# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Regional/World Mapping >  Yantas - A Pretty Amateur WIP

## sangi39

As I mentioned in my introduction, I've had basically no experience whatsoever with world-building, let alone map-making, with my last attempt at a conworld being undertaken over ten years ago when I was around 14 in a very basic form which as soon abandoned in favour of setting all my work on Earth. But here I am now embarking on something entirely new and different in my life as a conlanger.

Everything I'm about to post has been done almost solely in Paint but I did use GIMP to convert the images into spheres just to double check on a few things. The maps use a plate carree projection for the sake of simplicity in earlier drafts which was simply carried on into later stages.



My current attempt at creating a conworld is very bottom-up, starting at first with the positions of the tectonic plates, then their absolute movements and speeds, followed by their relative motions and from there working out which boundary types, e.g. convergent, transform, etc. would occur at a given plate boundary. Everything up to this point is shown in this map:



*Key*

_Light Blue Plates_: Oceanic plates
_Light Brown Plates_: Continental plates
_Numbers (e.g. 70, 10, etc.)_: Speed of tectonic plates in mm per year
_Red lines_: Convergent boundaries
_Yellow lines_: Transform boundaries
_Green lines_: Divergent boundaries
_Dark Blue dots_: Subduction zones
_Dark Brown dots_: Continental collisions



After this stage I developed the basic outline of the actual land-masses and finally gave them some names and a basic outline of their features:



The dark blue and blue-grey areas mark out the areas of the ocean greater than 500m below sea level while the light blue areas are the regions of water that lie above 500m below sea level. The green areas then mark basically all the major land masses on the continental plates above sea level with the dark brown lines indicating where mountain ranges resulting from current convergent boundaries would exist.



At this point the map is missing anything in the way of greater detail referring to the varying height of the continents, any indication of islands or island chains resulting from subduction zones. I did eventually add what I thought might be the more plausible island chains, as shown in the most up-to-date map below:



After adding the island chains I realised that the Eastern Ocean only covered the plate directly "east" of the Central Ocean while what was originally the southern Eastern Ocean and the Southern Sea could be grouped together to form a unified Southern Ocean, thus giving _Yantas_ four oceans, i.e. Eastern, Western, Northern and Southern (which will be renamed once I have those words in the conlang I'm developing for these maps).



And that's where I'm up to so far. Probably not too impressive, but since I focus primarily on conlangs I have almost no experience with anything like Inkscape, GIMP or Photoshop (although I do have Inkscape and GIMP on my laptop). At the moment, however, I'm more worried about plausibility. I like the current look of _Yantas_, but having not studied anything to do with tectonic plates and boundaries since I finished GCSE geography in 2005, I'm a little rusty  :Razz:  As a result, I'm looking for any criticism regarding how plausible this world is in its current stage of development, not so much how not so great the maps actually are because I know they're really not great.

Anyway, thanks to anyone who reads this and thanks again to anyone who might be able to help  :Smile: 


EDIT: Oh, and as a rough guide, at the equator is about 25,600 miles (about 700 miles longer than Earth's)  :Smile:

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## Falconius

I disagree that is very impressive actually.  i never have the patience for it and just go in backwards.

I was looking at the Earths plates recently for my own map and noticed that most continents have very large sea shelfs on one side of the land (from which the are moving away, usually as much land as there is there will be at least that again underwater as part of the same shelf) and only the forward edge of the plate is actually close to land for the most part.  I'd also suggest you give yourself more leeway on land forms starting with a fair amount of freedom whilst keeping the plates in mind, and then see what you have, and then transform that on tectonic principles, and then add pieces based on tectonic movement (like islands etc.).  I'm sure you won't forget, but also remember volcanic formation of land which is always really cool.

PS what does the prefix "con-" mean in this context?  Constructed?

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## madbird-valiant

Christ, there's something I never bother with  :Razz:  Kudos for going in-depth with it all, man, but I sure wouldn't have the patience for it.

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## sangi39

> I disagree that is very impressive actually.  i never have the patience for it and just go in backwards.


Thanks very much for that  :Very Happy: 




> I was looking at the Earths plates recently for my own map and noticed that most continents have very large sea shelfs on one side of the land (from which the are moving away, usually as much land as there is there will be at least that again underwater as part of the same shelf) and only the forward edge of the plate is actually close to land for the most part.


I've recently started noticing that myself. Looking at this map:



... the Earth has basically two large, purely oceanic plates, the Pacific Plate and the Nazca Plate. The rest of the oceans are the result of a spreading sea floor associated with a large land-mass at the head-end of the plates movement, most noticeable with the two American plates and then Eurasia and Africa.




> I'd also suggest you give yourself more leeway on land forms starting with a fair amount of freedom whilst keeping the plates in mind, and then see what you have, and then transform that on tectonic principles, and then add pieces based on tectonic movement (like islands etc.).  I'm sure you won't forget, but also remember volcanic formation of land which is always really cool.


Looking at the map above, that doesn't seem like a bad idea. I could merge some of the oceanic plates with the continental ones, especially the ones I had originally conceived as just being something oceans happened to be on top of, such as the plate between western Arenda and eastern Hungas.

I could also change the direction of the Velkasta plate and merge it with the plate that covers what I'm currently calling the Southern Ocean (formerly the southern portion of the Eastern Ocean) and get basically the same results.

This could get interesting  :Very Happy: 




> PS what does the prefix "con-" mean in this context?  Constructed?


Yep  :Smile:  You've got things like conlangs (constructed languages, as opposed to natlangs, i.e. natural languages), conworlds (constructed worlds, as opposed to real-world planets), concultures (constructed cultures), conscripts (constructed scripts  :Razz:  ), etc. 

There terms used quite frequently on conlanging forums like the ZBB (Zompist Bulletin Board) and the CBB (Conlang Bulletin Board).

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## sangi39

Well, I've taken some of Falconius' advice and, starting with the land masses that I derived from the initial tectonic plates, redrawn new tectonic plates based upon those land masses. Circular, I know, but it seems to have gone fairly well. Here's the current result:



I still have to work out things like island and mountain formation as the result of tectonic movement, as well as the relative motion of plates at boundaries, but I'm a bit happier with this layout than the older one and it gives me more leeway with my major land masses within plate boundaries, whereas before they were just wasn't enough room.

For example, with the _Hungas_ and eastern _Arenda_ plates now pulling away from each other, rather than bordering a purely oceanic plate, I now have room to work on adding larger islands and I can now work on more interesting, and more importantly _inland_ mountain ranges in areas like _Mistaya_.

Anyway, a lot happier with this, but time to work out relative plate movements  :Very Happy:

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## sangi39

So, the possibly confusing map below shows all of the following:

*Absolute Plate Movement* with _red arrows_
*Convergent Plate Boundaries* in _red_
*Transform Boundaries* in _yellow_
*Divergent Boundaries* in _green_
*Mountain Ranges* in _brown_
*Island Chains* in _grey_



It's a bit of a mess to be fair, but I'm only using this map very briefly to show how the position of mountain ranges and island chains was decided on to create a sense of realism about _Yantas_. After that it's all about adding greater and greater detail to the various regions of the planet.

But for now, enjoy your seizures  :Razz:

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## sangi39

So, here's the most up-to-date version of _Yantas_, including island chains, mountain ranges and the initial indications of altitude:



Thankfully, it's a lot less of a mess than the previous post, but from now on we can pretty much ignore that map for anything other than justifications regarding new features which might occur at, say, plate boundaries. I am planning on adding things like plateaus and mountain ranges resulting from previous geological activity, and eventually adding greater detail in regards to altitude (I mean 0 - 1500m covers almost the altitude range of Britain  :Razz:  ) but this where I am at the moment.

I also have this larger map, but it's just a blown up map so things some of the mountain ranges and island chains are a bit clearer.

Oh, and I've decided to divide _Arenda_ into two continents, with _Arenda_ now referring the large mountain range running north to south and the area to the west of that while _Konyur_ refers to the east-to-west orientated area to the east of this range, including the far-eastern mountain range and the area to the south of that.

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## sangi39

Ok, so, as per advice of a user on the ZBB (and the CBB), under the username Salmoneus, I've tried to come up with a map of ocean currents on _Yantas_, before moving on to a climate map. I think this is more or less right, but there's an area east of _Sirden_ that I have no frelling idea what to do with. Anyway, here it be:



What do people think? Is there something that could be improved or is the whole thing just plain wrong?

EDIT: I have just notices that one arrow, 30 degrees north of the equator and above 80-90 degrees east is facing the wrong way [ :Razz: ]

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## foremost

Hello sangi!

First off, it's neat to see this type of development on a map. Not to disparage some of the mapmakers on this forum, but often-times the land does not look very realistic in it's shape or form. This is because mapmakers may not be familiar with the types of Earth Science shown here. Being a freshman in high-school myself, I've only recently studied plate movement in-depth. While you have (for the most part) done a nice job with the placement of the mountains, I wanted to make sure all of the future additions to the map are placed correctly.

