# Map of Continent in my High Fantasy World



## CirdanLinweilin (Apr 6, 2020)

Hi Guys!

Here's a little project I finished: a Map of the main continent in my High Fantasy!


CL


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## Olorgando (Apr 6, 2020)

Taking you cues from the Grand Master, are you ? JRRT mentioned repeatedly that he needed a map or maps to keep the action plausible as far as time and distances were concerned.


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## CirdanLinweilin (Apr 6, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> Taking you cues from the Grand Master, are you ? JRRT mentioned repeatedly that he needed a map or maps to keep the action plausible as far as time and distances were concerned.


That I am, good sir, that I am.


What do you think? Notice the shape?



CL


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## Olorgando (Apr 6, 2020)

CirdanLinweilin said:


> What do you think? Notice the shape?
> 
> CL


I dropped by here after blabbing on almost endlessly in another thread (as you must have noticed I'm occasionally prone to do), so I'm a bit exhausted
So with my extensive reading in sciences including biology as a mold, I'm afraid the only thing I spontaneously came up with is

"an octopus with half its arms missing?"

There are good days, there are bad days …


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## CirdanLinweilin (Apr 6, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> I dropped by here after blabbing on almost endlessly in another thread (as you must have noticed I'm occasionally prone to do), so I'm a bit exhausted
> So with my extensive reading in sciences including biology as a mold, I'm afraid the only thing I spontaneously came up with is
> 
> "an octopus with half its arms missing?"
> ...


Ah, no, it's an X.




X Marks the Spot!



CL


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## Olorgando (Apr 6, 2020)

Well, OK, the central (roughly round) landmass with central mountains would be compatible with a volcanic island having been eroded over a long period of time.
But those four thingies jutting of in the X formation would probably have real-world geologists losing control of their lower jaws …


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## CirdanLinweilin (Apr 6, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> Well, OK, the central (roughly round) landmass with central mountains would be compatible with a volcanic island having been eroded over a long period of time.
> But those four thingies jutting of in the X formation would probably have real-world geologists losing control of their lower jaws …


Yeah, good eye, it is Volcanic. As for the other Provinces jutting out, I am still figuring that out. 

But yeah, it's a geological and topographical nightmare. 



CL


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## Olorgando (Apr 6, 2020)

Just BTW, what is the diameter of the round thingy (excluding the "arms") supposed to be? Are we talking about Númenor's size (which I'd have to look up, also BTW)?

Don't be cavalier about distances … 😕


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## CirdanLinweilin (Apr 6, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> Just BTW, what is the diameter of the round thingy (excluding the "arms") supposed to be? Are we talking about Númenor's size (which I'd have to look up, also BTW)?
> 
> Don't be cavalier about distances … 😕


Well, there is an 'Curved E' continent that's bigger.. 


Anyway, Huge for an island, but not bigger than say most mainlands of today. It'd take 5 days on a good day to get to one side from the other, maybe 10 to 12 to get from one jut to the other.


How big was Númenor?



CL


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## Olorgando (Apr 6, 2020)

CirdanLinweilin said:


> ...
> How big was Númenor?
> CL


I grab for my 1991 paperback version of Karen Wynn Fonstad's "Atlas of Middle-earth".
Near the back, it puts Númenor at 167,061 square miles, or 432,501 square kilometers.
Which (in Europe) makes it smaller than Spain, at about 499,000 sq km, and larger than Sweden, at a bit over 410,000 sq km (Germany is at a bit less than 349,000 sq km)
5 days to get from one side to another - by what conveyance? 🤔


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## CirdanLinweilin (Apr 6, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> I grab for my 1991 paperback version of Karen Wynn Fonstad's "Atlas of Middle-earth".
> Near the back, it puts Númenor at 167,061 square miles, or 432,501 square kilometers.
> Which (in Europe) makes it smaller than Spain, at about 499,000 sq km, and larger than Sweden, at a bit over 410,000 sq km (Germany is at a bit less than 349,000 sq km)
> 5 days to get from one side to another - by what conveyance? 🤔


Gotcha.



Horse? 

On foot, unless your some Elf or Half-elf, maybe 6 days, but rarely seven.


