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Thread: the trouble with gravity

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    Guild Novice Sabre Of Light's Avatar
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    Post the trouble with gravity

    Hello
    I have a problem I would really appreciate help with
    I've been thinking about a map for one of my Earthdawn campaigns and it's a tough one :/
    You see, a very mountainous continent fell down from the sky - it did not shatter as such, but there should be cracks. Obviously, this happened a long time ago, but it has an impact on how the rivers would flow and the forests would grow and so on ad infinitum. The bottom of the continent was pointed, so I've decided to represent the damage done by a crater, and, obviously, some of the damege would reflect on the shores as well.
    I've done my personal best in trying to recreate the way the cracks would go on a very simple map and I feel that I'm not objective anymore. Would you kind people tell me if it looks all right or should I add anything more...
    Thank you in advance
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    well they kind of look like rivers..... maybe if you made the cracks wider and created more of an archipelago look it might look like devestated land

    if it happened a long time ago the cracks might have been filled in...... except for the cities,dungeons, and catacombs which were buried

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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    I think you're headed in the right direction...crater, cracks, uplifted land. Depending on the speed of said collision I would think that the debris field might go farther out and the crater might be larger...it looks more an asteroid hit the land rather than a big continent. Something that large might well destroy the planet but, like I said, if it was a rather slow collision then maybe not. If the continent was like, levitated then moved and set back down somewhere else then the oceans would rush in to fill the hole and then putting it back down somewhere might not really disturb the land that much at all, except river flows. In this case you could ignore the river police Give us a bit more of your thinking but I think you're headed in the right way overall.
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    Guild Novice Sabre Of Light's Avatar
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    First of all, thank you for replying

    Quote Originally Posted by lobsternooberg View Post
    well they kind of look like rivers..... maybe if you made the cracks wider...
    Ah, you see now, that's not how the cracks are supposed to look at all - this is just an overview of how they should run

    Quote Originally Posted by Ascension View Post
    ...Give us a bit more of your thinking...
    Ay ay - I've just read what I've written below and I believe this may prove tedious

    Well, I will proceed then. I didn't want to be overly boring, so I've tried to keep things simple (if anyone's interested in details, I will be more than happy to provide them on request )
    The continent was flying (or should I say, suspended in the air) thanks to the presence of the Gate to the Elemental Plane of Air; thanks to the somewhat brutal closure of the Gate, it was flying no longer
    Now, the Gate was closed with help of an Earth elemental, which is important, because this help was responsible for creating most mountains on the continent.
    Why am I explaining all of the above? Because the Elemental fell with the continent and in fact broke its fall a little bit
    The Gate was in the air under the continent and it was the magical qualities of the air around it that was making it fly. The Earth Elemental was under the continent when he closed the gate and it managed to change form when falling to the one of gravel (the smallest one he could do).

    I do sincerely apologise for boring you stiff with that and I hope I haven't put you off asking for people's thinking processes
    ...and let me know if the cracks look more realistic now )
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    Community Leader Facebook Connected Ascension's Avatar
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    If you've got some glass laying around, take a hammer and hit the middle of it. It will sort of spider web out from the spot where you hit it. Tempered glass (modern doors and windows) will shatter the whole thing into a million random pieces but laminated glass (car windshield) or sheet glass (shelves) will show the effect. I own a glass shop so I have a bunch of glass laying around, but I couldn't get a good pic with the bowling ball. Here's a pic of a joke golf ball crashing into a windshield that shows the effect. Granted that earth is softer so the cracks would be less straight, more forking like lightning. Add the crater ring back in and yer good to go. Rainfall will fill those cracks and eventually some will turn into rivers, some will be short-lived lakes, etc...it all depends on time from that point on. After a few thousand years it might look pretty normal.
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    Last edited by Ascension; 05-13-2009 at 07:47 PM.
    If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
    -J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)


    My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps

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    Community Leader Guild Sponsor Gidde's Avatar
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    Seems like in addition to the cracks you'd get some slumping around the edges. This project gives me an urge to take some mud, dry it, then drop it and see what happens.

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    Have any plaster around? (Everyone should invest in a bag of sheetrock 90 or similar product every other year,...)

    Mix some up, use about 20% more water than required and shape it roughly as you think your pre-crash land would be. Let it cure for a few days, then crash it. Record results.

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    Since the fallen continent and the planet are of approx. equal in physical properties, I predict that the smaller one would at least be cracked in half. This can be observed by smashing rocks together. It kinda depends what kind of ground you have on the collision spot.. if there were many caves and such, the damage might be minimal because the caves would collapse softening the impact.

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    Thank you for the picture Ascension, that was very helpful

    Quote Originally Posted by Ascension View Post
    Granted that earth is softer so the cracks would be less straight, more forking like lightning. Add the crater ring back in and yer good to go. Rainfall will fill those cracks and eventually some will turn into rivers, some will be short-lived lakes, etc...it all depends on time from that point on. After a few thousand years it might look pretty normal.
    I agree - the earth's structure is less rigid than the glass', so I thought that the middle shattered completely and the rocks sunk to the bottom of the ocean
    You are very right in that I should add more horizontal cracks to the vertical ones.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ascension View Post
    After a few thousand years it might look pretty normal.
    Well, the continent fell from the sky about 600-700 years ago, so I'm just trying to define the todays shape basically

    ...and I hope it looks better now and, embarassed that I am with the low quality of my work so far, I will keep bothering you all with my problems
    (I foresee a problem with water... )
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    Guild Expert Ramah's Avatar
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    How about if you use some of that texture you've used for cliffs at the coast and places it along some of the cracks? This could make it lool like some of the land dropped or raised with the impact. Also, as was said earlier, make some of the cracks wider maybe.

    Those horizontal cracks certainly help by the way.
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