Realistic Geography

[RoninFrosty]

I'd like the geography in my world to follow real world patterns, but I'm not really even 100% on the rules on Earth, lol. Does anyone have any resources I could use to this end?

[Midgardsormr]

I find a good place to start to be Expeditious Retreat Press' free A Magical Society: Guide to Mapping

[Kestenvarn]

I find a good place to start to be Expeditious Retreat Press' free A Magical Society: Guide to Mapping

This was really helpful, thanks.

[Redrobes]

I'd like the geography in my world to follow real world patterns, but I'm not really even 100% on the rules on Earth, lol. Does anyone have any resources I could use to this end?

I'm not sure anyone fully understands the rules. There are some pretty nifty climate modeling bits of software running on big machines and they cant seem to predict whats going on.

Theres so many things to describe. We have talked about rivers a lot and how they are made and where they flow etc and theres no easy way to predict or describe that other than in simple terms like water flows downhill. Part of the issues are that much of the world is in balance where a number of factors adjust something which have knock on effects. Many political problems are caused from people desiring an outcome and making changes which they think will cause that outcome only to find that something unrelated and usually pretty catastrophic occurs too.

So are we talking about global stuff, regional terrain, local effects or large scale stuff ? Rock, rivers or vegetation ?

[Sigurd]

Lots of affects to consider and not all of them are documented in any map.


Wind, climate, rainfall, seismic activity, pollution all impact land in ways not shown on most fantasy maps - and we haven't even touched on Magic. With many elements not explained you have a larger capacity to make things the way you want and call it 'realistic' - some unseen force makes it so.


You can make broad gestures - river flow always going down is a good one.

Old areas typically have more erosion.
Mountains next to trenches or canyons will probably be steep and young.
Evergreens in the north, palms in the south.
Seas are salty and deep. Rivers and lakes not so much.
Islands form in chains like the top of a ridge.
Coasts have a wild and random curve to them. They're best generated rather than drawn IMHO.

Personally, I find a great deal of 'realism' is a sense best satisfied by a random element. I question my decisions if I draw a coastline but I feel much more confident with a generated one that I 'discover'. I think its just an unnatural act to make land.

Sigurd

[Valarian]

Evergreens in the north, palms in the south.

Unless you're in the southern hemisphere, in which case it's the other way around

Islands form in chains like the top of a ridge.

Volcanic islands do. You can have island clusters caused by sea level rising and flooding low lying areas (e.g. UK, Ireland, Isle of Wight).

[Korba]

I'm in the process of writing a climate guide FAQ at the moment but i'm not that far along. Waldronate's post is a great summary though.

One thing i would like to add is read about Hadley Cells. They define the genral bands of climate around the globe influncing the positions of grassland/forest/tundra/desert and tropical rainforest (then influnced by mountains and ocean patterns of course.

Korba

[Midgardsormr]

A bit off topic, but I met a fellow at art school recently who was a geologist until a few months ago. I keep trying to goad him into joining this community to share his science with us.

[ravells]

I question my decisions if I draw a coastline but I feel much more confident with a generated one that I 'discover'. I think its just an unnatural act to make land.

Sigurd

Tell that to Slartibartfast!!

[Gidde]

I feel the same way as Sigurd's quote above.

Case in point: I spent last weekend (and much of monday evening) devising a world from the tectonic plates up, complete with hotspots. The end product ended up looking like I had generated it with FT or PlanetGen ... only not as pretty. I think I'll just stick with a generated map for landmasses and make the terrain/climate as realistic as possible.

I'm glad we have actual geologists around to catch us when we blatantly ignore the way geology works, though