World of Azuyra: The Kingdom of Avencia

[Ascension]

Hey no prob, I repped ya anyway As for having the river's flow change my first thought is that maybe it could be influenced by something like the Gulf Stream that maybe changes per season...flowing one way in summer and another in winter. Not sure if that's even plausible but heck, it's magic right?

[Ahriman]

Hmm... flowing different directions seasonally would be perfect after all. It would truly make the river an important economic resource, as well as create a pulsating kind of life for the fictional settlements along it.

Your reference to the Gulf stream is pretty fascinating, now that I've looked it up. I'm also reminded of the African rift lakes... Id love to implement some similar biology to the river, as Im a fish enthusiast and keep a large tank of lake malawi cichlids.

I could go with the magic route, definitely... but I actually like to keep the basic elements of the world mundane. The seam or scar or whatever may have been created by divine means, but Id like to find a realistic solution to why it hasnt eroded away afterword. So now that this has all come up, maybe some of you geography experts might be able to help me make it work.

First, the 'seam' left behind wouldve been extremely deep and of approximately uniform depth. Given that the surrounding rock would be extremely hard and slow to erode, could this formation continue to reach the ocean at both ends for centuries? Perhaps the river IS eroding to a point where it will split into two, but hasnt reached that point YET? Possible?

Second, is there any way that the inhabitants of the continent couldve extended this state of affairs, possibly even indefinitely? There have been thousands of years of civilization. Is there any system of damming or digging that could produce this result?

What about tectonic activity? This would obviously be an unnatural fracture in the existing tectonic plates... could it be that the river has split in the past, but tectonic activity continually widens the river at random intervals, interrupting that normal erosion process? Maybe throughout history the river has split and rejoined several times. This option might be the best, as it could resemble the situation with the Great Rift in Africa, giving me a point of research to start with.

Any of these things sound possible? Thanks for your help in advance.

[Soixante]

Lovely style there. The water is especially nice, how'd you do it?

[Ahriman]

I started with a tutorial I found on these forums... I have to leave for work shortly, but when I get back Ill see if I can find it again. At first I was following it fairly religiously, but ended up making some drastic changes as it went on.

The whole thing is done in photoshop, and the water is just using a texture overlay. It was months ago that I did this, so I dont recall where I got the texture, but it took some hunting around. The landmass is actually 2 images of the same shape, one right on top of the other. The first has a fairly wide Outer Glow effect, with a high Range setting. The second, which is semitransparent, has the much shorter black effect around the edges. The whole map is designed to look like it was inked in, and then painted, leaving the ink to bleed a little bit around the edges.

[bartmoss]

Yeah looks good, Ascension found the only river "problem" and you are allowed to violate the laws of physics in a fantasy world, if it is internally consistent with the "rules" your world operate under so I see no objections.

[jfrazierjr]

Hmm... flowing different directions seasonally would be perfect after all. It would truly make the river an important economic resource, as well as create a pulsating kind of life for the fictional settlements along it.

Your reference to the Gulf stream is pretty fascinating, now that I've looked it up. I'm also reminded of the African rift lakes... Id love to implement some similar biology to the river, as Im a fish enthusiast and keep a large tank of lake malawi cichlids.

I could go with the magic route, definitely... but I actually like to keep the basic elements of the world mundane. The seam or scar or whatever may have been created by divine means, but Id like to find a realistic solution to why it hasnt eroded away afterword. So now that this has all come up, maybe some of you geography experts might be able to help me make it work.

First, the 'seam' left behind wouldve been extremely deep and of approximately uniform depth. Given that the surrounding rock would be extremely hard and slow to erode, could this formation continue to reach the ocean at both ends for centuries? Perhaps the river IS eroding to a point where it will split into two, but hasnt reached that point YET? Possible?

Second, is there any way that the inhabitants of the continent couldve extended this state of affairs, possibly even indefinitely? There have been thousands of years of civilization. Is there any system of damming or digging that could produce this result?

What about tectonic activity? This would obviously be an unnatural fracture in the existing tectonic plates... could it be that the river has split in the past, but tectonic activity continually widens the river at random intervals, interrupting that normal erosion process? Maybe throughout history the river has split and rejoined several times. This option might be the best, as it could resemble the situation with the Great Rift in Africa, giving me a point of research to start with.

Any of these things sound possible? Thanks for your help in advance.

Well.. the easiest solution is to have it geologically not be a river at all, but a separation of two tectonic plates where the water from the sea flooded as they were separated.

Perhaps the one who repaired it wanted to create some type of barrier between the two sides and thus kept the water there instead of healing it "whole". It, it would be like a very long straight or channel or whatever you want to call it separating two landmasses, it just happens to be one that the locals "call" a river where in actuality, it is not.Depending on plate movement and volcanic activity underground, this arrangement could survive for much longer than human memory. Though, if you plan to make this into a plate boundary, you might want to think about making cliffs along the entire route overlooking the "river".

Disclaimer: I am not a geologist, nor do I play one on TV.

[Korba]

Thats a lovely map

Regarding the river you could have the city situated at the Continental divide. That is the point on the continent where a drop of water falling one side will go to one edge and the other side to the opposite edge. On a smaller scale Devizes in the UK would be a good example, A small section of locks on a canal allow continuous water travel from Bristol on the West coast with the Thames and therefor London on the East coast.

You describe Iron oak as a fortress city so it being on the line of hills that divide the continent would also work.

Just an alternative idea that would allow you to have a continuous stretch of water from one side of the continent to the other but i really like your mountains and the rich history of the world you have created.

Korba

[Eilathen]

Cool, thank you for showing us the worldmap. I like it a lot

Have some rep (eventhough it does you no good [no rep-power yet], it's the sentiment that counts )

Cheers
Eilathen

[Ahriman]

Some really cool ideas there, thanks again for the references to real life situations that I can research. I think some combination of the tectonic boundry idea and the continental divide... It sounds pretty plausible. At the same time, the idea of Devizes' lock system might be scaled up to a tremendoes feat of manpower and engineering, just the kind of thing ancient civilizations seem to leave behind.

Ill keep things updated as I add to the map.

[Mako]

My only crit would be that with the use of darker blue for water around the edges it gives the appearance that the water is deeper at the shores than further out to sea. Perhaps that was intended, either way still a great map.