On a collision boundary between two land plates, there are mountains; the crust has nowhere to go but up.

On a diverging boundary, shield volcanos (gentle) raise up. Check out the Mid-Atlantic Ridge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for an underwater example, as well.

On a collision boundary between two land plates, one ocean crust is pushed under the other. The rock and water trapped under plate #2 fuels the creation of magma. On this boundary you have cone volcanoes (active) and a trench (located where one plate goes under the other).

On a collision boundary between one land mass and one ocean, you'll find an off-shore trench and cone volcanoes.

On a sliding boundary, where one plate is going past the other, you'll have a fault. http://earthquake.usgs.gov/hazards/q...sanandreas.jpg

Note that earthquakes (and, when underwater boundaries are involved, Tsunamis) will occur at many plate boundaries. An island chain is formed by the movement of a hot-spot (mantle plume) moving with the plate. Bigger islands are newer because they have not yet been subject to weathering.

You do not have good puzzel fit in your map. Where two plates are pulling apart, the land will divide. Look at South America and Africa on a real map; you see how they were likely once connected. Your continents where the plates pull apart might look like they fit together more.

I bet you know most of what I said, and in saying it I don't mean to offend you in any way. Just my suggestions; I took time to comment not because I want to criticize the map, but because I want to make sure it's the best it can be.

-FM

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## sangi39

> Hello sangi!
> 
> First off, it's neat to see this type of development on a map. Not to disparage some of the mapmakers on this forum, but often-times the land does not look very realistic in it's shape or form. This is because mapmakers may not be familiar with the types of Earth Science shown here. Being a freshman in high-school myself, I've only recently studied plate movement in-depth. While you have (for the most part) done a nice job with the placement of the mountains, I wanted to make sure all of the future additions to the map are placed correctly.


Thanks  :Smile:  (although I'm not sure what a "freshman in high-school" actually is, lol. On of those lovely differences between the US and UK education systems  :Razz:  )

I like to aim for at least some semblance of realism or, at the very least, plausibility in what I do. If that gives me some extra work to do, then great, hopefully I won't get bored  :Very Happy: 




> Useful stuff and things I've cut down to make space


Definitely useful, and all things I've tried to take into account in my drafts so far  :Smile:  (especially in regards to mountains, due to the effect they can have on climate)




> You do not have good puzzle fit in your map. Where two plates are pulling apart, the land will divide. Look at South America and Africa on a real map; you see how they were likely once connected. Your continents where the plates pull apart might look like they fit together more.


Yeah, that's something I'm still working on. Obviously to do that I'd have to back track the movement of the continents to see what their earlier neighbours would be in order to do a better job of it. As with South America and Africa it's most obvious at the moment in the western coast of _Arenda_ and the eastern coasts of _Hungas_ and _Mistaya_. Exactly how the other continents fit together, I don't know yet.

Saying that, looking at this map:



If you were to look at the globe today, it's surprising they managed to match up North America and Eurasia, but there you go  :Smile: 




> I bet you know most of what I said, and in saying it I don't mean to offend you in any way. Just my suggestions; I took time to comment not because I want to criticize the map, but because I want to make sure it's the best it can be.
> 
> -FM


Nah, didn't think you were offending (didn't find it offensive  :Razz: ), but it's always good to get some constructive criticism  :Smile:

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## sangi39

So, I've been trying to work out the air pressure systems for (the equivalents of) July and January, but I'm honestly completely stuck. Here's what I have so far:

Northern Summer (~July)



Northern Winter (~January)



Dark blue horizontal lines indicate the low pressure ITCZ, red indicates the high pressure STHZ while light blue indicates the low pressure PF. Red circles indicate what I think would be the rough centre of continental high pressure zones while blue circles would indicate continental low pressure zones. The central black line marks the boundary between the northern and southern pressure systems.

Now, I'm completely stuck on where to go from here and exactly how the pressure zones would interact with each other, so any advice would be a pretty big help  :Smile:

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## Azélor

Wait, I think you made a mistake. High pressure comes from high temperature zone and vice-versa for low pressure. When exposed to to an increasing amont of light, the earth heats up faster than the ocean. And in winter the ocean cool down slower than the continent. Hot air rise and move to lower pressure zone in a fashion described here: The Climate Cookbook

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## su_liam

No offense Azelor, but you have it backwards. Kind of.

 As a prevailing seasonal thing, hot air rises leaving a surface level low. Surrounding higher pressure air spirals in to replace the air that rose away. Look at a surface level pressure map and you will see a strong winter high over Siberia. Well. Ordinarily. At the moment it seems to be over the northwestern part of North America.

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## sangi39

> Wait, I think you made a mistake. High pressure comes from high temperature zone and vice-versa for low pressure. When exposed to to an increasing amont of light, the earth heats up faster than the ocean. And in winter the ocean cool down slower than the continent. Hot air rise and move to lower pressure zone in a fashion described here: The Climate Cookbook






> No offense Azelor, but you have it backwards. Kind of.
> 
>  As a prevailing seasonal thing, hot air rises leaving a surface level low. Surrounding higher pressure air spirals in to replace the air that rose away. Look at a surface level pressure map and you will see a strong winter high over Siberia. Well. Ordinarily. At the moment it seems to be over the northwestern part of North America.


I'm going to have to agree with su_liam, here. I've been using the Climate Cookbook for the basics of my drafts, and the information there effectively sums up as the following:



```
Belt Pressure
ITCZ Low
STHZ High
PF   Low

Hemisphere : January Pressure : July Pressure
Northern   : High (Winter)    : Low  (Summer)
Southern   : Low  (Summer)    : High (Winter)
```

As demonstrated here:




> In winter (_in the northern hemisphere, since that's what Bricka deals with_), the cooling of the land creates a high-pressure area over the interior
> 
> ...
> 
> while in summer (_northern hemisphere again_) the land warms to create a low-pressure area
> 
> (_the southern hemisphere thus follows the opposite pattern_)


As su_liam points out, hot air rising causes low pressure regions, with the air rising when the land is warm in the summer, while high pressure areas form when the land is cooler in the winter.



Now, back to the main point of the question, Bricka tends only to discuss pressures and wind directions in and around the STHZ, rather than in the PF or the ITCZ, so I'm going to assume that either a) there isn't much of a difference in those areas between the summer and winter months and that the major differences occur in the STHZ or that b) Bricka's information on the subject is lacking.

Since I can't be sure which conclusion is correct, I don't feel confident carrying on this section of my work without advice from those more knowledgeable than myself.

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## Savannah

I can't help you with the pressure systems, unfortunately, but I really like how you're going into this detail beforehand instead of making it fit after the fact.

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## sangi39

> I can't help you with the pressure systems, unfortunately, but I really like how you're going into this detail beforehand instead of making it fit after the fact.


Thanks, Savannah  :Smile:  I've tried to create a conworld and then work backwards to explain why certain things are the way they are after I've got the bulk of the work out the way and done with, but I've found that you're a lot more likely to end up having to change things all over the place after finding out something's in the wrong place, or the temperature is inconsistent with local realistic wind systems, etc. This time I've opted to start from the very, very basics and work up. It's a lot more work, but at least this way, once something's finished, e.g. plate tectonics, air pressure, etc. with the various layers being built one on top of the other in a realistic and consistent manner, the results need less fiddling with later on.

It's a lot of hard work for details that are likely never going to be mentioned in any great detail anywhere but in the initial development of the conworld, but I'm hoping that it'll make things easier down the road  :Smile:

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## sangi39

Just another question as an aside. I'm thinking that this world will have two moons, rather than a single moon. Other than the effect this situation would have on ocean tides, would it have any effect over larger oceanic currents or wind systems, or any effect over the climate at all?

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## Falconius

I'm sure it would.  I'd say treat one moon as the primary effect and then treat another moon completely separately so you'd have two sets of data.  Then intersect the two data sets giving weight to the primary.  It might not be accurate, but it would simulate accuracy.

As far as I know planets with more than one moon have them in distinct orbit farther out than one another, so obviously the closet one would get the primary treatment.

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## Azélor

I suppose a second moon would have only a small impact on climate. I heard the Moon was stabilizing Earth's rotation but I don't know the consequences of having another one. But the second moon should either be very small or much farther than the first, else you might fall into the n-body problem. Well, it depend how much you want it to be realistic.

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## su_liam

Depends on the size of the moons. A couple of glorified asteroids like Phobos and Deimos won't give much but a bit of color and something to make the calendar interesting. A couple of Luna-sized monsters could have enormous effects on the tides, although the second moon would have to follow a much more distant orbit and tides scale to the inverse cube of distance, so even if it was more massive its tides would likely be weaker.

Google Gravity Simulator to get a tool to test the stability of your lunar orbits.

