Kyrinth world map

[Shanrakk]

I feel like this turned into a philosophical debate, lol.
But really thanks for all of your input!
But that still begs my important questions- how woukd a floating volcano effect my world? And are my geographical climates (?) believable? Do you guys think I can benefit from more Plains or grasslands? Do they even need to be there? Perhaps more importantly, am I just over thinking this? e
At the very least, I want to know how this island woukd affect the environment. Obviously there is going to be ash in the air, but isn't ash important for fertile soil? Or woukd the presence of the island /ash kill the sunlight?
Sorry for all the questions everyone.. Hopefully in not stealing to much of your time! Once my busy week gets done I'm looking to post some input of my own in some other posts!

[Chick]

I feel like this turned into a philosophical debate, lol.
But really thanks for all of your input!
But that still begs my important questions- how woukd a floating volcano effect my world? And are my geographical climates (?) believable? Do you guys think I can benefit from more Plains or grasslands? Do they even need to be there? Perhaps more importantly, am I just over thinking this? e
At the very least, I want to know how this island woukd affect the environment. Obviously there is going to be ash in the air, but isn't ash important for fertile soil? Or woukd the presence of the island /ash kill the sunlight?
Sorry for all the questions everyone.. Hopefully in not stealing to much of your time! Once my busy week gets done I'm looking to post some input of my own in some other posts!

As I've said and always say, "In the end, it's your map and you can do whatever you want with it ".


That means if you need ash somewhere for your story, put it there. If you need grasslands and plains to support your people, livestock, agriculture, put them where you need them. Those kinds of things are not particularly dependent on hard geology such as plate tectonics and volcanoes, anyway. I

f you want a climate zone somewhere, put it there. There are plenty of maps with frozen zones in the mid-latitudes, caused by some magic. If you want them like Earth, here is climate zone summary of Earth:
http://eusoils.jrc.ec.europa.eu/proj.../CLIM_ZONE.gif
Just go and do likewise.

If you want to know what real volcanism does, read about the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 and the "year without a summer". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa
or what Mt St Helens did across the US.

There are two kinds of volcanoes, shield volcanoes and stratovolcanoes, and they produce very, very different kinds of effects. Which kind is yours? And see how this brings us back to realism again?

So yes, you are probably overthinking it. With some non-realism, you might as well just use as much as you need for your story. Your readers already have to suspend belief, so more is not that much of a stretch. Make your volcano do whatever you need it to do for the story.

[Azélor]

how woukd a floating volcano effect my world? that depends

how fast does it move? it creates a shadow underneath
how does it move? does it have a specific path or is it random?
is it really active? some volcanoes can be inactive for hundreds of years, others will poor out lava periodically.

About the climates: the continent in the east is not dry enough to have a desert
the southern part of the SW continent is made of forest and keep the tundra
it's possible to have tundra on the SE continent but I doubt it's cold enough to cover the whole area.

[Mark Oliva]

But that still begs my important questions- how woukd a floating volcano effect my world? And are my geographical climates (?) believable? Do you guys think I can benefit from more Plains or grasslands? Do they even need to be there? Perhaps more importantly, am I just over thinking this? e
At the very least, I want to know how this island woukd affect the environment. Obviously there is going to be ash in the air, but isn't ash important for fertile soil? Or woukd the presence of the island /ash kill the sunlight?
Sorry for all the questions everyone.

I like the approach that you're taking in these questions. You obviously have rejected the "if you want it, do it" philosophy, which often leads to a chaotic, senseless setting, and instead are attempting to build a fantasy setting or scenario that is believable. That's commendable. Most successful fantasy work begins with real world reality and then inserts the non-real fantasy elements into the reality base, and that obviously is the point of all of your questions. That approach makes all of your questions quite germane. So, to start with the question am I just over thinking this, I would say probably not. In your floating volcano, you've created a non-real-world fantasy element, and now you're asking basically how to insert that non-reality into an environment that your readers or gamers can understand. In other words, you're trying to create a floating volcano without having your rivers flow upstream and pour into source springs, and you don't want to have mango trees in your polar zone or icebergs on your equator.

