Page 3 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast
Results 21 to 30 of 34

Thread: Some Help

  1. #21
    Guild Apprentice crackerjake's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Lafayette, IN
    Posts
    45

    Default

    You know what? Screw it, I'm just going to have the underground river emerge in the forest and go into the sea. I don't see any problems with it, and it's not as if the river can't have another one branch off from it to a pond or something.
    It works, nothing says it won't work, and it's flexible. I like it.

    Thanks for the help, guys!
    I'll be sure to drop by more often as I work on more maps for future sessions and campaigns!

  2. #22
    Professional Artist Nomadic's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    The great northwest
    Posts
    355

    Post

    Quote Originally Posted by crackerjake
    Hmm, I've just thought up of something else. How big does a spring have to be before it turns into a pond? I was thinking about how ridiculous it would be for a large river to have its source at a small spring.
    It's not ridiculous at all. Most headwaters are very small. They get bigger as the river flows along the drainage basin and picks up more water. The headwaters of the mississippi (a river that in some places is over 5 miles wide) are small enough that you can walk across.

    Last edited by Nomadic; 01-26-2009 at 10:17 PM.

  3. #23
    Guild Apprentice crackerjake's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Lafayette, IN
    Posts
    45

    Default

    Sorry to bug you guys again, but I've another question, this one concerning marshes and swamps:

    1) Could a swamp/mere/marsh be located on or close to a shore? Not like the Everglades, but closer.

    One of my friends REALLY likes swamps, and after a bit of thought, I had some ideas for a couple of good plot hooks. Trolls and trouble go hand in hand, ya know?

  4. #24
    Professional Artist Nomadic's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    The great northwest
    Posts
    355

    Post

    Quote Originally Posted by crackerjake View Post
    Sorry to bug you guys again, but I've another question, this one concerning marshes and swamps:

    1) Could a swamp/mere/marsh be located on or close to a shore? Not like the Everglades, but closer.

    One of my friends REALLY likes swamps, and after a bit of thought, I had some ideas for a couple of good plot hooks. Trolls and trouble go hand in hand, ya know?
    I don't see why not, the only requirement for something to be a swamp is for there to be oversaturated soil and standing pools of water. If you had a calm enough area (a strong ocean would probably destroy a shoreline swamp) such as a sheltered bay I could see it having a swampy shore.

    Edit: Yep they do, they are called salt marshes. They are grasses and algaes though since most plants can't handle brackish water. Though if you had a river draining into the salt marsh you could have a full on swamp with trees a bit farther inland. Of course if this is on the shore of a lake then sure you could have a swamp right up to the lake edge.
    Last edited by Nomadic; 01-30-2009 at 02:33 AM.

  5. #25
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2008
    Location
    Ft. Wayne, IN
    Posts
    9,530

    Default

    The bayou's of Lousiana go right up to the gulf coast don't they? They're basically swamps...
    My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...

    Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.



  6. #26
    Guild Artisan Facebook Connected
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Atlanta, Georgia, United States
    Posts
    928

    Post

    What they said. The answer is yes.

    My wife and I honeymooned on an island off South Carolina. The sheltered side of the island (toward the mainland, away from the ocean) was mostly salt and tidal marsh. The inland of the island was similarly swampy (though in the island interior it was freshwater). I would suspect that on the mainland, where the land is sheltered by these barrier island we would see similar salt and tidal marshes with freshwater swamps spreading out from there.
    I think, therefore I am a nerd.
    Cogito, ergo sum nerdem.

    Check out my blog: "The Undiscovered Author"
    It's the story of a writer... follow me in my simple quest to get published, and share your own writing stories, adventures and writerly tips.

    Pimping my worldmap here. Still WIP... long way to go, but I'm pretty proud of what I've done so far...

  7. #27
    Guild Apprentice crackerjake's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Lafayette, IN
    Posts
    45

    Default

    Ah, this is good news. Now, for question #2:

    What kind of features would accompany a salty or tidal marsh?

    When I say features, I mean what kinds of plants, the surrounding geography required, etc.


