Arlyan's Biggest Project Yet (map)

[Arlyan]

Following Kaez's perfectly scientific method, awritersrecluse.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=prof&action=display&thread=1791&page=7#131768 I have begun my first step, a map!

Things I would appreciate comments on include, but are not limited to:
Scale (I have no idea how to figure out how big it realistically should be in order to fit 4 or so civilizations)
Do all the land zones make sense just by looking at it?

And, most importantly, where would you like to live in that land?

[o ding]

Probably the lava field. I'd have a nice big house and it'd burn down and I would burn to death with it.

[Kaez]

The woodlands, assuming the forest was uninhabitable, would be the place I'd most want to live.

And scale just depends how big you want it to be. Realistically is whatever you make it. If you want the mountains you drew to be a single chain, then it is not going to be very big. If you want them to be a representation of many mountain chains along that area, it would be quite large. This is why hand-drawing a map helps, and if you don't think you're able to, I'd be willing to lend you a hand there.

And the only think I wonder is how the desert leads into tropics and rainforest. The only logic for that would require mountains between them.

[Arlyan]

I'm thinking the scale could be somewhere along the lines of the same size of Texas-ish to the west coast, if that makes sense.
Basically, half the size of the U.S. Anything bigger just seems too much to work with. I'm picturing 3-5 different civilizations living on the continent, so I think the size should work out.

You are correct in that the desert should have mountains bordering it with the tropics and rainforest, but before I do that, I'm trying to toy with some magical explanations.

Descriptions of the woodlands and forests will be up in a bit, time permitting. I might take you up on that offer of a hand-drawn map once things get a bit more concrete. Thanks for offering.

And schro, I'm thinking of having a civilization living on the lava fields. They probably won't live in wood houses though

[Arlyan]

The Mistlands have been particularly intriguing to me since I began this project, so I thought it would be good to post some things regarding them.

The Mistlands
Damp, dark, and cool. There is an ever-present, thick mist over the lands, giving the area it’s name. During the day, visibility is roughly 10-20 feet, and at night, one is nearly blind.

The floor is covered in thick moss, muffling any noise of travel. Giant mushrooms grow to the size of large oak trees, and some species give off a faint light.

Those who live near the borders of the Mistlands avoid entering, as few who do ever return, and those that do, say there’s no sign of anything worth traveling there for.

There have been sightings near the edges of the mists of a strange cat-like creature, jet black, hairless, the size of a lynx, and agile to the extreme. Hunters of the Northern Forests occasionally claim to have seen these cats, called Stalkers, slaughter and drag full grown bears back into the mists.


So those are the Mistlands. I’m debating on having a secluded race living deep inside the Mistlands, but I need to weigh the pros and cons of that first.
Comments are GREATLY appreciated on this here, what else do you think should exist in the Mistlands, why, etc.

Next up, the prosperous peoples of [Civilization A]!

(Kaez, that's a pretty cool trick you did with the brackets, will the same thing work for me after i get names set?)

[Kaez]

Sure, it will.