Quote Originally Posted by Falconius View Post
Well its really hard to say without any scale included. But taking the "Volcanic Island", and the "Beach" as a scale in comparison to such real world islands I'd say that tiny little island is crammed with way too much stuff. I think realistically the most biome difference would be based on elevation. If however this place is the size of an Australia or other continents you could certainly achieve all those biomes but I'd imagine they'd be much differently arranged. Given that it seems the biomes are the most important aspect of the map, I'd look at what sort of features (elevations, air currents, ocean currents, direction of global rotation etc.) achieve those biomes and how your land form can be adjusted to achieve them. If this is not a realistically based map, then as long as it follows the logic of your world and magic system then it hardly matters, just that you maintain your systems consistency.
Aphorae is about the size of Australia, if not a little bigger (it's pretty big). I'm not great with scales but I can definitely try to include one in the finished version, and if not this one, possibly the territories map. In Qinisi, the world it's in, it's the fourth largest continent (out of 10+) and it's position in this world is about the same as the United States, but a bit further to the left on a flat map. Qinisi has an irregular orbit pattern, occasionally even changing it's direction of rotation every 20 years or so. Ocean currents and air currents aren't really something to decide on position since the water around Aphorae is protected by the continent's magic field and constantly changing the current direction to create some sort of "wall", which is the same field that will expel or temporarily transform anyone who tries to enter that's not on the "species whitelist", and the air is constantly being controlled and maintained by air elementals so the currents in that continent will differ greatly from most other locations. The positions of these biomes are only partially based on realistic biomes, since elevation is the only realistic thing that would make a difference. The aether leylines, an important source of magic that holds the continent together, are based on Aphorae's elements system. Elements like fire would control locations with higher temperatures, water would control the more tropical areas, wind/air would control the plains, moors, hills, and any place where air flows easily, and draconic would control places with high elevation, but draconic is among the rarer elements so it wouldn't have as much of an effect. Common elemental areas need to be grouped together at least a little bit for the aether leylines to hold them together, but rarer elements only have partial control over that domain so they can be separated without much of a problem. The land is shaped kind of like a bowl with one side missing; the beach is the lowest area, and it's kind of low for the biomes bordering it, but it gradually gains elevation and when it hits the edges, like the mountains, the elevation goes up sharply. The rocky sea cliffs also go up sharply, but they're too dangerous to live in, and the sea port city is also very high-up, having the majority of the area a little bit below the halfway point of the mountains, and the areas getting closer to the ocean having several sudden drops and steep hills until it's even with the very cold part of the sea around that area (it's colder than normal). The sea port city is a lot like Daggerfall from the Elder Scrolls, but with more extreme changes in elevation, and the wetlands and volcano are based on, for whatever reason, Animal Jam (I grew up with it and kind of had to).

Good god, that was longer than expected...