Guys I need help

[jesterman]

Okay, I've been drawing maps for a while but I only just came across the cartographersguild and so I'm very new. I need some help. I'm trying to find information that will make my maps very realistic. I am currently drawing a landscape map of a large chunk of land on the planet Nord. Weather patterns, climates, habitats, human life and tectonic and geological functions are similar if not the same of that of earth. Does anyone have any advice on measuring distances, correctly assuming climates in an area, proportions, mountainous terrain (and how it could affect local climate), how far one can travel on foot, on horseback, and so on and so forth. Can anyone help me with that?

[Gator71]

I'm brand-spanking new too, but might be able to give you a hand with that. I've been able to use many different techniques for guesstimating climate and distances.

For example, in the novel that my main map represents, I needed a certain ship voyage to take eight months to allow a girl to be born in the "new world" upon landfall. Calculating the average speed of that kind of ship in medieval times, I was able to make a decent approximation of the distances across my continent.

I'm also fairly familiar with climates around Earth since I'm a huge geography buff, so based on the positioning of certain mountains or tectonic plates, I could give you some ideas as to how my mind works.

I'm not so sure I could be of much additional help without something to actually look at, but I'm here to help out a fellow "newbie!"

--Gator

[jesterman]

okay, for now what I need to know, based on wind direction, how mountains will affect the surrounding area. I've been told that one side, due to the mountains stopping clouds, that one side would be desert (farthest from wind direction) and one side would be forest or rainforest, but I need to know at what level the mountains would do it. First, is this correct? Second, I need to know at what distance and size the deserts/forests would be based on this idea.

Also, I need to know what a realistic mountain range would look like. I know they generally follow mountain ranges, but what kind of mountain passes and trails would also form, and what mistakes should I not do (for example, can you really get a ring of mountains in a tectonic plate following mountain range as they show in so many maps?)

[Charerg]

For example, in the novel that my main map represents, I needed a certain ship voyage to take eight months to allow a girl to be born in the "new world" upon landfall. Calculating the average speed of that kind of ship in medieval times, I was able to make a decent approximation of the distances across my continent.

Since we're talking realism, that's one heck of a long voyage (I hope the ship stopped for repairs and supplies somewhere, probably several times)! As an example, Columbus left the Canaries on the 6th of September, and reached the Bahamas on the 12th of October, taking about five weeks to cross the Atlantic (and as I recall, the crew were already anxious about the supply situation at that point). Traveling by sail is surprisingly fast, much faster than travel by land (as long as the winds are favourable, that is, but this is where the weather patterns and things like the trade winds and ocean currents play a huge role).

An eight month journey to a "new world" would be something like circling the globe, given that the journey across the Atlantic during the age of sail usually took only weeks (or maybe a few months at max with bad luck regarding the wind). Unless the journey involved long stops or long periods of calm and/or sailing against the wind.

[jesterman]

This is all really helping me. Thank you very much. I was able to make a draft of my map that is realistic and versatile for it's purpose and very useful. The research suggestions helped. I do have one question.

My novel takes a setting in an area around the size of Australia. In this scenario, Nordins (humans pretty much) have taken up again residence on the planet for several generations, after a dark evil was destroyed, and they are being aided culturally and technologically by a race known as the Mithralls, a race more advanced than our own, which is speeding them through the Medeival Time period and providing them with knowledge to create settlements, cities, technologies, weapons and such. In this case,, if there was about two hundred thousand Nordins to start with, how many generations, with the help of Mithralls, would it take for the Nordins to cover this land mass with settlements, castles, and a few kingdoms (reaching a population of several million) and with a technology and culture similar to that of the romans (in other words, how long would it take to fill the land mass with cities and various castles, kingdoms and developments) given the size of the landmass, allowing also for many roads and trails throughout it.

[Alex Parker]

Okay, I've been drawing maps for a while but I only just came across the cartographersguild and so I'm very new. I need some help. I'm trying to find information that will make my maps very realistic. I am currently drawing a landscape map of a large chunk of land on the planet Nord. Weather patterns, climates, habitats, human life and tectonic and geological functions are similar if not the same of that of earth. Does anyone have any advice on measuring distances, correctly assuming climates in an area, proportions, mountainous terrain (and how it could affect local climate), how far one can travel on foot, on horseback, and so on and so forth. Can anyone help me with that?

Hey, Jesterman,

I find with measuring distances, it's best to compare a region you are designing with an existing region in the world. Example, I made my continent roughly the size of Greenland which is an area just over 2 million square kilometres, and from that, I was able to pinpoint precise distances between the places on my map. A healthy adult with minimal carry weight can comfortably walk 50km in a day, so that gives you an idea of how far apart places are. A horse-mounted person could walk about 80-100km in a day. If weather conditions are bad (e.g. rainstorm/heavy snow), you can assume that the person/animal walking will be severely reduced depending on the power and duration of the weather in question.

When working out climates, again compare the region you are designing with existing regions in the world. It's good to do some research on a similar country or nation and determine what their climate is like, and create something similar. Bear in mind, regions along the equatorial line of your world will be much hotter than regions to the far north. Again, if you compare your region to existing mountainous countries such as Afghanistan, Nepal, Chile, and Bhutan, you could get an idea of how the climate would behave. The internet is very much your friend in all aspects of world-making.

Mountains can also be snow-capped dependant on location in the world, if they are higher than 10-15,000 feet, they will typically have a snow-line that will last all year. The higher the mountain, the colder the climate, and with regards to traversing mountains, you could make a pass-through (typically on a lower elevation) whereby you can pass through a range, or you could have a subterranean passage, or even an elevator/lift over the mountains if the theme is right with your world's timeline.

Hope this helps!

Alex

[waldronate]

I recommend spending an hour or two reading up on "physical geography" (quoted to suggest that this is a good term to punch into your favorite internet search engine: the first three returned by the Googlybeast, for instance, might be very helpful). Although it might be possible to interpret what I'm about to say as being condescending, it's not intended that way: I'm very much of the idea that if you give a man a fish, you'll feed him for a day, but if you teach a man to fish, you'll give him a hobby to spend his free time and money on forever.

Climates (related to "biomes") are very much a function of local geography as well as planetary parameters. As you suggested, mountains can interact with wind patterns to affect rainfall (search for "orographic rainfall" and "rain shadow"). Also, there is a lovely correspondence on Earth between temperature as the latitude or altitude increases (search for "temperature latitude altitude" and especially look at the images). Average annual temperature and rainfall at a place provide a good general guide to the biome at that place (see "Whittaker Biome" for the simple version and "Koppen climate" for a somewhat more complex one).

As far as travel rates for various modes, that depends hugely on many factors, including technology and settlement (travel across a heavily forested area on foot is likely faster than travel by car when there are no roads, while the opposite is true with well-maintained roads).

[jesterman]

I did a lot of research on the topics you gave me (all were extremely helpful) and was able to develop a draft for my map that I believe follows the laws of the various physical geographical subjects I researched and also develop a system of measuring the given distances. For my convenience I did it in miles and approximate the rules and proportions to that of North America and Australia, which are similar in climatology and geographical proportions, so if you need a comparison, go to them. Please tell me if this map (though the rivers and volcanoes are rather unproportionate, but that is for good reason) seems realistic or unrealistic in any way to help me improve it.

nord map edit.jpg

[Falconius]

8 months was certainly a long voyage but not unteneable, it would as you say be like circling the globe. I found this book about Bluenose shipping on the street here and the clipper ships often made journeys that ranged about that long. Here's a passage about The Star of the East (built 1853): "Under the command of Captain Christian, she went out to port Melbourne [from Liverpool] in 76 days. From the Australian port she went to Shanghai via Sydney, N.S.W., and coming home with the N.E. monsoon, made the passage back in 104 days, after wasting 4 days anchored off Gutztaff Island in a typhoon. The whole voyage occupied 9 months, 27 days..."
Most of those ships made the passage from England to Australia (or similar journeys) at 63 days (super fast) to 104 (kinda slow). Keep in mind though that these clippers were huge (they went from 15o-300 tonne displacement at the beginning of that century to 1000-2000 tonne displacements towards the end) and at the very hight of the age of sail, so they were very fast. Really the thing that adds serious time to sailing journeys is having to sail around big objects siting in the Ocean and getting in the way, continents. Medieval ships were small (comparatively) and I think either in the case of a military ship or a cargo ship, they would have serious difficulty in packing enough supplies on board to last 8 months. The military would have difficulty because of the amount of people on board, and merchant because they need to take enough goods on board to make the journey profitable.

[waldronate]

You're making good progress. I recommend annotating your map with some lines of latitude (an equator and tropics would be particularly helpful). Those lines will help you in placement of your major rising and falling air masses, which will carry moisture and heat. There are a number of discussions on atmosphere dynamics here at CG (search for "Hadley cell", "Ferrell cell") and they are usually intertwined with oceanic circulation.

I also recommend looking into the behavior of rivers, especially on a continental scale (search this site for "getting your rivers in the right place"). The critical concepts for rivers are that (especially on a continental map) they will flow from mountains to sea and that they will general join into larger flows as they go downhill. You've got the notion of rivers looking like trees, but the "trunk" of the tree is rooted at the coast with the "branches" pushing towards higher areas like mountains (water flows downhill from the branches down into the trunk and to the sea for most large rivers). It is highly unlikely for a river to flow up and over a mountain range.