Worldmap dark fantasy "Les Terres d'Ordale".

[Azélor]

I think you still


have the same problem


with rivers and labels

but the names are interesting

[Maraxus_]

I like the new rivers, that was one thing I realized first in the first map, too.

There are quite a number of big river splitting but it works for the Fleuve (because of the mountains) and Sirthenn/Nunên (because of the huge lake / small sea). Not so much at the Linden/ Rivtère Verte. Just from looking at the map, I would expect the Rivtère Verte to dry out. If the river sprung further inwards in the Vala Ethennand then approached Vêlyr from the northeast, just to turn southeast before reaching the city, however, it would be possible, that an industrious Duke would build a channel through the Vêlyrn ridge in order to connect Linden and Rivtère Verte. (Sure, this would have to be maintained and controlled in order to not run dry or produce ugly floods in the wrong areas but think of all the taxes to be collected, if the small villages around Lac Vert could ship their wood directly to the mines of Thrôrianor and stuff. )

Coastlines: They are interesting. I like that, that definitely makes opportunities for some great political constellations. Also looks plausible, except: Amsor. I can not really imagine how this came to be, landmasses don't just shatter apart. And oceans don't just decide to cut some straits through a continent. A single crack in a landmass/ocean strait like through Per Véllénir is easily explained but those are like 6 different breaking lines in Amsor!
Possible explanations? First of all, of course the fist of an really angry God. Yes, this could really well be, what a countryside could be, centuries after the continent has been smashed by a mayor God.
The second guess would be a really unlucky friction zone of 3 tectonic plates. This is probably the better explanation in all but the most high fantasy settings but the logical consequence would be, that this area is an earthquake hell and probably has 3 different words for Tsunami. ... Okay, thinking about this, I like the coastlines there, too. I -as your hypothetical reader- just get curious WHY it looks that way, so you better have an answer.

Mountain ranges: Again, just one point here: Why the Paines of Moriag? Especially in that shape, I really can't think of any reason, how this could have come into existence except for a less angry and more tidy God with a huge plane (the tool).

And last, forests: Well, those seam to be rather randomly placed, are they?
How do forests happen anyway: Air goes over sea and picks up some water. If the sun shines hot and the water evaporated, it takes a lot of it. Then the wind hits land and needs to go up because of the rising altitude, rising pressure and some stuff I don't understand happens but the result is clearly: rain. Especially rainy, if the moist wind hits a mountain range (consequently, on the wind shielded side of a mountain range the wind is rather dry). And since weather is unpredictable to a point, there is a chance of some rain some times, wherever there is dominantly moist air, even if the land does not incline a lot.
Thus, the forests are mostly weired, it's not just one. Most obvious offenders are:
- The isles de la perdition: water around them everywhere, the Septentrinal forests have no reason at all to stop at the sea, those isles should be thick of vegetation.
- The Figèe forest between the Titan's break mountains and the dunes of Ocreterre: If there is south wind from the Sablonnant ocean, enough of it would come down over the dessert, that it's not exactly a desert and if there is dominantly north wind, it would rain itself out on the north side of the mountains, not on the south side (This is the only instance of forest where it should not be, other then that, there should overall be more green).
- The autonome forests in central Amsor. Whatever wind flow makes trees grow there, it should provide good rain and temperature for forests for at least a quarter-circle shaped part of the shattered continent. That is, of course except for magical effects. Likewise artificial forest cleansing could result in something like that but seriously, on this scale your world should have at least around World War 1 tech level for this to be plausible.


Overall, the map has succeeded on the most important test: If you (or me) can zoom in on 5-10% of the map and the land features create a number of ideas for stories of regional scope, then it is good.

[feanaaro]

I like the new rivers, that was one thing I realized first in the first map, too.

There are quite a number of big river splitting but it works for the Fleuve (because of the mountains) and Sirthenn/Nunên (because of the huge lake / small sea). Not so much at the Linden/ Rivtère Verte.

Actually, the mountains make the river violation worse. Since rivers flow downhill, they should start FROM the mountains, not go TOWARD them. And a river would not split in that fashion anyway, regardless of lakes and mountains.

[Maraxus_]

Actually, the mountains make the river violation worse. Since rivers flow downhill, they should start FROM the mountains, not go TOWARD them. And a river would not split in that fashion anyway, regardless of lakes and mountains.

Think of it this way: Generally speaking, the land is rising towards the southwest and northeast, so the water from the mountains in Thromèriand has no other way but to flow towards the sharp peaks there (increased by numbers of minor inflows on both sides).
Maybe originally, the River took just one direction around the mountains, say the southwest one but the rain that collects itself in the northeastern parts of the mountains must go somewhere, too. The groundwater level in the mountains is so high, that you naturally get some springs along the way towards the lower land, so another river washed it's way marking the river-bed between the peaks and the steady inclining towards the northeast. Now one year - or rather a few successive years - in spring or autumn, the Fleuvé carried exceptional water masses, producing floodings along the shore. now in this area the high water was enough to spill over into that other river, there you get a current and this current washed away the earth that was separating the northeast and southwest arm. There you have it: A river split on rock level. No arm can dry out because there is a real lot of water in that river and the ground levels for both arms are equal at the split for quite a while (rock bott and differences further down the two arms are evened out by the additional inflows, the two arms get from the small riverlets from the mountains.

[feanaaro]

That is not how rivers work in reality. Of course it's fantasy, so...

[Maraxus_]

That is not how rivers work in reality. Of course it's fantasy, so...

The Wikipedia article about River bifurication has 7 examples of rivers working that way in reality. And that does not include Bifurcation lakes like the Lake of Ninden in Jagen's map.

In order to provide something useful for the OP:
From my understanding of the geography follow a few ideas:
- The two split rivers of the Fleuve Norios (or distributaries, as the technical term is, what I know since 5 minutes) are probably incredibly rough waters.
- The Fleuve Norios must be a really big river, not only Rhein- or Seine-kind of big, more in the league of the Nile. Compared to other rivers of this water volume transported, it is probably rather deep and has a strong current, specifically near the disjunction and this counts twice for each distributary.
- Thus, sailing these rivers is dangerous, especially upstream against the current, only expert sailors dare that. Since it's still very big rivers, the size of the ship is less a matter then knowledge of the dangerous passages. The ground is rocky and there may just be some sharp cliffs every here and there.

- The outflows of Ninden's lake is quite the opposite: The huge lage (I mean, that thing is really huge. If the equator is somewhere at the south border of the new map and the north pole is somewhere slightly above the upper border, that lake is almost half as big as the black sea. Or maybe as much as the great lakes of North America together) acts as a water reservoir that levels out natural flucturations in the water level of the Bealyrnn thus those rivers are likely quite quite with very little current. Sailing them is easy, upstream and downstream. It need not be very deep everywhere but should still be enough for your average old sailboat. If your setting has 17th century ships of the line, those may be to big to use those rivers