The Planet of Delphos [VERY MUCH WIP]

[Aera]

Hey guys, I threw this together to understand a bit about how my story world works. Please note that north and south are on the sides. I need to work on geology and weather and ice caps and stuff like that. I'm going to remake this soon I just threw it together in photoshop.

My question is how does one build a worldwide climate? Should I start with tectonic plates and work my way from there? I know Ataria needs some mountains and oceans but I'm such a detail freak I don't know where to start. Because mountains and oceans or seas relate to weather and rain patterns. Delphos is roughly earth sized. Probably a little bigger.

Any comments or links to tutorials would be helpful. I took a geology course but it was an intro. I might be over thinking this for a story that probably doesn't need that level of detail but I want to at least try and see where it takes me.

Thank you for any feedback.

[micaholism]

I know you're looking for a really in-depth answer, and there are plenty of people around here qualified to give one, but in my experience it's more worthwhile to do a broadstrokes geography and roll with it then. Then if someone points out a really jarring issue you can address it, but usually most simple errors can be attributed to "a wizard did it" or an unshown feature of geography (maybe a lake showing up with no incoming rivers is actually on top of a breached aquifer or spring?)

That being said, there are some links and tutorials up in the https://www.cartographersguild.com/f...splay.php?f=48 section of the site, and Azelor posted a "Köppen–Geiger climate classification made simpler" thread right in this subforum!

Also I love the subtitles here, especially the "really bad anarchists"

[Aera]

Also I love the subtitles here, especially the "really bad anarchists"

Plot twist: They're the good guys.


Thank you for that suggestion. I did start to add some mountains and lakes around Ataria with some rivers and such. Also, another mountain range on Jal. I placed my equator line and some other things. So I am forging along that path because honestly, this book doesn't need that level of world building. It's more romance leaning. But there are some political and military details that make me want to understand the lay of the land.

[rdanhenry]

Really bad anarchists would be totalitarians with an effective, efficient bureaucracy that wasn't too oppressive, so it had popular support and the government is essentially stable forever barring external interference. The Confederacy of Atra are probably quite good anarchists, as confederations are so weak and useless that they're the next best thing to not having a government.

I'm not sure what the scale is supposed to be. Ataria is a "supercontinent", but if those two parts of Jäl are going to join up, it's going to have to be nearly as big, if not bigger.

[Aera]

Here's a small update where I rearranged things to be easier to understand. I'm still struggling with the scale of the land masses as well. I just know from Kessra's coastal area to Ipsla would be two days sailing. Although that might need to be adjusted.

[Falconius]

Assuming an average speed of 8 nautical miles an hour they'd cover 384 nautical miles. Or roughly the distance from the tip of southern England to the northern coast of Spain. Which would make Delphia bigger than current day France, so maybe like a France with half of Germany added on. Which would make all of those countries you have there pretty enormous. Generally speaking there tend to be rather a few large countries and many more smaller ones. And going back in history this tended to be even more true (until some military monolith gobbled up a huge swath of the world for a bit, which would inevitably break up after the person behind the military surge was dead or gone).

[Aera]

Thank you for the tips. That actually sounds about right. Even if it sounds strange. Delphos is about our level of technology if not a bit more advanced which makes Atra something like a modern-day superpower, bordering on trying to unite the entire world under its banner. However, the South Western countries outside of Atra are war-torn so they should look different. Much smaller and broken up if they still exist at all as true countries.

[Falconius]

Oh I was assuming it was medieval sailing technology level. In that case the ships would travel much faster. At least 20 knots plus for a modern screw propeller ship. Which would very nearly triple my size estimates. Even if they were still using sail technology the last clippers and brigs of the age of sail would do close to 20 knots.

[Aera]

I made some minor updates but I might need to redraw it.