    I know it seems like I'm being lazy and using you guys instead of Google or Wikipedia, but information seems to be a bit lacking for some like me who has very little geographical logic :p

  8. #28
    Professional Artist Nomadic's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    The great northwest
    Posts
    355

    Post

    Quote Originally Posted by crackerjake
    I know it seems like I'm being lazy and using you guys instead of Google or Wikipedia, but information seems to be a bit lacking for some like me who has very little geographical logic :p
    Actually the wiki page for salt marsh will tell you what you need to know.

    Quote Originally Posted by The almighty Wiki
    Plant species diversity is relatively low, since the flora must be tolerant of salt, complete or partial submersion, and anoxic mud substrate. The most common salt marsh plants are glassworts (Salicornia spp.) and the cordnyiyg grasses (Spartina spp.), which have worldwide distribution. They are often the first plants to take hold in a mudflat and begin its ecological succession into a salt marsh. Their shoots lift the main flow of the tide above the mud surface while their roots spread into the substrate and stabilize the sticky mud and carry oxygen into it so that other plants can establish themselves as well. Plants such as sea lavenders (Limonium spp.), plantains (Plantago spp.), and varied sedges and rushes grow once the mud has been vegetated by the pioneer species.

    The flora of a salt marsh is differentiated into levels according to the plants' individual tolerance of salinity and water table levels. Vegetation found at the water must be able to survive high salt concentrations, periodical submersion, and a certain amount of water movement, while plants further inland in the marsh can sometimes experience dry, low-nutrient conditions.

    Salt marshes are quite photosynthetically active and are extremely productive habitats. They serve as depositories for a large amount of organic matter and are full of decomposition, which feeds a broad food chain of organisms from bacteria to mammals. Many of the halophytic plants such as cordgrass are not grazed at all by higher animals but die off and decompose to become food for micro-organisms, which in turn become food for fish and birds.
    For your enjoyment here are pictures of glassworts and cordnyiyg grasses. From the looks of things I would say that salt marshes are pretty open things with tall grasses and lichens. If a river drains into the area, thus providing fresh water, further inland you could have a full blown swamp with trees.

  9. #29
    Guild Artisan Facebook Connected
    Join Date
    May 2008
    Location
    Atlanta, Georgia, United States
    Posts
    928

    Post

    Quote Originally Posted by Nomadic View Post
    Actually the wiki page for salt marsh will tell you what you need to know.



    For your enjoyment here are pictures of glassworts and cordnyiyg grasses. From the looks of things I would say that salt marshes are pretty open things with tall grasses and lichens. If a river drains into the area, thus providing fresh water, further inland you could have a full blown swamp with trees.

    Yeah, that's pretty much what the salt marshes we saw on our honeymoon were made of. They had a pretty cool kayak tour we took where we kayaked through the salt marsh and then out into the sound between the island and the mainland, and the guide gave us some background on the ecology of the area.
    I think, therefore I am a nerd.
    Cogito, ergo sum nerdem.

    Check out my blog: "The Undiscovered Author"
    It's the story of a writer... follow me in my simple quest to get published, and share your own writing stories, adventures and writerly tips.

    Pimping my worldmap here. Still WIP... long way to go, but I'm pretty proud of what I've done so far...

  10. #30

    Post

    The Ria Formosa, near my University, should be a good example of the kind of salt marsh you're looking for.

    The lagoon formed on a gently sloping coast. The interaction of the sea's sediment drift coming from rivers to the west and the detritus provided by the local watersheds created the barrier islands more or less where the coast's slope becomes steeper. From there on, the relatively sheltered lagoon environment allowed the deposition of finer sediment which led to the colonization described above.
    I guess the main point here is the existence of a current strong enough along the coast to allow the build up of the necessary barrier islands. The eastern coast of the US has the Gulf Stream and the coast of Portugal has the eponymous current a branch of which supplies water to the Mediterranean.

    Other than this I can't think of more I should say... I hope it helps
    "Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities, truth isn't."
    -- Samuel Langhorne Clemens a.k.a. Mark Twain. (1897) Following the Equator.

Page 3 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •