Map an Aquatic Civilization

[moutarde]

We have loads and loads of maps here on the cartographer's guild, and almost none of them feature any sort of sub-ocean terrain! My proposal is to map an aquatic civilization that lives exclusively on an ocean floor - so rather than mountains and rivers, we would be mapping things like mid-ocean ridges and trenches

[mearrin69]

That sounds pretty cool. You don't see much done with this at all. There was one really nice shipwreck map (maybe Torstan?) and I've seen one of Mike Schley's FR maps that noted some undersea features. Can't think of much else.
M

[Ryan K]

Here's an idea: Instead of roads and rivers and the like which would predetermine trade routes, perhaps aquatic civilisations have a way of mapping ocean currents to make transportation easier?

[Sergei Zybin]

Cool idea! I even considering my perticepation : )

[anstett]

One note that I surprised my players with was that any aquatic race always thinks in three dimensions. I treated it more like space combat for ease of rules.

Any constructions need to take this into account. Entrances on potentially all 6 sides of a "room"

BOB

[Ryan K]

Well.... shouldn't it be treated more like submarine warfare? Space combat is entirely different to every other form altogether.

[anstett]

Ryan, I treated it as space combat because it was individuals doing battle so they could move in a sphere of directions very easily. When I think of submarine warfare I tend to think of much slower combatants. But that is a good comparison.

BOB

[Ryan K]

I see your point, but unless there is some treknological reason for it not being so, underwater combat is highly restricted by hydrodynamics, water-pressure, crush-depths, cavitation et cetera and of course, gravity. Depending on bouyancy or water displacement, things still tend to want to go down.

Space combat is unincumbered by any aerodynamic considerations (unless it's one of them fancy conventional take-off SSTO space combat vessels), and is similarly free for combatants to engage each other at any vector, from any direction and at rib-crushing speeds. Unless there is a gravity well nearby, if you send something in a particular direction, it's going to keep going in that direction.

The differences in concept between submarine and space combat are as wide and varied as comparing tank warfare to carrier warfare. Space combat is it's own unique beast.

[cypruss11]

Maybe they are much more dense than water and for that reason cannot swim upwards just as us on land cannot swim through air.
A simpler way to do it i would think.

[Aegeri]

Torstan did a map like this for a 3rd party developer (Sunken Empires?). Unfortunately the supplement wasn't filled with maps like this like I was hoping for, which was a bit of a shame so I would love more maps like this. Never know when you might want something like this.