[WIP]: A new RPG World

[Azélor]

I don't understand why you put the Laurentian climate between the tropics.

[SteffenBrand]

You mean in the west, right? Yeah, I made a mistake there. It should more likely be Maritime East Coast, I guess. Thanks for pointing this out! =)

Edit (1): Added it again because it's - unfortunately - on the page before.

web_weltkarte_227,d.jpg

[SteffenBrand]

I'm progressing very slowly on this, but I am progressing. It even goes in the right direction =) I added two areas I'm currently working on, they are by no means final, but you can already see the style I want for this map =)

Currently working on:
- The mountains and their color
- The snowy mountaintops and clouds
- The desert with all its nouances

I really hope you like it so far. =)

parts_weltkarte.jpg

[xpian]

Ooh, very pretty landforms and surface features. The desert/vegetation/mountains look very realistic and Google-Earthy. Or Apple-Mapsy.

Personally, I find cloud-cover very confusing when it also looks just like snow-cap. On satellite photos clouds are hard to get rid of, but it's a rare artificial map that uses cloud cover effectively. (without it getting in the way)

[SteffenBrand]

Thanks so much =)

I forgot to get rid of the cloud-thingy in the south, I chekced out different types of mountaintops (this are actually different looks for snow on the tops). Since everything on the map is drawn, I can get rid of whatever I want. I'll check if clouds work in my image (I wanted to include some), but I will have your doubts in mind. =)

[Treijim]

Hey Steffen

I'm also new to this and I have some suggestions.

Someone else questioned your placement of tropical biomes or something. I would actually suggest moving your equator south by 30-40 degrees. The reason being that I assume your desert is on a western coast and is in the northern hemisphere, thus giving it a cold current from the north. That's a big contributing factor to creating hot deserts. And a hot desert really only happens around the subtropical high-pressure zone (STPZ), which is about 25 degrees north of the equator. Equatorial biomes are pretty much always tropical.

Do you have a scale for this world? I'm a little concerned with breeding grounds for hurricane and monsoon breeding grounds, especially between your two continents.

[SteffenBrand]

Thanks for your advice! I made this up for you and hope it covers what you mean. It's made how I picture this at the moment. Would you care to draw in what you mean and what you would change? Putting the equator further south would mean I had to shrink everything down...

Let me know if you have a solution there or where you see the tornados coming from. You may just download this and draw in as you like =)

online-weltkarte1.jpg

[Treijim]

Thanks for the expanded map. I have a few more things for you to think about.

Why is the rest of the map unexplored? What's stopped people? If they're anything like the High or Late Medieval period, they'll have seafaring ships. A large enough desert may prevent expansion on foot, as will hostile civilisations, and perhaps storms on the east shore stop people from sailing down too far, but what stops people from sailing west and around the desert?

Monsoon climates really only happen on large enough landmasses where the pressure system is more or less fully affected by the sheer size of the land. Asia is big enough and at the right altitude to completely change its pressure system from a strong high to a strong low between summer and winter, and though North America is in the right position, it's too small for monsoons.

By moving the equator, I suggest taking the layer it's attached to (assuming it has its own layer) and stretching it downward until the equator is about 30 degrees south of where it currently is. First, though, correct your labels. The Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) IS the equator, and the Sub-Tropical High Pressure Zones (STHZ) ARE the tropics of cancer and capricorn. You have them labelled as the space between. This will only confuse you. The ITCZ is always tropical and the STHZ is always desert on mid-western shores. South America isn't a desert, you'll note, even though it's in an STHZ zone, because it's too thin and the Andes changes the climate because it's such a huge range of mountains.

I suggest trying out these changes and then give the Climate Cookbook another shot - jc.tech-galaxy.com/bricka/climate_cookbook.html - and please let me know if you disagree or if I didn't make sense. Good luck

[acrosome]

Ok, I'm going to be critical on two points, here.

First, copying the coastlines of Britain with such fidelity is in my opinion a mistake. It is simply too recognizable- it really jumps out at you. When I first looked at your map the first thought I had was "Oh, it's some sort of alternate Britain." I'll bet you this was so for the majority of people who saw it.

Second, you have land that runs up to the north pole, but the pole itsn't covered. You can't have land on just "part" of a pole in such a projection- it either is or it isn't. (Unless, of course, by some totally WILD coincidence you have land that comes to a perfect point exactly at 90 degrees. Which is what your map would look like at the moment- Nerdean comes to a very unnatural point at the north pole.) Look at the poles of the Earth in almost any projection- equirectangular, whatever, and pay attention to Antarctica and the Arctic Ocean and you'll see what I mean. You need to make the north pole either more Arctic-Ocean-like or more Antarctica-like.

[Azélor]

Hey Steffen

I'm also new to this and I have some suggestions.

Someone else questioned your placement of tropical biomes or something. I would actually suggest moving your equator south by 30-40 degrees. The reason being that I assume your desert is on a western coast and is in the northern hemisphere, thus giving it a cold current from the north. That's a big contributing factor to creating hot deserts. And a hot desert really only happens around the subtropical high-pressure zone (STPZ), which is about 25 degrees north of the equator. Equatorial biomes are pretty much always tropical.

Do you have a scale for this world? I'm a little concerned with breeding grounds for hurricane and monsoon breeding grounds, especially between your two continents.

Actually it's possible to have a desert at the equator. It's rare but if the winds are in the right direction, it's possible as long as there is little rain. If mountains are blocking the winds like in South America and Central Asia. If it's too cold it becomes a cold desert.

I'm not sure why you say that he should move the equator. I agree that the western part is probably too dry (but since I don't have the info I can't tell exactly) but I think it's simpler to just change the climates for that area since the rest looks ok. Except fort the Laurentian climate...

You are right for the ITCZ and subtropical ridge. When they are over the ocean, they remain more or less at the same spot (like in the South Pacific ocean) but they move toward the large landmasses. In Asia, it moves as north as the 35th parallel and could move closer to the pole if the continent was larger. It's the same thing for the Horse latitudes. The Mediterranean climates are affected only during the summer because that high pressure zone move to the south in winter.