CL


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Apr 6, 2020)

I'll just jump in to say, 
Well done, CL! 👍


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## CirdanLinweilin (Apr 6, 2020)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> I'll just jump in to say,
> Well done, CL! 👍


Thank you Squint!

CL


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## Erestor Arcamen (Apr 6, 2020)

Looks great, I'd definitely love to read your story and explore your world!


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## CirdanLinweilin (Apr 6, 2020)

Erestor Arcamen said:


> Looks great, I'd definitely love to read your story and explore your world!


Thank you! I am working on a smaller story now, called _The Court of Last Battle_, but _The Birthright Trilogy: Ciara: Child of War, Daughter of the Ravens_ is coming soon!



CL


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## Olorgando (Apr 8, 2020)

CirdanLinweilin said:


> Olorgando said:
> 
> 
> > 5 days to get from one side to another - by what conveyance? 🤔
> ...


Don't overestimate the stamina of any four-legged creatures, never mind if they're carrying a rider (Shadowfax is in superhero horse territory!), compared to highly trained, often professional message runners on two legs. The Inca Empire (and perhaps some predecessors) had runner messengers in that mountainous terrain - not a horse's favorite terrain - whose (purported) mileages and times might make even some modern triathletes go pale. And that almost fabled pony express in the US west shows following numbers (in Wiki, what else):
Horses were changed at an average distance of 15 miles (24 km) between stations; riders (young and wiry) would do stints between 80 and 100 miles (130 to 160 km), changing horses 8 to 10 times. The pony express went bankrupt after only 18 months of existence when the first transcontinental telegraph was established ...

But let's say the best in your High Fantasy could match Aragorn in the pursuit of the Uruk-hai / Orcs after the breaking of the Fellowship. 45 leagues or 135 miles in three days before meeting Éomer. Six days would give 270 miles, or about 435 km. That's just a bit less than Ireland's (the entire island) slightly diagonal largest mainly north-south extension.

So my rough guess would be something between the sizes of all Ireland and Iceland.


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## CirdanLinweilin (Apr 8, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> Don't overestimate the stamina of any four-legged creatures, never mind if they're carrying a rider (Shadowfax is in superhero horse territory!), compared to highly trained, often professional message runners on two legs. The Inca Empire (and perhaps some predecessors) had runner messengers in that mountainous terrain - not a horse's favorite terrain - whose (purported) mileages and times might make even some modern triathletes go pale. And that almost fabled pony express in the US west shows following numbers (in Wiki, what else):
> Horses were changed at an average distance of 15 miles (24 km) between stations; riders (young and wiry) would do stints between 80 and 100 miles (130 to 160 km), changing horses 8 to 10 times. The pony express went bankrupt after only 18 months of existence when the first transcontinental telegraph was established ...
> 
> But let's say the best in your High Fantasy could match Aragorn in the pursuit of the Uruk-hai / Orcs after the breaking of the Fellowship. 45 leagues or 135 miles in three days before meeting Éomer. Six days would give 270 miles, or about 435 km. That's just a bit less than Ireland's (the entire island) slightly diagonal largest mainly north-south extension.
> ...


That is very true too.


CL


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## CirdanLinweilin (Apr 8, 2020)

Olorgando said:


> So my rough guess would be something between the sizes of all Ireland and Iceland.


Yeah, I'd settle on that.

CL


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## CirdanLinweilin (Jun 11, 2020)

I got the map professionally done!


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## CirdanLinweilin (Jun 11, 2020)




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## CirdanLinweilin (Jun 11, 2020)

CL


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## CirdanLinweilin (Jul 23, 2020)

Here's the Far Eastern Continent, Eéli.


And here is the Island Archipelago sandwiched between: Falcîn, a former Kingdom and Duchy of Arúndúr and now a divided republic mired by starving peasants trapped between a very "Berlin wall-esque" fort wall, smugglers on the island of Tulisz, and rich war racketeers to the north. 



CL


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## Hisoka Morrow (Jul 23, 2020)

I see, so this isn't not a fanfic based on JRRT's lore but a whole new masterpiece


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## CirdanLinweilin (Jul 23, 2020)

Hisoka Morrow said:


> I see, so this isn't not a fanfic based on JRRT's lore but a whole new masterpiece


Yes, my own thing since 2012.


