Fantasy Flora

[TaylorH]

Not sure if this is the correct place, but I couldn't find a general world building section on CG.

I'm studying ecology and I'm particularly interested in plant adaptions, evolution and aesthetics. Botany in general. I know this is more of a forum for map design, but I wonder if any here have endeavored to dream up their own fantasy flora (and associated fauna)? I'd love to hear anything you've got.

And perhaps we could talk about fantasy geography/natural history/ecology in general?

[Gamerprinter]

I always include some kind of plant life in my maps, though I can honestly say, I primarily recreate real world plants, rather than fantastical plants, aside from giant trees (which still fall under realistic plants). Here's a link to a hand-drawn swamp map which consist of 20+ hand-drawn plants, including trunks only of cypress trees showing cypress knees. I thought I did a good job of drawing the plants I was attempting to draw.

I'd look at Map Objects board on this forum for more examples of plants and other things. Because plants only comprise a small amount of the total posted map objects, you'll have to search to find them.

I otherwise can't help you, I am no botanist, and only slightly knowledgeable on the subject.

[Larb]

I've got some plants I've made up, and several species of mushrooms (because mycology is a thing of mine) but they mainly exist to fit the plot - I've not properly considered how they fit into the ecosystem. And most of my plants are real world ones anyway. I've been meaning to do proper drawings of them all too. Specifically I wanted to do a mushroom field guide for my world but it is actually quite a bit of work!

[J.Edward]

Hey Taylor. Somewhere I have a bunch of sketches of alien trees that I was working on a few years ago. I tend toward trees I guess.
I have a story line I've been working on for several years that centers around alien plant life. For that I have developed a large number of strange plants.
In general I think plants don't get enough development in fiction. It's usually just a sidenote about them as they relate to a character, or even just a loose name/description to make an environment 'feel' different.

[Gamerprinter]

The problem for me, as that except to botanists, unless you create man-eating plants, incorporate something carnivorace or something really alien looking, plants look like plants, and any typical alien plant to a non-botanist looks like a real world example. In other words, unless its obvious how is a non-botanist going to realize a given plant is real or fictional?

[madcowchef]

I'd consider checking out some scifi discussions on plants, they tend to look at questions like why are plants on earth green, and adaptation to climates more so than fantasy writing typically does. That said I can't point you to any specific material sorry.

[Larb]

I have actually read up on that but a lot of it seems to concern different types of seasons, different types of atmospheres, and different types of star spectral classes. And while I find that REALLY interesting and would like to play with it at some point, I don't feel I can without a LOT more research if I want to make it more authentic.

My main personal fantasy world is an earth-like planet with four seasons, earth-like axial tilt and so on. It is just easier and also what I am familiar with and what sort of natural environment I find enchanting in real life. I find things like bluebell woods magical places to be in, for example. So that is what I wanna make stories about mostly. Not stunted dark blue vines on a planet with a strange looking sky. =P

[Jaxilon]

I don't make a point of it but if it's needed I certainly don't mind. I did on the Redthorn map I did for Bogie. It's not much but you did say anything we had.

See bottom right corner of map,

[TaylorH]

Thanks for the responses. Interesting, indeed. It does make sense that Sci-fi would have a much more thorough method of explaining 'alien' plant life, but fantasy fiction should definitely focus on it more. This is all well-known stuff, but I feel like Tolkien's works are the epitome of good nature writing. He was obviously very fond of plants and they take a large role in his works, in a descriptive and functional manner. I just love reading about the various plants like Asëa aranion, Simbelmynë, the lineage of the White Tree and all. I think the chapter Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit is Tolkien at his finest in terms of plant descriptions.

Though I haven't made too many maps here, I'm thinking of making an in-depth orthographic/perspective map which plots the various areas of vegetation in Ulthui's Ertharu (Sarithus' map I helped work on) forest such as high forest, perhaps some heavily managed areas with coppicing, areas of grazed wood pasture (although these are obviously real life traditional practices), and so forth.

Thanks for all your links, will have a look at them when I get the chance.

Edit: On a slightly related note, even though I don't play computer/video games anymore, I'm just fascinated by representations of other worlds. Take World of Warcraft for example, and all its different habitats, plants and animal life. Sometimes I just sit and look at the world map for that game. It's basically a second home (a home I lived in for 7 years... )

[Gamerprinter]

I've only done a few orthographic(ish) maps, though one is my very first Monthly Challenge win back in November 2007, the goal of creating Old West map objects and a map showing those objects. Well for whatever reason, the map and objects have been lost over the various site upgrades. At the time I'd created about 50 hand-drawn map objects, including mesa mountain pieces one could use to organically construct multiple mountain configurations. I'll be selling those old map objects soon with some new added content, however. Here's that long lost map challenge win: Superstition Valley (analog Arizona).

Note the cacti, yucca plants, tufts of grass and scrubland, all hand-drawn and realitively accurate representations of those plants. Mostly arid tabletop land.

GP