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## sangi39

Thought I'd put these up quickly, since gong to bed now and might be too busy for the rest of the week to do anything more substantial, but I was wondering if, roughly, the latitudes for these very very simple temperature zones are right:

July (northern summer, southern winter):





January (northern winter, southern summer):





Here I've based temperature entirely on latitude. I haven't taken into account altitude or oceanic currents (although I have used the currents map I posted before so that we can see where they are, making it easier later on), so this is very very rough, as I mentioned before.

Obviously I'll attempt something more in depth later on, but, you know, Christmas [ :Razz: ]

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## sangi39

I've done some more work on the coasts and islands of _Yantas_, not much, but some:



(You can find a larger image here)

I've messed around with _Velkasta_, it was just too thin for my liking (which makes sense, given the projection), the north-eastern corner of _Mistaya_, the south-western portion of _Sirden_ and the northern coast of _Konyur_ and I think overall I'm a bit happier with the results than my original attempts.

Next up, creating a better altitude map, which could help me sort out the climates a little bit better  :Smile:

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## sangi39

I've tried coming up with a bit of a better altitude map, using Zirojtan's key as a base. I've only drawn up rough areas for 0-500m (dark green), 500-1000m (light green), 1000-2000m (grey-y blue), 2000-4000m (teal?) and 4000-6000m (brown) and 6000+ (whitish), since what I'm looking for, again, is just some feedback on whether they work where they are and whether their sizes work. Below is the smaller version of the map:



It's a lot less clear than the actual map, _here_, but it should give you some idea of what you'll see there  :Smile: 

NOTE: The sketch itself isn't complete yet, which is why _Velkasta_ and western _Hungas_ have no mountains  :Razz: , but I've got someone coming round so I thought I'd post what I have already  :Smile:

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## Azélor

I have found two map that might help you : 

http://www.case.edu/artsci/anth/alti...de%20areas.jpg
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/maps...ief_1968_o.jpg

to sum up, I think your altitude map make sense. One thing that would be nice is if the zones could have a different width and maximum altitude ( alittle bit more of variation). For example of what I mean, just look at South and North America. The mountain zone in the south is higher but thiner. 

About the temperature map : It look ok but since climate is different even at the same latitude (I bet you don't even have snow right now in the UK) it's hard to judge right now.

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## sangi39

Yeah, looking at the first map you've provided, I see what you mean (and on a slightly off-note, I never noticed how wide the mountains in the west of North America actually are).

As for the temperature map, I did point out in that post that I was basing it entirely on latitude ("Here I've based temperature entirely on latitude. I haven't taken into account altitude or oceanic currents"), I was just wondering if the rough spacing of temperatures in relation to latitude were OK, before I started moving on to take things similar to the Gulf Stream or the effect of altitude into account  :Smile: 

(And yeah, we don't have snow yet, even in Yorkshire. We had a little bit of snow, but it didn't settle. It probably won't turn up until maybe mid-January  :Razz:  )

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## sangi39

While I'm still working on actually finishing the altitude map of Yantas, I thought I'd post my work so far, which includes the heights of the various approximate maximum peaks (to the nearest 1000m) of the 12 major mountain ranges of the planet.



As you can see, at the moment they're only labelled as _A_ through to _L_, but that's literally because I haven't decided on names for them yet  :Razz:  I'm hoping this attempt is better than my last one  :Smile: 

You can find the full sized image here  :Smile:

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## Falconius

Are you still using Paint for most of this?  With your level of detail I feel you would benefit greatly from switching to a more advanced program that could handle layers like GIMP.  Granted you arn't at the stage where you need all the tweaks available, but on an organizational level and with the level of detail you are going into I think you may very well discover you are limiting yourself unintentionally with Paint.

Either way, I love seeing the build up of this world.  Keep it up  :Smile:

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## sangi39

> Are you still using Paint for most of this?  With your level of detail I feel you would benefit greatly from switching to a more advanced program that could handle layers like GIMP.  Granted you arn't at the stage where you need all the tweaks available, but on an organizational level and with the level of detail you are going into I think you may very well discover you are limiting yourself unintentionally with Paint.


Yeah, I'm still on Paint  :Razz:  I'm still coming to grips with GIMP through the various tutorials of the Guild before I move on from Paint, but I'm trying to develop at least the basics of this world at the same time  :Smile: 






> Either way, I love seeing the build up of this world.  Keep it up


Will do  :Smile:

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## sangi39

So, while I'm working on getting a bit more used to GIMP, I was talking to a user on one of the other forums I'm on (the CBB) about plateaus and basins and I've come up with a basic idea of where I might place them (plateaus in red, basins in yellow:



That user has yet to reply to this particular map update, but I'd thought I'd post it here too, just to get some more opinions  :Smile: 

Oh, I was also thinking of adding something along the south-eastern edge of the mountains in Mistaya as well.

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## sangi39

I ended up not working on this very much after Christmas (then New Year's came, then my wife's birthday and then two weeks away from my laptop  :Razz: ) so I've spent most of my time trying to put all the information I had into layers on GIMP, which, because I left doing that for so long, took me some time  :Razz: 

Anyway, I have gone a little further, not much. Right now I have a slightly more detailed temperature map for July and January, but it's still very much based on latitude:

January:



July:



There's no indication of tempertures being affected by mountain ranges or glaciers and I haven't yet gotten to indicating how surface temperature in the oceans and nearer the coast is affected by ocean currents (the thicker blue lines indicate equatorial counter-currents, but I'm not too sure on them), but in general it seems roughly correct.

It looks a bit weird because of the lack of smooth transition in temperatures between the ocean and the land, but looking at this site:

7(m) Global Surface Temperature Distribution

... it seems okay. The land is warmer in July further north than in the ocean and vice versa in southern January. The one problem is the lack of large, _wide_ landmasses on Earth, other than Australia, in the southern hemisphere whereas on Yantas there's Sirden  :Smile: 

Anyway, hope that makes sense. There's no set scale yet other than red is really hot and dark blue is really cold, but I'm hoping it should be fairly obvious what's going on  :Smile:

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## sangi39

Okay, so to add to my last post, I've tried taking ocean currents into account, changing the temperature of the coasts and oceans step by step. This what I have so far for January:



Is this realistic or have I gone wrong somewhere?

(the brown lines indicate newer, ongoing mountain formation phases, while those in purple are remnant ranges from now inactive mountain formation phases  :Smile: )

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## Jalyha

something's off just around your equator, I think... but I can't figure out what, it just feels off... it should be *hotter* on the land about the equator... not cooler... right?  :Smile:   Maybe it's something easily fixed when adding in precipitation? 

I've been using a different method, so I'm not sure :/

Also...  The lines/transitions seem too smooth somehow  ... (worse to the edges of the map, in any direction, so might be details you've not added yet?)


I wish I could be more help, but I'm new to this and don't want to say something wrong when it's not cause I did mine different methods!  :Razz:

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## sangi39

> something's off just around your equator, I think... but I can't figure out what, it just feels off... it should be *hotter* on the land about the equator... not cooler... right?   Maybe it's something easily fixed when adding in precipitation?


These two maps of Earth in July and Januray respectively, seem to suggest otherwise. From what I've been advised in various places on the net, land heats up and cools down faster than ocean, meaning that temperatures in the oceans remain roughly similar throughout the year at a given latitude but vary more widely on Earth. 

The average temperature map on the same map shows that the average annual temperature at the equator is roughly the same on both land and ocean. Some areas along the equator reach their peak high temperatures in April and September  :Razz: 




> Also...  The lines/transitions seem too smooth somehow  ... (worse to the edges of the map, in any direction, so might be details you've not added yet?)


Yeah, this map is, at the moment, incomplete, hence the lack of detail in the western and eastern portions of the map and towards the north and south as well, I was just wondering if I wasn't heading in the wrong direction  :Smile: 




> I wish I could be more help, but I'm new to this and don't want to say something wrong when it's not cause I did mine different methods!


Yeah, I have the same general "policy". I'll happily provide resources and point to various helpful parts of the internet, but I'm always hesitant to actually provide solid, personal advice just in case I haven't understood something correctly  :Smile:

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## Jalyha

Actually, you're right... I was also thinking that was your Summer map, for some reason.

I'm gonna go take my foot out of my mouth now...  :Razz: 




EDIT: Also your continents are a lot more earth-like than mine, which could be why I'm seeing things ^.^

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## sangi39

Ok, so I've been working on a basic pressure map this morning/early afternoon and this is where I've got to so far for Yantas in July (northern summer, southern winter):



And for Yantas in January (northern winter, southern summer)



Now, I've followed the climate cookbook as best I can, but I get the feeling I've gone wrong in a number of places through lack of understanding. For example, I'm not too sure whether I've got the centres of those pressure zones, e.g. over the oceans and lands, correct or whether I've got the mergers of pressure zones quite right.

Hope someone might be able to help out  :Smile:

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## Raptori

I *think* it's more or less correct, but the bands of H and L markings make it a bit hard to read. It'd be more legible to me if you just placed a single H and a single L in the centre of each area where the pressure should be at it's strongest either way, and then from that it's easy to draw the contour lines.

