Opinions on the Geography of My Setting

[The TechnoGnome]

So I'm building my own setting, inspired by and loosely following Burlew's New World guidelines, but I've hit a snag on what kind of geography I want for my world.

To give a (very) brief summary of the history of the setting, basically a bunch of races fled across the ocean on giant ships from the forces of an evil God known only as 'the Nameless One' with the help of their own gods, and arrived in the area to find the ruins of an ancient empire, and several other races attempting to pick up the pieces. They fought for a while, but eventually most people on both sides decided that they both were in kind of a crappy situation, and made peace in order to help rebuild together, eventually resulting in four separate nations based on the different methods and ideas of the groups in question. At the time of the game, the nations are rather well established, and now are planning on either expanding into the wilderness around them, or at the very least plundering the ruins of the dead empire that no one's managed to get to yet.

Now, my main issue is that I want my game to have kind of a theme of progress and exploration, but I don't know how I want to do that, and the setting may end up deciding that for me if I'm not careful. Up until this point, I had operated on the assumption that I would be putting the setting on one major continent, with the empires mostly hugging the coasts and wanting to expand inwards. But as is, I also kinda want one of the nations to retain the 'seafaring' aspect that brought their ancestors to the land, and basically focus on sea trade and travel... Which seems a little out of place if everyone is on one continent that more the size of Australia than Asia, with no real desire (and maybe even a fear) of traveling away from it. Plus, if all the ships came from the same distant continent, logically they would all be hugging the same coastline on one side, which feels like it may be a bit too crowded.

Therefore, I've been debating instead putting the setting on an island chain, like the Carribean or Hawaii. It would more emphasize sea travel while tying in more with the whole 'exploration' aspect of the theme. Only thing is, I'm worried that would put the focus too much on sea travel, and not give enough space to both have the kingdoms and their towns and such, and enough wilderness to actually explore and put some tribal holdouts in.

I've also though of a compromise, with either one major continent that has a large inland sea and tiny islands of their own, or a smaller continent (or unusually large island like Japan or Madagascar) with smaller islands dotting the area around it. Though that may have issues of its own, not the least of which is deciding who or what gets the 'mainland' and what gets the islands.

Ideas and opinions are appreciated, as I am having a hard time deciding what to do myself. The only other person I've asked so far likes the archipelago idea, with atolls and sandbars to fight on, but he may just like the idea for the novelty of it, which is admittedly one potential argument in favor, but I also don't want to do something that will be that central to the setting just because it would be different, as it comes off a bit tacky to me to do that. If needed, I can elaborate on the setting more as well, but it's all a work in progress, so I may not have all the answer you would want just yet.

[avr]

Maybe past this continent there's another with a well-established empire? It can be insular like China in an inward-looking phase, not looking to expand or allow in refugees, but willing to allow limited trade, and dangerous enough that the new kingdoms won't want to start a war just now. This gives your seafarers somewhere to go.

[The TechnoGnome]

Maybe past this continent there's another with a well-established empire? It can be insular like China in an inward-looking phase, not looking to expand or allow in refugees, but willing to allow limited trade, and dangerous enough that the new kingdoms won't want to start a war just now. This gives your seafarers somewhere to go.

Hmm... Maybe. Of course, that means thinking of the basics of a new nation, unless I decide to adapt the 'native-run' kingdom into it. Though that wouldn't really explain the insular part, and it would kind of invalidate the whole 'sharing the land' thing that started the early conflict in the first place. And an entirely new empire has issues of its own, especially if they knew about the previous empire that was on the continent before the new ones. Doubly so if they were friendly with said empire, since said empire fell due to the other 'native races' revolting after being enslaved.

That said, it's a possible idea. A problematic, yet interesting idea.

[Draconi Redfir]

what might be easiest is to say that there's just one continent, more space for land adventures and the like.

what could make this continent special (and allow people to spread out) is a system of large rivers running through it, maybe all leading to a central lake in the middle of the continent, perhaps the lake and the rivers are even man-made by your anciant empire.

When the new people showed up, they started using these rivers to travel to newer locations on the island, maybe even after the peace was established each of the nations agreed to meet in the middle of the central lake, then each take a different river path to settle themselves down to ensure they would not get in one annother's way again.

This way your sea-fairing nation could keep it's water dependance, simply adjust it for use in large rivers. Perhaps they've even developed steamboats and other powered ships to allow traveling upwind or upriver.

[VoxRationis]

You could make the seafaring nation to have drawn the short straw, as it were, and settled along the continent in the desert latitudes. It would give them little incentive to expand inwards beyond the coast and would incentivize water trade with the port cities of their neighbors. Land trade is already difficult and inefficient; having to trek through a desert makes it worse (though not impossible).

