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  1. Megalith

    Megalith Contributor Contributor

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    Fantasy World Map

    Discussion in 'Fantasy' started by Megalith, Jul 29, 2016.

    A few things about this map I'd like to say. This is a supercontinent like Pangaea. Unlike other supercontinents though, this one is held together by a whirlpool in the planet's mantle, allowing this supercontinent to warp and twist as three tectonic plates push into each other over hundreds of millions of years. This has created a mountain that's peak stands 49 miles above sea level! The tectonic plates odd but pattern-like movements have allowed hotspots to grow super volcanoes, the tallest standing at whopping 24 Miles above sea level. As you can imagine the scale of this map is HUGE. All of the lakes and rivers depicted should be considered super sized. If you were to zoom in to any location you'd probably find many small/normal sized lakes and rivers, These super lakes/rivers are filled with islands and are so large you can get lost in the lakes and sometimes end up in the ocean without realizing it. To give you sense of the size, from one side of the map to the other it is 24,721 miles. That's almost the entire circumference of the Earth. This planet is a total 2.3 times larger than Earth and this continent as depicted here is 98% of the planet's landmass.

    This fantasy world is based in another universe and has weaker gravity, so even though the planet is much larger it's gravity is only slightly stronger than Earth's. Over distance gravity's force over objects decreases much faster, allowing for the towering mountain tops that would normally be crushed under their own weight.

    This is a fairly detailed map about the geology/ecology of the world. I do need more color to be even more specific about the biomes around the world. I'm missing some of the polar caps. You can't see polar north on this map, but it's close enough to freeze the top center-right of the map. The only thing I'm missing on the legend is the equator as indicated by a black dotted line almost two-thirds up from the bottom of the map. I'm sorry the air currents don't have arrows, I was wondering if I needed to put them in or not, but I in retrospect I should have. I will probably update the the air current arrows and the ice caps later on today. The main purpose of this map is to help establish my setting. In that respect this might be the wrong place for this thread. If anyone has some questions, advice, tips, or in anything particular you notice from the map, please leave a comment.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
    ***The T. in the legend stands for Temperate***
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2016
  2. Gadock

    Gadock Active Member

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    So since your map is 24k wide, most of the planet consists of water? Because the equator on earth is about 24k long. And since your planet is a lot bigger there's a LOT of water.

    Are some of the tectonic plates rotating? Is that possible?

    Where do the massive lakes come from? Do the rivers flow up or down to/from the lake? And if the flow towards the sea, mostly the lakes exists due to rain. You'll need a lot of rain then, to maintain those lakes. Wells will not be strong enough I think.

    Shouldn't the massive mountain have frost atleast on the tops?

    How can there be hot air flowing towards places but no cold air leaving? Some places there isn't any air leaving at all.

    That's all for now :p
     
  3. Megalith

    Megalith Contributor Contributor

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    They float loosely on top the planet's mantle so it should be possible. Rather than fully rotating, they are swishing in one direction for a while before changing directions, over millions of years of course. And you just made me realize that I got some figures wrong. I knew 7.4 times larger than Earth seemed wrong, but now I know why my figure was off. So after recalculating the full size of the planet is 2.4 times larger than Earth, with a circumference of 59,235 miles long.

    All of the rivers leading to the sea are flowing away from the lakes. all the rivers near mountains are flowing into the lakes.

    They should, as of right now the mountains are not colored, but I will get to that when I go back and make this map look more realistic.

    Same temperature air currents can flow past each other as long as they are traveling in opposite directions, like what often happens near the equator. This doesn't' depict every single air current, just the largest and most common ones. Thanks for pointing these things out, cause I might be wrong, I'm no expert. I'm just borrowing some basic understandings to create something that's over my head.
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2016
  4. Megalith

    Megalith Contributor Contributor

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    This is a very wet planet. A lot of the biomes consists of temperate rain forest and tropical rain forest. Would this really make wells impractical? Also once the lakes have reached that size it would take hundred of years to empty out, even if all the rain stopped for years.
     
  5. IlaridaArch

    IlaridaArch Active Member

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    Well I do fantasy maps as my part-time job, and I would advise to study more on rivers. For example, the island on the left (lake in the middle and river outlet to south) wouldn't work like that. By all reasons, the realistic outlet would be the point towards east. At south, all your mountain icons indicate they curve up and join, giving the expression that the elevation is still decently high between them. There are couple of more oddities with rivers too (upper left part; river starts from a mountain like it should be and then goes through another mountain range into the sea?)

    Mountain ranges don't join together to form a T-shape. The way plate tectonics work make it impossible. Unless you simply explain they work in different way in your universe, of course. I don't see how rotating and swishing slowly over millions of years would make a change.

    For your deserts, study Gobi Desert over Asia and how it affects nearby areas.
     
  6. Megalith

    Megalith Contributor Contributor

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    Ah, that's a good eye. Guess that makes sense, as you do this for a job. I'm actually planning on adding a giant and complex canyon that is snug up against the lake on the east side and has tons of tiny rivers flowing out of it. all of them too small to see on this map's scale.

    EDIT TO ADD:
    Maybe if I'm clearer on elevations, some of the other rivers will make more sense.

    Thanks so much for the information, I need to go back over my map to make sure the mountains are expressed properly, to give a reasonable estimation of the elevation.(Maybe make a separate topographical map, but that sounds like a pain.) There is only one place the river goes through a mountain range and I plan on putting a huge waterfall there, way in the north, left side.

    From what I heard, it just seems like it is really rare. But it does happen. Just look at this picture.

    [​IMG]

    I believe part of the mountain range is inactive, but I'm still confused as to why a three plate collision is impossible. Maybe you can elaborate on this?

    Thanks again for the info. I've been looking a lot into super continents to figure out how to lay out my map biomes. It's suspected that the centers of the super continents where extremely dry. They were too far from the oceans to get any rainfall. It would be good to know what consequences these huge deserts will have on the surrounding areas.
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2016
    froboy69 likes this.
  7. froboy69

    froboy69 Member

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    Colombia is unique like that. Hell because the equator touches it, a lot of exotic things grow there and has influenced resources too.
     

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