However, I'm by no means an expert on this, so it'd be worth it to wait for someone who knows what they're talking about.  :Very Happy:

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## sangi39

> I *think* it's more or less correct, but the bands of H and L markings make it a bit hard to read. It'd be more legible to me if you just placed a single H and a single L in the centre of each area where the pressure should be at it's strongest either way, and then from that it's easy to draw the contour lines.
> 
> However, I'm by no means an expert on this, so it'd be worth it to wait for someone who knows what they're talking about.


All updated for you  :Smile:

----------


## Raptori

Haha much better, thanks!

Okay so here goes:

July
I think they might be the wrong way around - but I might have this backward lol. Northern hemisphere should have high pressure, and low pressure over water. Southern hemisphere should have those the other way around. So the lows on the equator look correct, but then the northern hemisphere ones I think are the opposite to what it should be. The west of the southern hemisphere looks correct, but then over the landmass on the center/east there should be low pressure.

January
I think here the band across the northern tropic looks right, with the esception of the two high pressure areas over the continents which should instead be low pressure areas. The equator should still be high pressure over land and low over water, so that's mostly correct, and the band across the southern tropic looks the opposite of what it should be.

The way I did it on my map was basically split each map into two by covering half and only working on one hemisphere at a time. If that hemisphere is in summer, I first put H marks in the center of any large area of land, and then put L marks in the center of any large oceans. If that hemisphere is in winter, I'd do the opposite - put L marks on the land, then H marks on the water. In fact, I might be reading your map wrong and switching the land and water, in which case my advice above would be completely hopeless  :Razz:

----------


## sangi39

> Haha much better, thanks!
> 
> Okay so here goes:
> 
> July
> I think they might be the wrong way around - but I might have this backward lol. Northern hemisphere should have high pressure, and low pressure over water. Southern hemisphere should have those the other way around. So the lows on the equator look correct, but then the northern hemisphere ones I think are the opposite to what it should be. The west of the southern hemisphere looks correct, but then over the landmass on the center/east there should be low pressure.
> 
> January
> I think here the band across the northern tropic looks right, with the esception of the two high pressure areas over the continents which should instead be low pressure areas. The equator should still be high pressure over land and low over water, so that's mostly correct, and the band across the southern tropic looks the opposite of what it should be.
> ...


I was following these two tips from the Climate Cookbook:




> while in summer the land warms to create a low-pressure area, which joins up with the ITCZ and the PF, leaving high-pressure areas over the oceans





> In winter, the cooling of the land creates a high-pressure area over the interior, which merges with the high pressure area around the STHZ and leaves low-pressure systems over the oceans


So that the northern hemisphere in July should have low pressure over the land and high pressure over the ocean and then, in January, high pressure over the land and low pressure over the ocean. The opposite would then be the case for the southern hemisphere.

I'm looking to see if your advice might be used in reverse to see if my maps make sense  :Smile:

----------


## Raptori

Ahhhh yes! I had it mixed up - for some reason I was thinking rising air = high pressure when actually it's the opposite. Sorry about that! 

In that case then I think it's all correct.

Did the Climate Cookbook say what should happen in the tropics in summer? I can't remember whether I had a band of high pressure over both air and land like that, I'll have to go check the files I made again...

----------


## sangi39

> Ahhhh yes! I had it mixed up - for some reason I was thinking rising air = high pressure when actually it's the opposite. Sorry about that! 
> 
> In that case then I think it's all correct.
> 
> Did the Climate Cookbook say what should happen in the tropics in summer? I can't remember whether I had a band of high pressure over both air and land like that, I'll have to go check the files I made again...


If it does, I haven't managed to spot it  :Razz:  A lot of what he writes about seems to apply predominantly to land-masses with central latitudes of around 30 degrees north or south of the equator, which obviously gets more problematic when you want to look elsewhere.

However, a link provided in the Cookbook contains these two images of Earth:





So, what seems to be happening, on Earth at least, is that in July there is a continuous band of generally high pressure south of the equator and then another one north of the equator in January both at around 30 degrees N or S. However, it also suggests that even within these continuous bands, we find differences in pressure, dropping off between the centres of high pressure, which thinking about it makes sense  :Smile:

----------


## Raptori

That's cool, makes a lot of sense! In which case yeah, I'd say your pressure maps look correct  :Smile: 

Imagine how much easier this would be if you could just create a height map for your world and shove it into a program that works this all out for you...

----------


## sangi39

> That's cool, makes a lot of sense! In which case yeah, I'd say your pressure maps look correct 
> 
> Imagine how much easier this would be if you could just create a height map for your world and shove it into a program that works this all out for you...


It would be pretty nice, but I get the feeling that to have it done well, that program would have to be fairly big. There's a model of the climate of Middle Earth by someone at Bristol University that, IIRC, used supercomputers that are used for developing real-world climate models to make predictions regarding future climate change  :Razz:

----------


## Raptori

Yeah I remember reading about that - people were surprised that the climate models matched the description from the book; clearly Tolkien did his homework in that area too! If only someone on here had access to those supercomputers, maybe they could sneak some tests in for us  :Razz:

----------


## flocko

Reading through your development process was really interesting! I have almost no knowledge of climatology and plate tectonics so I found your post title really misleading. :Smile:  

I feel like I need to go through the climate cookbook soon, before I finish my world and throw in something too nonsensical. Also, I'm impressed by anyone who has the patience to make a conlang. I like making conscripts but a whole language has always seemed to be a bit too much.

Anyway, Really impressive work so far.

----------


## sangi39

> Reading through your development process was really interesting! I have almost no knowledge of climatology and plate tectonics so I found your post title really misleading. 
> 
> I feel like I need to go through the climate cookbook soon, before I finish my world and throw in something too nonsensical. Also, I'm impressed by anyone who has the patience to make a conlang. I like making conscripts but a whole language has always seemed to be a bit too much.
> 
> Anyway, Really impressive work so far.


Thanks very much  :Smile:  The only problem I've had so far is a general lack of feedback, which makes me hesitant to actually finalise anything. I go as far as I can with what I can gather first from the Climate Cookbook and then other resources on-line regarding how things work on Earth, but I'm not sure enough on my ow with what I come out with to go much further  :Razz:

----------


## wdmartin

The plate tectonics and climatology stuff is awesome!  But I think your lack of detailed feedback is because not very many people here start from the tectonic plates and build up the way you're doing.  For myself, I've a single class of geology and no climatology at all, so I haven't the faintest idea what to tell you about all that.

By the way, what on earth is a "conlanger"?  I've never heard the word before.

----------


## Raptori

I think you should go ahead and finalise anyway, it's what I did  :Razz: 

I basically followed the steps you went through here (but arranged the tectonic plates *after* shaping the continents , silly me), then the last few steps from the climate cookbook, and then made it into a map (this one here) without asking anyone first... I actually found it a lot easier to judge whether or not it looks right when it looks like a real map rather than a visualisation of some guesses at the data. That said, it's really nice to see the steps, and people seem to find those bits interesting, so posting updates as you go is probably the better approach if you want help making sure it's all correct  :Smile:

----------


## sangi39

> The plate tectonics and climatology stuff is awesome!  But I think your lack of detailed feedback is because not very many people here start from the tectonic plates and build up the way you're doing.  For myself, I've a single class of geology and no climatology at all, so I haven't the faintest idea what to tell you about all that.


Good point  :Smile: 




> By the way, what on earth is a "conlanger"?  I've never heard the word before.


It's a term referring to a person who creates "conlangs", i.e. "constructed languages". Currently well-known examples would be Klingon from Star Trek, Esperanto, Dothraki from Game of Thrones and Na'vi from Avatar.




> I think you should go ahead and finalise anyway, it's what I did 
> 
> I basically followed the steps you went through here (but arranged the tectonic plates *after* shaping the continents , silly me), then the last few steps from the climate cookbook, and then made it into a map (this one here) without asking anyone first... I actually found it a lot easier to judge whether or not it looks right when it looks like a real map rather than a visualisation of some guesses at the data. That said, it's really nice to see the steps, and people seem to find those bits interesting, so posting updates as you go is probably the better approach if you want help making sure it's all correct


Sounds like a plan my therapod friend  :Smile:

----------


## sangi39

> Originally Posted by wdmartin
> 
> 
> By the way, what on earth is a "conlanger"?  I've never heard the word before.
> 
> 
> It's a term referring to a person who creates "conlangs", i.e. "constructed languages". Currently well-known examples would be Klingon from Star Trek, Esperanto, Dothraki from Game of Thrones and Na'vi from Avatar.


