing on the eastern edge of that little gray island in the far West, and the sun sank below the level of the land, what do I see? Is it still bright for most of the night because the sun circles back around under the continent where I can see it? Or does it abruptly go out and utterly vanish until the dawn?
Lastly, most of the land is within a few miles of an ongoing nuclear fusion reaction, so are there any problems with radiation?