World Eleven - An all-round world building effort

[The Lazy One]

Hello Everyone!

I did hesitate for a while before starting this thread, mostly because of the size and general slowlyness of this project over the years. Working mostly with a friend and with support from others with different expertise, we tried to approach the world-building from a bottom-up perspective.
While this isn't something unheard of on this forum (actually, plenty of remarkable projects in that direction here), it can be overwhelming at times even for a small group of people working on that. We're in two actively working on this (a physicist and a history buff) with several helps from a biologist, an archeologist and a few other "specialists"

To keep things in order, we even built a wiki, which is practical for archiving but very bad at showing the amount of content produced so far.
http://worldeleven.wikidot.com/

So, let's start from the beginning: I will try to split this in multiple posts, from the very basis.

Why the name?
To kickstart the project, we researched and tested several softwares that generate planets.
The chosen one was Worldbuilder, for a few features and simulative logics that it applies. http://experilous.com/1/blog/post/wo...-0-2-0-release
The main goal was to have a reasonably looking world with tectonics and everything, but rather than splitting them ourselves we used a simulator: dividing the sphere in voronoi cells and clustering them, it defined plates and movements. At the same time, the software calculates a rough heigth map and the overall biomes.

Over 15 world... the 11th was the chosen one.
15Worlds.png

the 11th was the chosen one.
11.jpg

Now, till this point there is no actual cartography involved. Actually, there won't be much in this post.

What happens next?
From the bare rocky land (the actual planet parameters are slightly different from Earth's, but nothing dramatic) life evolved, I guess. At a point, we got humans (or pan-humans, or something close enough). They originated in a fairly big island in the southern tropical region the size of central europe. The region was large enough to have different ethnic groups, but with the early migrations (a small ice age simplified movements) towards two different continents the population got split in a more drastic way: after the end of the cold period the previously crossable seas became impassable, and the original continent lost most of its jungles becoming barren and uninviting. Within 60.000 years speciation happened, and the two groups were not interfertile.

human-migration.png

Of course, that degree of separation brought two entirely different language groups, and serious physical differences as well as traditions.


That's it for now. A lot more has to follow. Including - erm - maps.

[The Lazy One]

Since We're here, let me upload a few close-ups and different kind of information regarding the main areas that we'll discuss about later on.

Here the whole globe with the Voronoi cells highlighted:
wholeGlobeG-e1545399068169.png

Here the altitude map. The square saw coast on the top-right is quite awful and is probably part of a software glitch. Although we have no plans to develop that area too much, it will be evened out before anything else will happen there.
Once again, remember that this is just a reasonable starting point to do worldbuilding from.
wholeGlobeAlt-e1545399094135.png

Temperature map:
wholeGlobeTemp-e1545399107261.png

...and humidity/precipitations map:
wholeGlobeWet-e1545399134281.png

Lastly, a link to a SVG map i've done to start mapping the software work by hand.
That won't be the actual map but it's pretty useful to track .
Bektai.png

... and a close-up of a region of particular interest for us, which is also a spoiler for our future posts.
Bektai-1.png

[Azélor]

The mountains in the last two pictures look way better than the ones generated with the software. It did not look natural at all. Much of the elevation is too jagged and abrupt especially for mountains but also for the coasts in some places. The mountain ranges looks more like a series of mesa.

Some things I noticed: green is really rare on the map, also the precipitation map is mostly yellow (dry?), is there a reason why the world is so dry?

Also, I checked the wiki and found what I think is a big comma mistake:

The world, as a whole, is a large rock mostly unknown by its inhabitants. It is not that different from Earth, having 0.96% of its mass and a gravity of 0.98g, the duration of a day is slightly less than 20 hours and a local year is 215 local days long, making it slightly less than half of a standard year.

0,96% is less than 1% of the Earth's mass. That is the size of a large asteroid like Epimetheus (assuming we keep the same density as Earth for comparison)

[The Lazy One]

The mountains in the last two pictures look way better than the ones generated with the software. It did not look natural at all. Much of the elevation is too jagged and abrupt especially for mountains but also for the coasts in some places. The mountain ranges looks more like a series of mesa.
Some things I noticed: green is really rare on the map, also the precipitation map is mostly yellow (dry?), is there a reason why the world is so dry?

Thanks! Yes, we're using the software results as a general indication rather than a fixed point. The last two images were drawn with a wacom tablet and took some time, but are a much better starting point for hand-drawn maps.
As above, i wouldn't overthink the humidity map as well: it indicates the main directions of rains precipitations from the ocean. For instance, the region in the drawn map has clearly more rain on the east side.