To show how far I've gotten with the conlang I'm currently working on for this world, here's the alphabet, followed by the phonemes, i.e. sounds, those letters represent in slashes and then the romanisation, i.e. the way of transcribing those letters using the Latin alphabet, hence "_roman_isation", in angled brackets.





```
/a e i u o    t tʲ d dʲ  k̠  k̟  g̠  g̟   kʷ gʷ  p b/
<a e i u o    t ty d dy  k  ky g  gy  kw gw  p b>

/ə    s sʲ  x̠  x̟   xʷ  f    n nʲ  m    w j    r rʲ  l lʲ/
<ë    s sy  h  hy  hw  f    n ny  m    v j    r ry  l ly>

: velkasta :  yantas  :
: sirden   :  velas   :
: hwestun  :  gyunari :
: kovur    :  akyeru  :
```

(_Velkasta_ and _Sirden_ are continents, _Velas_ is the systems parent star, _Hwestun_ is one of _Yantas_' two moons and _Gyunari_ and _Akyeru_ are two planets. _Kovur_ is the name of a species of sapient, bipedal wolf-like creatures which primarily inhabit the continents of _Mistaya_ and _Hungas_ (with humans inhabiting _Sirden_ and _Arenda_ with some co-habitation going on in _Konyur_. As of yet, _Velkasta_ is uninhabited).

The superscript <_j_>s indicate palatalisation, a feature found in Russian and Irish Gaelic for example, while the superscript <_w_>s indicate labialisation, i.e. a simultaneous rounding of the lips. The little "-" and "+" signs are difficult to explain but it effectively means that there are two "k"-like sounds, one slightly further back and one slightly further forward respectively. This distinction also applies to "g" and the "x" which indicates a voiceless fricative similar to that found in the word "_loch_" or "_bach_". The exact nature of the distinction is dependent on dialect, with the "standard" dialect distinguishing them on the basis of "velar" vs. "palatal". More conservative dialects have a "velar" vs. "uvular" distinction while others almost merge the two series of sounds (indeed, later descendent languages developing from these dialects, as well as a few which maintained the velar/uvular distinction, did merge the two series).

The syllable-structure is fairly simple, being CV(T) where C is any consonant (optional when word-initial but obligatory word-internally), V is any vowel and T is one of /m n s r l w j/ where /m/ and /n/ assimilate to match the point of articulation of following plosives, nasals and fricatives, e.g. /np/ > [mp], /mn/ > [nn], /ms/ > [ns], etc. but /mr/ > [mr], /nw/ > [nw], etc.

Palatalisation is distinct from clusters of a consonant with a following /j/. Such clusters are rare given the restriction on syllable coda consonants and only /s.j n.j r.j l.j/ vs. /sʲ nʲ rʲ lʲ/ occur. The majority of descendent languages neutralise this distinction, but a few keep them distinct.

The script required several innovations when applied to other languages. For example, one of the most prominent daughter languages, known for the moment as "Chad" (from PRK *rjandë), has the following phoneme inventory:

/p t _tʃ_ k kʷ/
/b d _dʒ_ g gʷ/
/m n/
/f s _ʃ h hʷ_/
/*v z ʒ ɣ ɣʷ*/
/w r l j/

/i *i: i:ə* u *u: uə*/
/e *e: e:ə* o *o: o:ə*/
/*ɛ: ɛ:ə ɔ: ɔ:ə*/
/a *a: aə*/

Those sounds appearing in bold-italics have no counterpart in PRK while those in italics have close counterparts in PRK. The latter can thus be easily represented with the original PRK alphabet while the former must be indicated either by digraphs, trigraphs or diacritics which did not appear in the PRK alphabet.

To show the relationship between the two languages, some example (random) vocabulary can be used:



```
*ryandë   [rʲan.də]    > tyad   [tʃad]
*kusan    [ku.san]     > huzan  [hu.zan]
*nyal     [nʲal]       > yal    [jal]
*fasën    [fa.sən]     > vazan  [va.zan]
*fasëndë  [fa.sən.də]  > vazád  [va.za:d]
*ikwël    [i.kʷəl]     > ihwal  [i.hʷal]
*ëstar    [əs.tar]     > star   [star]
*ëstarda  [əs.tar.da]  > starda [star.da]
*daytan   [daj.tan]    > täsan  [tɛ:.san]
*daytanda [daj.tan.da] > täsada [tɛ:.sa.da]
*pawga    [paw.ga]     > fåka   [fɔ:.ka]
*bondyë   [bon.dʲə]    > pody   [podʒ]
*fajela   [fa.je.la]   > väëla  [vɛ:ə.la]
*fanhela  [fan.xe.la]  > vayela [va.je.la]
```

...

And that's more or less it so far. I'm not sure yet where either of these languages will be spoken, but there you go  :Razz:

----------


## sangi39

Ok, so, after a week of non-stop work in the real-world so that I can pay bills, I haven't managed to get too far, however, I think I can tell a few things about where this might go:

July (northern summer, southern winter)




January (northern winter, southern summer)



It looks like there might three monsoon zones, a troipcal monsoon on the eastern coast of Mistaya, a temperate monsoon on the eastern coast of Arenda (both in the northern hemisphere) and a second temperate monsoon on the far eastern coast of Sirden (in the souther hemisphere). There might be a fourth on the east coast of the large island to the south-west of Hungas (which looks like it could border a temperate or a tropical monsoon given the latitude).

If this is all roughly correct, my next step will be to use a method suggested by eternalsage here (post 28 of the thread) in order to set up precipitation levels. You can already probably guess some trends, e.g. the southern interior of Arenda and several areas of Sirden will likely be deserts, but I can't be any more specific than that right now  :Smile:

----------


## Caenwyr

I think it's time to remove that "amateur" thingy in the title. You're doing a great job, sangi!

----------


## Pixie

Looks pretty good so far. Looking for for the next installment.

Word of advice: stick to about 5 levels of rain and 5 or 6 levels of avg. temperature, as you can easily match your info with this part of Geoff's Cookbook: The Climate Cookbook

Geoff's choice of words is:
(... Very Cold / Cold / Cool / Mild / Warm / Hot)
(... Dry / Low / Moderate / Wet / Very Wet)

----------


## sangi39

> I think it's time to remove that "amateur" thingy in the title. You're doing a great job, sangi!


Thanks, Caenwyr  :Smile:  The more people say this the more I think the speed of my work is so low is just down to a lack of confidence. I've started working on the precipitation numbers so hopefully they'll be up soon  :Smile: 




> Looks pretty good so far. Looking for for the next installment.
> 
> Word of advice: stick to about 5 levels of rain and 5 or 6 levels of avg. temperature, as you can easily match your info with this part of Geoff's Cookbook: The Climate Cookbook
> 
> Geoff's choice of words is:
> (... Very Cold / Cold / Cool / Mild / Warm / Hot)
> (... Dry / Low / Moderate / Wet / Very Wet)


I was planning on 5 levels for rainfall from 1 (very dry) to 5 (very wet) (eternalsage's system has 0 to 5 with 2 as the middle value to work from, but that doesn't seem to work all to well given that there are then only two values below "moderate" but three above it, that's how I've started to look at it anyway).

As for temperature, I don't know why I hadn't thought of doing it that way before, i.e. 1 (very cold) to 5 (very warm). It does make a lot of sense, thank you  :Smile: 

The more I work on this, and the more I finalise decisions, the more I enjoy working on it and posting stuff about it  :Smile:

----------


## Raptori

> Thanks, Caenwyr  The more people say this the more I think the speed of my work is so low is just down to a lack of confidence.


Then I'll say it too - definitely not amateur!  :Smile: 




> I was planning on 5 levels for rainfall from 1 (very dry) to 5 (very wet) (eternalsage's system has 0 to 5 with 2 as the middle value to work from, but that doesn't seem to work all to well given that there are then only two values below "moderate" but three above it, that's how I've started to look at it anyway).
> 
> As for temperature, I don't know why I hadn't thought of doing it that way before, i.e. 1 (very cold) to 5 (very warm). It does make a lot of sense, thank you


I was planning to do the whole levels thing again (i.e. I did it on the original map, was about to do it on the new version) ... but then remembered how much work it all was, gave up, and just did it by feel instead!  :Razz:  I'll have to tidy up the map a bit before I post it though, it's a bit messy D:




> The more I work on this, and the more I finalise decisions, the more I enjoy working on it and posting stuff about it


Great fun, isn't it! Reading your thread (and the couple of other similar ones around) really helps motivate me to keep going on mine  :Smile:

----------


## sangi39

> Then I'll say it too - definitely not amateur!


