Creating new biomes, drawing and describing them

[Elterio Delgard]

Sadly I won't be as active as desired and maybe this thread will go slower...

I won't be drawing either... University is taking lots of my time.

However, I was still thinking for the horror landscape if spires of rocks would require an ice age scraping the hills to the bone?

[Elterio Delgard]

Okay, time to revive this thread. Azelor was curious about gothic horrow biome. I have almost no knowledge about gothic horror so I will have to do some research but first of all, what defines gothic horror and makes it different than the generic horror? I hope you will join me on this adventure!

Now, horror and biome... A horrific landscape is one thing, but how to build a biome with its own vegetation and ecosystem based on gothic horror?

LOL!!! I type "gothic horror cartography" and my first result is a challenge from this wonderful site itself, but back in 2012!
https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=20235

Found another interesting site (which was suggested by one of the memebers of this guild in that same thread you will find with the first link).
https://www.virtualsalt.com/gothic.htm

Now the problem I have is this: biome. I can easily picture a graveyard, a ruined gothic mansion, something the like. Gothic horror is relatively easy if it comes to a building, a dungeon or a location. How in the world can we make a biome out of it? Here is what I think...

-Moutains with whispering holes like in the Badlands.
-swamps with rotting trees.
-boulders with thick moss (I like the idea of mossy stones).
-lots of animals eating from corpses.
-the smell of decay would be great so what could give putrefaction? I mean, if we want some scavengers like ravens and crows... Maybe the Gothic Horror biome would feed upon another biome! For example, in a climate like Quebec city or Saguenay, you would have a mix or pine forest where the deers reproduce and all but have to cross a certain swamp in order to get there, and some of them fall in some holes filled with mud or something.

[Azélor]

Gothic horror should be named neo gothic horror maybe?
It is representative of the Victorian era kind of horror.
I am not sure what kind of biome that would be.
An industrial city, a village in disrepair? Steampunk architecture?

[Elterio Delgard]

mmmm I will pounder on that but suffice to say you have stirred my interest there. Maybe nature trying to regain control over an industrial area but with all the chemicals it goes haywhire.

[Elterio Delgard]

Gothic horror should be named neo gothic horror maybe?
It is representative of the Victorian era kind of horror.
I am not sure what kind of biome that would be.
An industrial city, a village in disrepair? Steampunk architecture?

If I was ask to make a horror biome out from the Lac Saint-Jean, I would say it started with an oil refinery (we don't have oil so let me invent a little...) or mining a strange radioactive energy source but then something would go haywhire in the process of transformation of the raw material into something useable and then a disease would have spread. Dunno, maybe humans would start having cancer or a new illness highly contagious would cause lots of death. With so much dead bodies, the people wouldn't want to bury them in the fear of getting ill and would simply dig collective tombs (which is often the case with great epidemics) and afterwards leave the area. Without any human inhabitants anymore, nature would come back after some decades only to be itself in a first place contaminated and in a second place attracted by the source of contamination. Some may want to have zombies, but I don't like zombies personnaly. I would rather see something coming from the vegetation itself. Dunno...

My best guest Azelor is such a biome would not be native so to speak to the area, but the result of a calamity or a failed experiment. I am no expert but with the vampires and all, I think it starts with a curse, a pact with the devil or sorcery right? A failed magical experiment could be replaced by a failed scientific experiment. A pact with the devil or the sort could be replaced with madness and "mégalomanie".

Horror in itself as an independant biome I cannot think of it unless its a damned area, and by that word I really mean what it means in the dictionnary. Condemn by god/gods/or some kind of power of creation.

[Azélor]

Horror could be like Hell maybe. Dungeon and dragon has several planes (other dimensions) and at least 2 of them could be considered like Hell: the Abyss and Baator.
The Abyss contains 666 different layers, each is different. is the realm of demons (I don't know why devils and demons needed their own separate space exactly).
Baator has 9 different levels. It's the realm of devils.

[Elterio Delgard]

Horror could be like Hell maybe. Dungeon and dragon has several planes (other dimensions) and at least 2 of them could be considered like Hell: the Abyss and Baator.
The Abyss contains 666 different layers, each is different. is the realm of demons (I don't know why devils and demons needed their own separate space exactly).
Baator has 9 different levels. It's the realm of devils.

Mmmm,..

Horror can be a vast subject.
Anyone has anything to add in describing a horror biome? I don't want to start talking about another one just yet, it feels like we are barely touching it!

[rdanhenry]

Horror biome elements:
Plants that should be dead, but keep on living or at least not properly dying. Trees without leaves that keep slowly growing. Trees covered in masses of fungus, mistletoe, and other growths that are either parasitic or feeders on necrotic wood, but which go on as if nothing were odd. Withered weeds that just stay as withered weeds for years and years. Flowers that dry up, but refuse to drop a single petal.

Plants where the flowers consume what would be their normal pollinators.

An abundance of parasitic life forms.

A lack of decomposers, leaving the dead to not rot quickly and be done, but to lie slowly eroded by inorganic forces.

Eyes, mouths, and other body parts in things that should not have them: Trees, rocks, mud, the doors of houses, fog...

Oh, more fog than the climate should support.

Blood from unnatural sources. Creatures that appear normal, but when cut or butchered, they have no blood.

Undead food chains. So many undead that the only way to sustain the populations is to have undead that feed off the energy of other undead.

Dogs that talk, but with a comedic speech impediment.

Way more tentacles than bestowed along our Earthly evolutionary path.

Creatures with transparent skin.

Human artifacts decay to the point of creepy unpleasantness, but no further. That house of rotting wood and sagging roof and crumbling brickwork? It looked pretty much the same eighty years ago and survived three hurricanes since. Doesn't mean a stair might not give under you, but it isn't going to fall apart if it isn't dramatic and dangerous.

Seeds grow wildly different plants than the ones that produced them. Animals and people give birth to completely different species.

[Elterio Delgard]

Hi I am back and awake once more after some while gone with studies and work.

Now I have an interesting question... Fissures... How would a biome look like if it was like below sea level and also at the bottom of a ravine wide enough so it ain't just a straight line. Imagine a fissure of several miles square, maybe even 50miles or more. I know this is not a landscape we have on earth, or not that I am aware of, so I would like to know how you would imagine one and where would be the most logical location to have one.

[Azélor]

A fissure that is not flooded, it needs to be in a desert. Mars has a few very deep canyons.