[The TechnoGnome]

what might be easiest is to say that there's just one continent, more space for land adventures and the like.

what could make this continent special (and allow people to spread out) is a system of large rivers running through it, maybe all leading to a central lake in the middle of the continent, perhaps the lake and the rivers are even man-made by your anciant empire.

When the new people showed up, they started using these rivers to travel to newer locations on the island, maybe even after the peace was established each of the nations agreed to meet in the middle of the central lake, then each take a different river path to settle themselves down to ensure they would not get in one annother's way again.

This way your sea-fairing nation could keep it's water dependance, simply adjust it for use in large rivers. Perhaps they've even developed steamboats and other powered ships to allow traveling upwind or upriver.

You know, that's a pretty interesting idea. I already had the idea of a central meeting place for the leaders of the different nations, on a mountain in the middle of the continent. Replace that with an island and it fits right in. Plus, the river system brings to mind the rather famous ones in the Americas, like the Amazon and the Mississippi, which fits very well with the whole 'New World exploration' theme. And all those rivers would also help feed the swamp area I want there as well.

Yeah, I'm really liking this one. Not necessarily the most realistic, but that's far from the worst thing in the world. And the continent might have to be pretty humid to support such large water systems, but that might not necessarily be a bad thing either.

Only thing is that it's pretty important to some of my other plans that they not necessarily have steam power just yet, at least not the traditional kind, since the overall tech level is around early Renaissance. But that doesn't prevent other methods of powering ships without sails, magical or otherwise, so that probably wouldn't be a big deal either. And heck, maybe said nation has their own Da Vinci analogue that helped them build the kind of ships that let them capitalize on the unique river system they have.

You could make the seafaring nation to have drawn the short straw, as it were, and settled along the continent in the desert latitudes. It would give them little incentive to expand inwards beyond the coast and would incentivize water trade with the port cities of their neighbors. Land trade is already difficult and inefficient; having to trek through a desert makes it worse (though not impossible).

This isn't a bad idea either. And heck, other than the humidity thing it may not necessarily be mutually exclusive with the above if the main cities of said nation have a Nile analogue to run the ships through as well.

[Max_Killjoy]

Draw up a continent with a large mountain chain close to the windward side. The moist air coming off the ocean will be wrung out try the mountains, resulting in a lot of rainfall along the coast and a dry interior beyond the mountains. Both the mountains and the dry interior will form a barrier inland of the coastal zone, but not necessarily an insurmountable one.

All that rainfall along the coast will result in lush land and many middling-sized waterways. Perhaps some of those waterways are navigable, and some are fast rapids crashing down to the ocean. All those rivers and rough land and thick forests also create natural buffers between the different countries.

The different peoples have reasons to retain their seafaring ways -- it's easier to trade up and down the coasts, and use the navigable rivers to journey inland, than it is to carve roads out.

And if they're exploring, they can follow the coast around the continent, competing to establish colonies in other places along the coast, trade outposts or embassies with other peoples they encounter, etc.


Meanwhile, maybe there's this hidden city-state somewhere in the deep interior of this continent where the people worship the The Nameless One... woe to the world when some brave but foolhardy explorers stumble upon it.

[The TechnoGnome]

Draw up a continent with a large mountain chain close to the windward side. The moist air coming off the ocean will be wrung out try the mountains, resulting in a lot of rainfall along the coast and a dry interior beyond the mountains. Both the mountains and the dry interior will form a barrier inland of the coastal zone, but not necessarily an insurmountable one.

All that rainfall along the coast will result in lush land and many middling-sized waterways. Perhaps some of those waterways are navigable, and some are fast rapids crashing down to the ocean. All those rivers and rough land and thick forests also create natural buffers between the different countries.

The different peoples have reasons to retain their seafaring ways -- it's easier to trade up and down the coasts, and use the navigable rivers to journey inland, than it is to carve roads out.

And if they're exploring, they can follow the coast around the continent, competing to establish colonies in other places along the coast, trade outposts or embassies with other peoples they encounter, etc.


Meanwhile, maybe there's this hidden city-state somewhere in the deep interior of this continent where the people worship the The Nameless One... woe to the world when some brave but foolhardy explorers stumble upon it.

Hmm... interesting idea. Not exactly what I envisioned, but considering I know very little about what a realistic climate that would give me exactly what I want would be like, I may just have to take you up on that. I would probably have to actually draw up what you're talking about and see how it looks before I know for sure, though... assuming I interpret what you're saying correctly, of course.

[Knaight]

I'd go with the archipelago idea, while having a few large islands. Then you can both have reasonably well developed islands with everything on them, while retaining the flavor of sea travel. On top of that, it also lets you have some fun with smaller ships, as an archipelago is going to have a lot of areas with comparatively shallow water which giant ships are going to have big problems with. I can also confirm that this works, as one of my more major settings that gets used for multiple campaigns is an archipelago, with three major islands and numerous small ones.