With the latest information you've posted, people are going to be able to give you some decent answers, like Azelor did above. At this point, I would suggest that the more information we get from you, the more we might be able to help you make the area(s) in which your floating volcano manifests itself believable.

Azelor already has posted some of the questions that - once answered - might help us to better help you. Here are some more:

Why does the god have a floating volcano there?

How wide and high is it?

How far over the terrain does it float?

Does it stay in one position or does it travel?

How often does it erupt?

What volume of lava does it produce when it erupts?

If we take one of your questions such as:

would the presence of the island /ash kill the sunlight?

we can suggest only a partial answer with the information that you've given us so far. If the volcano only floats over a specific area and does not travel, then a part of the area below probably will be in constant shadow and most of it in partial shadow. If the volcano travels, the effect of its shadow will be minimal, because its effect will be only temporary. If the volcano is stationary and keeps erupting, the area around it will be buried in ash and the area below will be a growing mound of cooling lava which, in time might become so high that it bumps into the bottom of the floating volcano.

Pure lava and pure volcanic ash are not fertile soil, but soil with lava granulate and with volcanic ash content can be extremely fertile. Many biodynamic farmers mulch their strawberry beds with lava granulate, because it keeps the berries from developing fungus diseases and is an excellent fertilizer at the same time.

In short, the more we know about your concept, the better guild members will be able to help you fit your non-reality into an environment that emulates reality, which will make your fantasy work believable and therefore accessible to your readers or fantasy RPG gamers.

[Chick]

.... I would suggest that the more information we get from you, the more we might be able to help you make the area(s) in which your floating volcano manifests itself believable..

[Shanrakk]

THANKS FOR THE HELP EVERYONE.

So. lets get this show on the road.. between us we can make this work, yo.

1) The volcano is stagnant- it doesn't move.

2) The volcano is active, but i've imagined it... calm? Lava lake in the center, constant magma activity but nothing explosive, most of the time. Its gonna be a sheild volcano I think, but I want it to have a large crater for activity.

*) The East continent shouldnt have a desert- just plains between the canyons (honestly, a forest would be best but I didnt know if that could feasibly exist. I'm a newb!) I also meant to have forests sporadically in the SW continent, so that works out pretty well lol

3) the volcano is there because its the birthplace of one of the races and because it's been difficult to get too (up until airship travel) it houses one of the dangerous magical artifacts from mortals (because, you know, you gotta have them dangerous magical artifacts on the planet)

4) I dont think I ever actually considered how tall it was, however, I'm assuming that the top of the volcano will be cold because of being so high in the atmosphere. I planned on it starting a good five or sixish kilometers into the atmosphere, with the volcano being about 3km tall. it's as wide as the entire island you see there- the volcanic activity extends along the floating part (think yellowstone). Im still scrapping for my actual map calculations, but the world is somewhat bigger than earth- just by pulling numbers out of my butt, im assuming the whole volcano island is going to be about 2/3 the size of Australia, honestly.

That sums it up, I think.

this definitely will help me be more prepared when I do a second map, thanks!

[Tulio Botinha]

I`m not a pro but:

Shield volcanoes normaly won't be that high on earth but you may look at the Olympus-Mons in mars or the Mauna Loa so it snit improbably just harder to this kind of volcano to go hight, and the amount of ashes on the air will depend of how the activity goes, if only a small amount goes up the area around it will be in a kinda of twilight, if a lot of ashes goes in to the air it can be has black has night, in any way, below the volcano it will be dark and with such a big size we can pretty much assume no plant life below it

[johnvanvliet]

the map in post #6 looks like a Whole planet
0 long in the center and -180 and +180 on the left and right

the northern and southern latitudes look to be a bit "stretched" so i am guessing it is more of a Mercator 60 north to 60 south projection
or
equal area rectangular 70 north to 70 south