Also, I checked the wiki and found what I think is a big comma mistake:
0,96% is less than 1% of the Earth's mass. That is the size of a large asteroid like Epimetheus (assuming we keep the same density as Earth for comparison)

Definitely a comma mistake!
I usually work with percentages as fraction of the unity, but the % symbol is out of scope in that case! Thanks for spotting that out!

[The Lazy One]

Very well, now.

Regarding Languages
Understandably, the two main language families (Inukai languages, of the Inuki people and Ukutar languages of the Aanar people) are almost entirely different. A relatively recent branch of the Ukutar family (the Mani family of languages) is spoken in the desertic regions of Ukuthros and the coastlines of Tsuennar.
More on the page: http://worldeleven.wikidot.com/languages

LINGUEsmall.png

Bektai in the whole
Very well, moving one step closer, a zoomed image of the central continent commonly called Bektai. Climate-wise, The northern areas have a central-europe climate, going south the continental climate is more in line with inner russia. In particular, the plateau in the south-eastern region is a cold mountain desert with an extremely unfriendly environment.
Interestingly enough, it has large deposits of natural gas and coal which makes it the most renowned region for metalworking. Most of the workers there are however seasonal, and migrate from the northern lands every summer bringing with them metal ore and returning with forged weapons.

rect4425.png

Uramar
The main focus of our worldbuilding effort will however be on the northern shores of Bektai, the region known as Uramar.

zoomed.jpg

Sized approximately as europe, Uramar hosts several kingdoms that are the result of the crumble of a previous empire (the Almazan empire, originated in the land now known as the Duchy of Elos, from the name of the capital city in Elosel, the language that was imported by the Inukai people that took over the ruins of the Aanar people). The city of Elos (or Almazan, in Ikimar) is still pretty impressive for the standards of the continent, although mostly composed by ruins.
The overall population is quite low and the growth and wealth is limited by the previous exploitation of the mines and forests during the Almazan empire. Most of the people in all the states live with cattle and farms and transport and communication isn't easy as the roads hasn't been maintained since 2-300 years in most cases.

Here a fancier map. On the wiki, the map is interactive!
http://worldeleven.wikidot.com/uramar

Uramar.jpg

More about history and other details will follow.

[Diamond]

Love your work and dedication so far. Looking forward to your next steps!

[The Lazy One]

Thank you!

Adding a splendid population density map our historian made. Note that there is no distintion between Inuki and Aanar in this map.
pop-density.png

[JonathanCR]

I like the fact that you've tracked where (quasi-) humans evolved and how prehistoric migrations worked. I find it especially hard to suspend my disbelief about the presence of human beings - and all kinds of other familiar animals and plants - on fantasy worlds other than Earth. We and the other living things we see around us are the product of particular forces at particular times and places and wouldn't exist without the world as it has actually been. A constructed world that acknowledges that human beings aren't just plonked onto a map but emerge from particular parts of it, and are shaped by that prehistory, is really good to see.

[The Lazy One]

I like the fact that you've tracked where (quasi-) humans evolved and how prehistoric migrations worked. I find it especially hard to suspend my disbelief about the presence of human beings - and all kinds of other familiar animals and plants - on fantasy worlds other than Earth. We and the other living things we see around us are the product of particular forces at particular times and places and wouldn't exist without the world as it has actually been. A constructed world that acknowledges that human beings aren't just plonked onto a map but emerge from particular parts of it, and are shaped by that prehistory, is really good to see.

Very kind, thank you! We did try to think at a biological context for the quasi-humans, but even evolutive convergence isn't enough to justify them. That said, we intentionally kept a very loose control over the animal looks and even dressing. The temptation of having everyone look like a medieval knight is strong, but we'd rather have less illustrations rather than naive ones.

Speaking of illustrations, today i drew a quick and simple map of Bektai and its surroundings, just to pass the christmas afternoon in a cozy and nerdy way.

DSC02852.jpg

I seized the opportunity to try my Copic Ciao markers, which are quite good, and to experiment a bit more with ink and paper.

DSC02853.jpg

Bonus points for the cartographer who recognizes the alphabet.

[JonathanCR]

I don't know the alphabet but the map is absolutely gorgeous.

The wiki looks really promising, but as you say, it's often hard to follow for an outsider. In particular there isn't any world map showing the names of the continents - the text often refers to the different continents, but other than Bektai I can't work out what the others are. I know Aanes is to the north but I'm not sure where or how it relates to the other continents (what were the routes followed by the prehistoric nomads?), and I can see what languages are spoken on the continents neighbouring Bektai (which is awesome) but I don't know the names of those continents or who lives there.

This is just an observation about the current state of the wiki, not a criticism of the project, which I think is really, really, interesting. I hope you get a chance to put some more overview materials up so it's easier to follow the narrative of the world (or at least those elements of it you want us to follow!).