Esfera

[Deoridhe]

I've been working on Esfera for a while, and I've been trying to make it naturally plausible even if not likely. I wanted something unique and interesting with a lot of detail and a ton of cultures. There is a magical system, but I'm trying for something quasi-naturalistic and more universal than the usual fireballs and rare mages model. The energy that fuels the magic is similar in quality to sunlight, as it can be metabolized by living things, however it moves through and is stored within dense material instead of moving through empty space. It does manage to radiate some heat, however, mitigating some of the other qualities of the planet to a convenient degree.

It's a large planet on the outside of the habitable zone of it's solar system, with a sister planet on the inside. The central star is a G0V star slightly more massive than our sun, which allows for a wider habitable zone and more planets - 12 in total. There's an asteroid field outside of the seventh planet's orbit before the gas giants begin, and a second larger asteroid field right outside of the twelveth planet.

The planet has a narrow set of rings with two ring shepherds inside of the ring and a much larger moon far outside. The rings are silicate and make the winters harsher on the surface along the line of their shadow even with the additional warmth from the planet's additional power source that enables life to survive even closer to the poles. In addition, the light from the rings at night and it's use as a navigational tool can't be over-stated.

My first post about Esfera focused more on the plate tectonics and I ended up learning some aspects of GPlates (thank you to the Astrographer's old posts for showing me the way) in order to thread back form the initials sketches I made when I was young to a very rough Pangea-continent. It took a bunch of steps backwards (and several tries), but I was able to find a series of movements that I thought were decent enough. I'm showing snapshots below from the proto-continent to the current day, though I got these by working the opposite direction. My one wish was to create a large island chain/grouping toward the middle of the map. I ended up also adding an island arch in the upper right corner and a second set of fractured islands in the upper left.

The names I used for the continents is part of a Conlang I made in college which was rich in vowels and apostrophes. The apostrophes are mostly gone now, but the vowels remain. Looevate, Doundaade, Sooenou, and Zingr are the oldest continents, and Srinthea began as an unlikely island cluster which I remade as an island chain. All of the islands are new, and I tried to work them along different plate boundaries and in line with continental movement and ripping I saw on earth. I've put in a few hotspots in what I think are likely areas; but I might change those as time goes on, or even add one or two island chains like Hawai'i. Their footprints are small enough that I feel comfortable moving on to the next step without filling in those pieces.