The world of Discordia

[darquill]

Hi Folks!

So, this will be my very first attempt at creating a world map (and world building in general).
I'm following a couple of books on world building, specifically the sections regarding creating an earth-like (fantasy) world that is realistic.

So the first step is to create a basic sketch. For this I didn't follow any particular rule, only my immagination and some randomness when drawing the lines. I will of course adapt the world as I make progress.
What I want is a world with two continents, one bigger than the other. The planet is slightly bigger than earth, and I want the continents to be fairly big, although not excessively.

If you want to have a look at the details of the solar system, they are here (still very WIP):
https://www.worldanvil.com/w/discord...system-article

Sooo.. here's the wonderful sketch I originally drew it in landscape, but I think it looks better in portrait instead. What do you think?

discordia-sketch-01.jpg

[Kellerica]

Oooh, interested to see where you go with this. I've loved your dungeon works so far, it will be cool to watch how you'd do this kinda map. Will be keeping a close eye on this

[MistyBeee]

Vertical is not the usual choice for a world map : do you already have an idea of the scale of those continents ?
Building worlds is something interesting for sure, and rises a ton of fascinating questions : what kind of countries, what kind of populations or civilizations depending on the geography, what kind of relationships between the different countries and their ability to communicate easily by roads, sea, or air maybe... What if you put a mountain here, a river there... I envy you, Diego, and will follow this thread with pleasure too

[darquill]

Vertical is not the usual choice for a world map : do you already have an idea of the scale of those continents ?

Yes I agree, and no I don't yet, but they probably cover more than half the globe. I might move them though, to occupy more space horizontally. I'm also thinking of making the smaller one bigger.

Also I know that given the large size of the contintents and the fact that I want them full of natural barriers (ie: mountains, canyons, etc..) for various lore reasons, this will have an impact on the development of nations, which I haven't decided yet, and technology, which I have in part, since I want airships to be invented and used for trade (airships article here: https://www.worldanvil.com/w/discord...rships-article)

Thanks =)

[darquill]

Small update.

While tinkering with tectonic plates and reading stuff, I realized the first sketch of the world had a continent too big if I had to keep it as drawn, so I decided to rework the map.
Here's the result. It's still a draft, with some notes on the size of the continents and a couple of arrows to denote where the plates holding the continents are going.

map.jpg

Then I very roughly outlined where I think the tectonic plates could sit:

map-plates.jpg

If anybody could tell me if the contintents positioning and the rough outline of the plates make sense it would be greatly appreciated. It's the first time I'm trying to do this and I want to avoid horrible mistakes

Thanks!

[Jean-Abdel]

Your continents look good but where are the remainder of the two continents cut in half at the top and bottom? If that's a map of your whole world no line should pass by the poles which actually are the hole top and bottom sides of your map. Any line ending at the right should continue at the left.
For plate tectonics: any rough shape is ok for a plate, don't necessarily need to be convex but not too weird tho. You need to choose what boundaries will be divergent and tweak them a bit so they're right in the middle of the two continents on each side (if there's no continent, no problem). Avoid triple fault junction but triple ridge are very usual. Ridge don't spread at the same rate everywhere so plates can rotate but they spread at the same rate on both side.

[darquill]

Your continents look good but where are the remainder of the two continents cut in half at the top and bottom? If that's a map of your whole world no line should pass by the poles which actually are the hole top and bottom sides of your map. Any line ending at the right should continue at the left.

They aren't actually cut in half, it's just a rough sketch and I didn't have enough space . They are supposed to be small islands right beside the poles (see here https://www.maptoglobe.com/S19bY5Oa7). I wasn't really sure what to do with the poles, and wanted to avoid just re-doing Earth's Antarctica.

For plate tectonics: any rough shape is ok for a plate, don't necessarily need to be convex but not too weird tho. You need to choose what boundaries will be divergent and tweak them a bit so they're right in the middle of the two continents on each side (if there's no continent, no problem). Avoid triple fault junction but triple ridge are very usual. Ridge don't spread at the same rate everywhere so plates can rotate but they spread at the same rate on both side.

Yeah I know I have to decide on the plate movements, that would have been my next step. There are already hints in the first map, where you can see the arrows denoting the main movements of the continents.