Haha, thanks  :Smile: 





> I was planning to do the whole levels thing again (i.e. I did it on the original map, was about to do it on the new version) ... but then remembered how much work it all was, gave up, and just did it by feel instead!  I'll have to tidy up the map a bit before I post it though, it's a bit messy D:


Yeah, I'll likely start out doing something way too overly complicated like normal and then simplify it later on when I realise I was probably doing too much work for the level of detail I was looking for  :Razz: 




> Great fun, isn't it! Reading your thread (and the couple of other similar ones around) really helps motivate me to keep going on mine


Reading your thread is similar, as well as reading Jalyha's thread as well. Full of handy ideas and maps the compare at different stages of development:

Q: Did I get the wind right?
A: Check what Jalyha and Raptori ended up with

 :Very Happy:

----------


## Raptori

> Yeah, I'll likely start out doing something way too overly complicated like normal and then simplify it later on when I realise I was probably doing too much work for the level of detail I was looking for


Yah, I'm having the same problem when it comes to planning out the cultures and civilisations on mine. Reading GG&S makes me want to start with human migration from their initial continent (complete with dates for the colonisation of each area of the continent to the nearest 1000 years or so), then decide where and when agriculture developed, how this impacted the surrounding areas, etc etc etc leading all the way to explaining why the world is in whatever state it is at the "present" ... but that's a ridiculous amount of work. Very tempting though.  :Neutral: 




> Reading your thread is similar, as well as reading Jalyha's thread as well. Full of handy ideas and maps the compare at different stages of development:
> 
> Q: Did I get the wind right?
> A: Check what Jalyha and Raptori ended up with


Hahaha yeah, mine is more like this:

Q: Okay, what's the next step?
A: Open Sangi39 and Jalyha's threads on the laptop, find relevant posts, then leave those open next to me while I work so I know I'm not messing up.

 :Razz:

----------


## sangi39

> Yah, I'm having the same problem when it comes to planning out the cultures and civilisations on mine. Reading GG&S makes me want to start with human migration from their initial continent (complete with dates for the colonisation of each area of the continent to the nearest 1000 years or so), then decide where and when agriculture developed, how this impacted the surrounding areas, etc etc etc leading all the way to explaining why the world is in whatever state it is at the "present" ... but that's a ridiculous amount of work. Very tempting though.


I haven't read _Guns, Germs, and Steel_ yet, but it's been discussed a few times over on the ZBB and several users have pointed out a number of problems with it, or at least counterexamples to the general arguments made in the books, but it seems that it basically comes down to him having to make sweeping statements since he's trying to cover, well, the whole world. Counterexamples basically seem to point to areas where other factors came into play to mess with Diamond's hypothesis, although others have pointed out that the hypothesis might just be too simple  :Razz:

----------


## Raptori

> I haven't read _Guns, Germs, and Steel_ yet, but it's been discussed a few times over on the ZBB and several users have pointed out a number of problems with it, or at least counterexamples to the general arguments made in the books, but it seems that it basically comes down to him having to make sweeping statements since he's trying to cover, well, the whole world. Counterexamples basically seem to point to areas where other factors came into play to mess with Diamond's hypothesis, although others have pointed out that the hypothesis might just be too simple


Yeah I've seen that kind of discussion too. At the start of the book he specifically states that it's a general principle, and as such won't encompass all situations and might be off on some details. In spite of this a lot of the negative comments I've seen are people providing a couple of examples where other factors were more important, just like you said, and then arguing that this proves him wrong. However as a general principle it appears that there's nothing wrong with it - none of the people who disagree with it have come up with a viable alternative - and for a fictional world I think any errors brought forward would be fine. At least there'd be _some_ attempt at explaining stuff!  :Very Happy: 

It seems to be the same situation for his other book Collapse (which I _have_ read); he presents it as a general principle and people attack it with the odd exception and ignore the dozens of examples where it works. We know for a fact that Newtonian physics does not work in a lot of situations, but is perfect in the right conditions. I'm pretty sure that's the case here. The idea behind Collapse sure as hell feels realistic to me, and I agree with most of what's in GG&S up to where I've read so far  :Smile: 

But yeah, it'd take so long to work it all out  :Neutral:

----------


## sangi39

> Yeah I've seen that kind of discussion too. At the start of the book he specifically states that it's a general principle, and as such won't encompass all situations and might be off on some details. In spite of this a lot of the negative comments I've seen are people providing a couple of examples where other factors were more important, just like you said, and then arguing that this proves him wrong. However as a general principle it appears that there's nothing wrong with it - none of the people who disagree with it have come up with a viable alternative - and for a fictional world I think any errors brought forward would be fine. At least there'd be _some_ attempt at explaining stuff! 
> 
> It seems to be the same situation for his other book Collapse (which I _have_ read); he presents it as a general principle and people attack it with the odd exception and ignore the dozens of examples where it works. We know for a fact that Newtonian physics does not work in a lot of situations, but is perfect in the right conditions. I'm pretty sure that's the case here. The idea behind Collapse sure as hell feels realistic to me, and I agree with most of what's in GG&S up to where I've read so far 
> 
> But yeah, it'd take so long to work it all out


Well, when you thin about it, the same is generally true of the Climate Cookbook in that there's only so much you can account for when dealing with stuff on a global scale  :Smile:

----------


## Raptori

Yeah, exactly! And since you're creating your own world, something that gives realistic results is more important than making sure it's utterly perfect  :Smile:

----------


## sangi39

Still working on the precipitation jazz (taking longer than I thought because I can never settle on how specific to be with regards to regions, and then work interrupts my thinking about it  :Razz: ), so I thought I'd post a few simple things while I'm not too busy doing much else. First, here's an image of _Yantas_ from a number of different angles, including the poles:



Next up is a random bunch of astronomical data which has pretty much nothing to do with Yantas itself (except for where it does), but it could affect astronomical details in later stages:


*Italva* (parent star)

Mass: 1.065 solar masses (G1 star)
Diameter: 1.033 solar diameters
Luminosity: 1.165 xSol
Apparent Luminosity: 1.008 times that of the Sun as seen from Earth
Effective Temperature: 5950.965K
Angular Size: 30.611 minutes (0.961 times that of the Sun as seen from Earth).



*Velas* (rocky)

Mass: 5.584 x 10[super]23[/super] (about 7.6 times that of the Moon)
Diameter: 5838km
Density: 5.36 g/cm[super]3[/super]

Semi-Major Axis: 30,500,000km
Orbital Period: 32.5 (Earth) days

Eccentricity: 0.17
Node: -0.000365°

Inclination: 2.12°



*Severa* (rocky)

Mass: 1.954 x 10[super]23[/super] (about 2.66 times that of the Moon)
Diameter: 4102km
Density: 5.41 g/cm[super]3[/super]

Semi-Major Axis: 52,900,000km
Orbital Period: 74.5 (Earth) days

Eccentricity: 0.15
Node: -19.1°

Inclination: 3.71°



*Piranka* (rocky)

Mass: 2.389 x 10[super]24[/super] (about 0.4 times that of the Earth)
Diameter: 10559km
Density: 3.92 g/cm[super]3[/super]

Semi-Major Axis: 86,400,000km
Orbital Period: 155.0 (Earth) days

Eccentricity: 0.069
Node: 40.2°

Inclination: 4.24°

(The general plan is to have a single moon for Piranka, but the exact details of this are yet to be decided.)



*Yantas* (rocky)

Mass: 5.972 x 10[super]24[/super] (about the same as the Earth's)
Diameter: 12760km
Density: 5.49 g/cm[super]3[/super]

Semi-Major Axis: 1.08AU
Orbital Period: 1.08 (Earth) years
Sidereal Day: ~24hrs 40mins (1.019 times that of Earth), making Yantas' year 386.925 Y-days long.

Eccentricity: 0.024
Node: -61.4°

Inclination: 3.77°


Yantas has two moons, _Hwestun_ and _Kadyura_


*Kadyura*

Mass: 0.3 lunar masses
Diameter: 2326km
Angular Size: 36.381 minutes (1.170 times the apparent size of Earth's Moon as we see it, and 1.188 times that of Italva)

Semi-Major Axis: 219,788km
Orbital Period: 11.56 Y-days (11.8 Earth days)
Phase Cycle: 11.916 Y-days, (32.471 phases per year)

Eccentricity: 0.013 
Node: -40.3°

Inclination: 4.39°


*Hwestun*

Mass: 0.8 lunar masses
Diameter: 3226km
Angular Size: 21.549 minutes (0.694 times the apparent size of Earth's Moon as we see it, and 0.704 times that of Italva)

Semi-Major Axis: 514,656km
Orbital Period: 41.511 Y-days (42.3 Earth days)
Phase Cycle: 46.5 Y-days, (8.321 phases per year)

Eccentricity: 0.11
Node: 25.6°

Inclination: 1.97°


(Kadyura thus goes through 3.902 phases for every one phase Hwestun goes through.)
(I might change some of these details if the tides become too extreme. Kadyura causes tides 1.602 times the values of those caused by our Moon while Hwestun's are just 0.334 the Moon's. How those interact with each other, however, I don't know  :Smile: )



*Gunyari* (rocky)

Mass: 1.433 x 10[super]24[/super] (about 0.24 times that of the Earth)
Diameter: 8209km
Density: 4.95 g/cm[super]3[/super]

Semi-Major Axis: 1.78AU
Orbital Period: 2.3 (Earth) years

Eccentricity: 0.047
Node: -150°

Inclination: 6.35°



*Asteroid Belt*

The asteroid belt lies roughly 3.14AU out from _Italva_.



