Mapping cliches

[Trismegistus]

My Asdar world map is global and thus enables me to incorporate all the climates. I have based the 'climate' bands on real world climates (tundra, boreal, alpine/steppe, temperate/atlantic, mediterranean, desert, savannah, semi-tropical, tropical). It's much more realistic and plausible. Even if I don't have the latitudes exactly right, it's close enough for a verisimilitude of the real world. The disadvantage is that characters in the world have to travel relatively far to reach another climate in many instances. The advantages of the small, theme park-like setting with many climates enables more changing play or stories in a smaller setting.

Of course, in the real world, it is possible to have dramatic changes, but they're usually on the border of a great expanse of climate. It is possible to go from the Andes Mountains down into the Amazon Jungle Basin or from the Plateau of Tibet down into the Takla Makan desert, although that is probably a much longer journey. In north Africa, you could go from green zones in the Atlas Mountains down into the Sahara Desert. In the middle east, you can go from the Negev Desert which looks like parts of Arizona into the Judean Hills which look like San Diego.

This is the PDF of my world map. It's over 10 mbs in size.

[NedS298]

In essence, I think you're saying that mountains allow for huge climatic differences in small areas; all your examples involve them.
Anyway, I think that it would be possible to say that place names ending in "dor"/"dhor" or "or" are something of a cliche. In Middle-Earth alone there's Eriador, Arnor, Gondor, Mordor, Numenor and Valinor.

[Ghostman]

I think that it would be possible to say that place names ending in "dor"/"dhor" or "or" are something of a cliche. In Middle-Earth alone there's Eriador, Arnor, Gondor, Mordor, Numenor and Valinor.

That's because most Middle-Earth place names are meaningful word combinations in the elf languages Tolkien invented. IIRC "dor" actually literally means "land", so all those ME names ending with -dor are similar to the many nation names in english that end with -land: Scotland, Poland, Iceland, Thailand, etc.

If such naming conventions seem overused in non-ME settings then that's probably because they're ripping off imitating Tolkien's works

[NedS298]

That's completely true, but I think the fantasy community caught on quickly. As an example off the top of my head, in Max's map "Kherash" there were a number of kingdoms ending in "-dor/dhor", eg. Valendhor (or something like that, anyway).

[- Max -]

That's completely true, but I think the fantasy community caught on quickly. As an example off the top of my head, in Max's map "Kherash" there were a number of kingdoms ending in "-dor/dhor", eg. Valendhor (or something like that, anyway).

Actually I don't think there's sych things on Kerash map. Maybe another one?