CL


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## CirdanLinweilin (Jan 17, 2022)

Here's a better look at the map of the first country, that I had commissioned.


CL



AND LIVE, THREAD, LIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!


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## Melkor (Jan 18, 2022)

I don't want to nag, but it seems very strange that Ovalarin have arctic climate and Bakír not. You also often use single mountains, which is something very uncommon. Mountains are in 99% parts of mountain ranges, which are formed during colision of tectonic plates. On Eéli continent you have two deserts and between them grassland. That deserts are at places with cold ocean currents and this current also affect climate in this grassland region (which should be also desert). Another thing is that deserts are mostly around tropics and your deserts are quite close to arctic region.

It's good to consider ocean currents, latitude and mountain ranges when making bioms on your continents, because these are big factors for climate.

Don't get me wrong, you have nice maps, I like them. But you must consider certain elements, when you are building world.


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## CirdanLinweilin (Jan 18, 2022)

Hi! 
Thank you for your input, please allow me to explain my position.

My first country is a geothermal island, it’s volcanic. It is also on a planet millions of light years away from earth that has an entirely different atmosphere and weather. 
Also, it’s Fantasy. 
CL


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## Melkor (Jan 19, 2022)

But ocean currents, latitude and mountain ranges would play the same role on planet far away from Earth. Different atmospheric pressure, concentration of greenhouse gases, distance of the planet from the star, speed of rotation, size of planet/star, number of moons etc. make things even more complicated.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Jan 19, 2022)

All of which underline the dangers of pointing out perceived "flaws" in the construction of a fictional world.


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## Olorgando (Jan 19, 2022)

There's a documentary I've seen (twice?) on German TV that asked (IIRC) three hypothetical "what if" questions.

What if our *sun* were either smaller or larger?
What if the *earth* were either smaller or larger?
What if *we* (and our pets) were either smaller or larger?

The - irrefutable! - conclusion is that there's not an awful lot of wiggle room in all three cases without having serious consequences.

King Kong, for example: I'm assuming he's depicted as about 10 times as large, say 60 feet tall. Problem is, he would be 10 to the power of 3 or 1,000 times as voluminous, and heavy. So instead of say 400 pounds for a fairly large male gorilla, he would weigh 400 *TONS!!!*. That's twice the weight of the heaviest weight hypothesized for a blue whale (a big pregnant female just before giving birth), and three to four times the weight of the average blue whale. Which is a sleek ocean-dweller. No, KK probably couldn't even move without breaking something, and have a life expectancy measured in days.


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Jan 19, 2022)

But what if he lived on a planet with only half of earth's gravity?

One of my early introductions to SF as a lad was _Forgotten Planet_, by Murray Leinster, a fix-up novel from the 50's, incorporating stories from the 20's (he had a long and prolific career -- his first published story was in 1916, his last in 1967). The novel concerns the descendants of the survivors of a spaceship accident on a planet which had been seeded with life thousands of years previously, then forgotten.

I don't remember how he rationalized the evolution of insects into hypertrophied size -- perhaps he didn't, as 20's SF tended to overlook such things-- but it made for an exciting story, at least for this young boy.

I see it's available free online from Gutenberg:



The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Forgotten Planet, by Murray Leinster.


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## Olorgando (Jan 19, 2022)

Squint-eyed Southerner said:


> But what if he lived on a planet with only half of earth's gravity?


The main problem with half gravity would be the atmosphere that such a planet could sustain.
The closest approximation in our solar system would be Mars, which has one third of the Earth's gravity. The Martian atmosphere has a pressure of less than 1% of the Earth's atmosphere. To put that in perspective, the atmospheric pressure atop Mount Everest at 8,848 meters is still about 32% of that at sea level, and for mountaineers the "death zone" starting at 7,000 meters has about 41% of the atmospheric pressure at sea level.
Now atmospheric pressure must be some kind of exponential (or even more complicated ) function in relation to gravity - and that only counts for similar components and percentages of the atmospheric gases. Venus has a bit over 80% of earth's mass (and thus gravity), but because of the composition of the atmosphere - about 96% carbon dioxide - the atmospheric pressure on the surface is about *92 times* that of Earth at sea level. So there is some leeway to "play around" with the atmosphere at half earth's gravity - but it could then be unbreathable for life on Earth.


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