*Baridan* (Gaseous)

Mass: 1.519 x 10[super]27[/super] (about 0.8 times that of Jupiter)
Diameter: 120812km
Density: 1.64 g/cm[super]3[/super]

Semi-Major Axis: 5.38AU
Orbital Period: 12.1 (Earth) years

Eccentricity: 0.064
Node: 44.5°

Inclination: 3.59°



*Akyeru* (Gaseous)

Mass: 2.297 x 10[super]27[/super] (about 1.21 times that of Jupiter)
Diameter: 148125km
Density: 1.35 g/cm[super]3[/super]

Semi-Major Axis: 9.33AU
Orbital Period: 27.6 (Earth) years

Eccentricity: 0.16
Node: 44.5°

Inclination: 14.8°



There's also _Rembika_, _Oligaris_ and _Loki_, all of which are gaseous, but I haven't worked out the more detailed stuff for them yet  :Smile: 

According to Universe Sandbox, the orbits appear to be stable, so for the moment I'm sticking with them.

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## Raptori

I had never heard of Universe Sandbox... damn I want that program now, though it'd be yet another thing blocking my progress. For the last week I've spent zero time on my map - I've spent that spare time reading the Limyaael rants, this could take up even more time  :Very Happy: 

It's cool that you've worked out so much detail for the other planets in the system - will you be mapping any of those as well?  :Razz:

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## kirkspencer

Since you have gone with three bodies (two moons) and you're going with some realism, you might want to research 'three body problem'. Here is one link but by all means look for others if that gets you tangled. 

So you know where you're going there are three classic 'groups' of solutions, plus recent possible of another 13. I'd ignore the latter, but the three models are... yaknow, let me simplify.

There's the simple and obvious group that almost everyone knows - multiple objects orbiting a star through lagrangian points.

There's the Broucke-Hénon group which look like tangled yo-yo's and also include orthagonal orbits. (two or three different planes).

And there's the "figure eight" group, in which all three elements follow through a figure 8 (with variations depending on respective masses.)

As to tides, simplistically they add when in alignment and subtract when orthoganol. So when Hwestun and Kadyura eclipse or oppose high tide is almost twice earth's, while when they're orthogonal Kadyura's is only going to be about 1.45 instead of 1.6 (number is swag, not calculated).

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## sangi39

So I haven't actually worked on this very much over the last month, but this is my current attempt at a climate map based on the Climate Cookbook's guidelines:



(white lines are mountain range peaks)

I haven't worked on the smaller islands yet but the majority of them look like they might just about be small enough to have fairly minimal west-east differences.

I'm sure I've gone wrong somewhere, most likely on the longer east-to-west running coastlines and the large island to the south-west of Hungas (in the north-eastern portion of the map at 20-30 degrees north), but most of it looks generally okay, other than the obvious "sticking too strictly to latitude" phase I go through during initial drafts  :Razz:

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## acrosome

Speaking as someone who is currently trying to work out Koppen climates for a terraformed Venus, I sympathize immensely.

So, why doesn't the desert in Arenda from 10-30N not progress all the way to the western coast?  That coast should have a cold current, so this large desert would be a pretty good analogue for the Sahara.  Look at the world Koppen map on Wikipedia to see what I mean.   You can see the same process in Australia.  Also regarding that- you wouldn't have Aw or Am bordering BWh.  Usually BWh is almost surrounded by a band of BSh.  Which sort of makes sense when you think about it- you wouldn't have a verdant tropical forest suddenly give way to hot desert- there has to be some sort of transition area.  (At least for the larger deserts- the smaller ones in North America seem to act wierdly...)

With that long, huge east-west mountain range in the south plus another in the east, I would imagine that the interior of Hungas should look more like Central Asia and Siberia than like Canada.  There's going to be one hell of a Central-Hungan low, there, so that may be where you find Dfd and Dwd on your world.  And because of that low I'd be willing to bet that the West coast of Mistaya is where you will have your big monsoons.  (Mistaya would act like your India and Southeast Asia, albeit crossing further south of the equator- not sure how that would work.)  Again, check out the Wikipedia map.

There's also disappointingly few Mediterranean climates, there.  (Disclaimer- I adore Mediterranean climates.  Doesn't everbody?)

Since I'm a larval-stage climatologist myself that's about the limit of practical advice that I can give at the moment.   :Smile: 

When I finally get around to posting my first draft I hope you'll chime in with criticisms.

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## sangi39

> Speaking as someone who is currently trying to work out Koppen climates for a terraformed Venus, I sympathize immensely.
> 
> So, why doesn't the desert in Arenda from 10-30N not progress all the way to the western coast?  That coast should have a cold current, so this large desert would be a pretty good analogue for the Sahara.  Look at the world Koppen map on Wikipedia to see what I mean.   You can see the same process in Australia.  Also regarding that- you wouldn't have Aw or Am bordering BWh.  Usually BWh is almost surrounded by a band of BSh.  Which sort of makes sense when you think about it- you wouldn't have a verdant tropical forest suddenly give way to hot desert- there has to be some sort of transition area.  (At least for the larger deserts- the smaller ones in North America seem to act wierdly...)


Pretty good points. Tried to update the map to take that into account.




> With that long, huge east-west mountain range in the south plus another in the east, I would imagine that the interior of Hungas should look more like Central Asia and Siberia than like Canada.  There's going to be one hell of a Central-Hungan low, there, so that may be where you find Dfd and Dwd on your world.  And because of that low I'd be willing to bet that the West coast of Mistaya is where you will have your big monsoons.  (Mistaya would act like your India and Southeast Asia, albeit crossing further south of the equator- not sure how that would work.)  Again, check out the Wikipedia map.


I've got some monsoon regions down the eastern coast of Mistaya (down from 40 north to 20 south), but still getting used to things like Dfd and Dwd. They're not covered as distinct climates in the Climate Cookbook so I've missed them out for the moment  :Razz: 




> There's also disappointingly few Mediterranean climates, there.  (Disclaimer- I adore Mediterranean climates.  Doesn't everybody?)


Yeah, it doesn't help that I don't have a large east-west ocean like, well, the Mediterranean  :Razz:  But, yeah, there's only like two (maybe three) fairly small Mediterranean regions. I have thought of having a sea in eastern Sirden so that I can have a larger Mediterranean region, but then I think "meh"  :Razz: 




> Since I'm a larval-stage climatologist myself that's about the limit of practical advice that I can give at the moment.  
> 
> When I finally get around to posting my first draft I hope you'll chime in with criticisms.


I'd love to  :Smile:  And from what I've seen of the terraformed Venus project already, it's really good  :Smile:

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## acrosome

> Yeah, it doesn't help that I don't have a large east-west ocean like, well, the Mediterranean  But, yeah, there's only like two (maybe three) fairly small Mediterranean regions. I have thought of having a sea in eastern Sirden so that I can have a larger Mediterranean region, but then I think "meh"


Well, you don't absolutely _need_ an analogue to the Mediterranean Sea.  Most of the U.S. Pacific coast is a Mediterranean climate, according to Koppen...

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## sangi39

Just realised that I didn't post my updated climate map  :Razz:

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## sangi39

One thing I have noticed, if the Climate Cookbook is right about the ice-cap climate being at 75+ N/S, is that Yantas is only going to have a tiny amount of land which falls within this climate zone, i.e. the southern coasts of Velkasta and maybe the most northern reaches of Konyur.

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## Jalyha

Okay so I've missed a lot! Also some of your recent noticings shows me that I've made several mistakes on my own african-ish world. 

But I wanted to chime in and say it looks like you've done massive amounts of work while I was away and it looks like it's progressing wonderfully!!!  :Smile: 


xoxoxo

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## sangi39

So it's been, wow, uh, 23 days since I last posted here. I've managed to literally do no work on either this world or any of my conlangs for over three weeks, which is kind of shocking. What the frell have I been doing all this time? 2048 has taken up some of my time, so's watching The Guild and rewatching old TV programmes. Man, I suck  :Razz:  Anyway, back to stuff.




> Okay so I've missed a lot! Also some of your recent noticings shows me that I've made several mistakes on my own african-ish world.


Is that Ibala you're talking about?  :Smile: 




> But I wanted to chime in and say it looks like you've done massive amounts of work while I was away and it looks like it's progressing wonderfully!!!


Thanks  :Smile:  I'm hoping once I get back into the swing of things with this world, I can actually move forward a bit more.

Annoyingly, there doesn't seem to be all that many people online who are able to help with Koppen climate maps. I posted the latest version here, as well as on both the ZBB and the CBB and got a total of 3 replies dealing specifically with inaccuracies (1 here, two on the ZBB, and none on the CBB), with the two main criticisms being the size of my deserts ("too large") and the fact that many of my climate zones stick to latitude too much (which, interestingly enough, I pointed out when posting it, lol) and a minor criticism being that I didn't include all of the different Koppen climate zones (this is where the Climate Cookbook starts to fail anyway, conflating several climate zones into one). One user also pointed out that my coastal climates would likely stretch inland more than I have them at the moment.

I guess that's one of the reasons I've been able to move on. While "your deserts are too large" is all well and good, it's not really constructive, a kind of criticism which only one user of the three, acrsome, provided  :Smile: 

However, following acrsome's advice, I went and looked at the Koppen climate map for Earth and mine does have some problems:

1) Tropical Rainforest, Af: On Earth, these seem to be blobs on or near the equator, surrounded by Am or Aw zones (northern South America and Central Africa), taking up the entirety of this latitude only on smaller islands (Sumatra, Java and New Guinea being fairly large examples).

2) I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think the south of Mistaya might be Am/Aw rather than BSh.

3) The desert of northern Mistaya probably would be a bit smaller while the steppe on the eastern side of the mountains might be taken over a little bit more by the Aw and Cfa climates, bringing the latter more inland. The deserts in Sirden and on the island south of Hungas might also be a bit smaller, but I think the desert in Arenda would probably remain the size it is now.

4) I think the Mediterranean climate of western Sirden might stretch a little further south, while simultaneously going a little further inland along with the Cfb zone to the south.

5) The eastern island of Velkasta probably needs sorting out. I'm not sure that the Cfb zone on its western coast would necessarily be there, given the lack of open water to the west. I get the feeling the entire northern part of the eastern island might be something like Dwc, but whether that makes sense, I don't know.

That's all I can think of right now, other than looking more and more at Earth's climate zones and finding analogues or near analogues to areas on Yantas (Earth doesnt have many long north-to-south mountain ranges on the east coats of continent so that poses at least one problem).

I might take a break from climates for a moment, hard to get my head round them, and come up with some names for major geographical features. "The island south of Hungas" and "the mountains in north-western Arenda" are a bit of a mouthful  :Razz:

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## acrosome

Y'know, I see what you mean by the size of the deserts.  When you look at the Earth's Koppen map the only truly immense desert is the Sahara/Middle East.  At a guess, it's large because:

1. The latitude is perfect, with a cold west-coast current that limits evaporation.
2. North Africa is a large and (mostly) unbroken land mass, creating rainshadow-like effects.
3. There are no high mountain ranges to act as climatologic speed-bumps, until you hit the Himalayas

Western Australia is another larger example (also no mountains 'till the east coast) but the rest tend to be small in extent.  I suspect that this is because they are on land masses that aren't very large east-west, so sea effects mitigate.  And in western North America the desert latitudes are smack in the middle of a west-coast mountain range, to boot.  (That desert in northwest Sirden might be a good analogue of that- all broken up with mountains- though I'm not sure what effect that warm east-coast current will have.)  Even southern Africa is basically one large highland plateau.  

My mind boggles at trying to wrap itself around all of this.  I've had best luck just looking for Earth analogues to terrain/latitudes/altitudes on my fantasy map, and trying to make them look similar.  But it looks like I might have to go tone down my deserts, too, now.

So, I'll throw up my hands, and go babble in the corner for a bit...

EDIT-  Out of curiosity, what is "CBB" and "ZBB"?

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## Pixie

I came across this map the other day and saved it for my own reference...
Mapas bioclimáticos y biogeográficos

I thought I should share. It goes to show two things in comparison with Yantas climate map: 
- there are no straight lines and yet climates follow latitude quite closely
- water bodies can have a very limited influence, only a few kilometers inland

Also, the map just looks great for any map-lover-kind-of-person, so that makes it worth sharing on its own.

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## sangi39

> Y'know, I see what you mean by the size of the deserts.  When you look at the Earth's Koppen map the only truly immense desert is the Sahara/Middle East.  At a guess, it's large because:
> 
> 1. The latitude is perfect, with a cold west-coast current that limits evaporation.
> 2. North Africa is a large and (mostly) unbroken land mass, creating rainshadow-like effects.
> 3. There are no high mountain ranges to act as climatologic speed-bumps, until you hit the Himalayas
> 
> Western Australia is another larger example (also no mountains 'till the east coast) but the rest tend to be small in extent.  I suspect that this is because they are on land masses that aren't very large east-west, so sea effects mitigate.  And in western North America the desert latitudes are smack in the middle of a west-coast mountain range, to boot.  (That desert in northwest Sirden might be a good analogue of that- all broken up with mountains- though I'm not sure what effect that warm east-coast current will have.)  Even southern Africa is basically one large highland plateau.  
> 
> My mind boggles at trying to wrap itself around all of this.  I've had best luck just looking for Earth analogues to terrain/latitudes/altitudes on my fantasy map, and trying to make them look similar.  But it looks like I might have to go tone down my deserts, too, now.
> ...


I might have to join you in the babbling.

On a similar note, another user on the ZBB recently posted a climate map of his conworld and received a sum total zero replies  :Razz: 




> EDIT-  Out of curiosity, what is "CBB" and "ZBB"?


Conlang Bulletin Board
Zompist Bulletin Board

Two forums devoted predominantly to conlangs, with some focus on conworld  :Smile:

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## sangi39

> I came across this map the other day and saved it for my own reference...
> Mapas bioclimáticos y biogeográficos
> 
> I thought I should share. It goes to show two things in comparison with Yantas climate map: 
> - there are no straight lines and yet climates follow latitude quite closely
> - water bodies can have a very limited influence, only a few kilometers inland
> 
> Also, the map just looks great for any map-lover-kind-of-person, so that makes it worth sharing on its own.


Very interesting indeed  :Very Happy:

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## acrosome

One thing that I think you have to do before fleshing out climate is to work out your rough topography first.  Basically, you need to figure out how high those various mountain ranges are.  In particular, the mountain ranges in Mistaya and the southeastern coast of Arenda look like they have the potential to be *huge*, being as they are the products of the vigorous collision of plates that are each moving toward one another.  So you're going to have the same problem that I do- how to deal with Himalayas that sit smack on the equator...   :Question: 

For another instance, on the Earth's Koppen map all that the Appalachians accomplish is to draw some relatively mild northern climates a bit further south.  At higher latitudes, in Siberia the Urals and other ranges clearly cause strips of colder climates along them, not unlike the Appalachians.

But the Himalayas are so high that they have tundra over most of them, crate a massive cold-desert rainshadow, stop the massive Sahara/Middle-east desert from progressing eastwards, and clearly drive high-elevation temperate climates west/east/south of them.  

The Andes are tall but very thin, rising with a great relief almost from sea level, so they act like an impenetrable wall blocking west-coast climates from extending from more than a strip on the west coast of South America.  

Finally, some isolated high-elevation zones do weird things- like Kilimanjaro and Mt. Kenya in Africa which seem to create mediterranean or temperate climates in the middle of otherwise tropical climates.  

I also think that you can give your world a bit more character by adding in some random lower mountain ranges like the Appalachians and the Urals.  These aren't readily explained by the plate tectonics as you show on the first page of this thread, because they are older remnants of historical processes that aren't vey active any more.  The Appalachians are remnants of plate collisions during the _formation_ of Pangaea about half a billion years ago, in the Ordovician!  Jawed fish hadn't even appeared yet!  Technically the Appalachians extend into Europe and even North Africa (as the Lesser Atlas Range), for that matter- look at your Panaea map on the first page and you'll see how that can be.  Or google the International Appalachian Trail, or the Wikipedia Page about it.  This intercontinental meta-Appalachian range is supposedly the remnants of the Central Pangaean Mountains.

A fun intellectual exercise might be to fit your modern continents into a pseudo-Pangaea and see where the remnants of similar ancient mountains might be...   :Evil:

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## sangi39

I had actually attempted to come up with some rough advances in the mountain ranges in an incomplete altitude map ]back on page 3. I've added a few more lower-altitude mountain ranges (2000-ish metres) in north-western Arenda and north-western and north-eastern Hungas, alongside the already decided Ural-esque mountain ranges in southern Sirden, which you can see in the climate map attempts. The other mountain ranges are the result of current tectonic activity which I think this map best represents:

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## sangi39

I really should get back to working on this, since it's been almost a year since I've done anything with it, of various reasons. About 2 weeks after I made my last post, my (now ex) wife and I split up, and about a month after that I moved back in with my mum and my brother, so those two months saw this project take a major hit in terms of how much time I dedicated to it. After that, I just never really picked it back up, and real-life just kept getting in the way (for about 2 months towards the end of the year, I spent most of my free time, which wasn't much do to increased hours at work in the run-up to Christmas, either hanging out with my ex where we used to live together or spending time with a woman I kind of started seeing in November).

It's been a pretty weird year, but I think I feel like I can start giving a portion of my time back to Yantas.

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## sangi39

So it's been a few years and I've not exactly made a huge amount of progress (damn real life)... This is still all I have so far:



There's a really broad colour key of light brown-green for areas above 500m, dark brown-green for above 1000, black for over 2000m, and brown for plateaus and very light brown for basins.

The continents and oceans are named, as are the larger islands, but I'd need to get to my laptop for that.

----------

