Terra's Flatworld
by WingofCootThere's a brief mention in Champions of Mystara of Terra creating a flat world in the outskirts of Mystara's solar system. About all that's really said about it is:
- about 500 miles in diameter and 100 miles thick
- Gravity is almost as high as Mystara's
- Ring of mountains around the edge, about 10,000 feet high
- Central lake, with a whirlpool at the exact center due to the spin
- Rivers running from mountains to central lake
- Has a Skyshield
- Lit by a mini-sun that orbits it
I started to develop a map of this world:
Besides the established ring mountains, central lake, and rivers, I added ranges of hills to provide some more topography.
If the mini-sun moves from "east" to "west", the areas directly under its path will be basically tropical, while the areas farthest from the path (the far "north" and "south") will be polar-like (receiving only low angle sunlight) though not experiencing the long polar nights of a round world.
The ring mountains at "east" and "west" will experience close, direct sunlight at sunrise and sunset respectively, while those st north and south won't. Combined with elevation, the northern and southern ring mountains will be the coldest places on this world and likely glaciate. The east and west ones will have an extreme and weird climate - hottest at morning/evening, not somewhat after noon as we generally experience on Earth.
Thus, I put tropical environments - savanna and rainforest - near the east-west line, and coniferous forest (and glaciers in the mountains) at the north and south extremes. I added small areas of desert at the far east/west, thinking that the close pass of the sun here would tend to evaporate water quickly. Most of the rest is temperate forest, though there are large cleared areas in both temperate and tropical zones where civilizations are found.
The valleys of the glaciated mountains at the far north and south produce lakes that feed the world's largest rivers. The massive proglacial lakes in the far south are especially important, and the huge quantity of water supports a massive swamp/marsh area on the south side of the central lake.
This world is pretty small on a planetary scale: 500 miles radius = 250 miles diameter is about 196,000 square miles, larger than California but smaller than Texas.
Slightly altered map, 8 miles per hex
- Increased the number of mountain/hill hexes
- Increased the number of forest hexes (since civilization/agriculture hasn't expanded that far yet)
- Added three smaller rivers
- Added some feature names (World's Edge Mountains, Southern Forest, Great Middle Lake, Sunset Desert, Evening Plains, Hubdeep, Tangleroot Bay, Morning Plains, Sunrise Desert)
The Sunset Desert is primarily a rocky desert, while the Sunrise Desert is two sand seas separated by a sun-blasted mountain range - freezing cold at late night and morning, scorching hot at sunset.
Yet another map revision. Hopefully it's done now. Changed some terrain, especially cutting back "clear" terrain to show the limited area actually inhabited; added towns, as well as labels for where the various intelligent beings live.
Confluence: This is the largest town on the Flatworld (population 3,500). It is the capital of a loosely united Iron Age tribal kingdom that controls the three northern river mouths/lower river valleys north of the Great Middle Lake and the plains and hills beneath them.
New Ierendi: This small town (population 1,600) is on the north coast of the island of the same name (about 16 x 7 miles), the site of the Makai's first arrival on the Flatworld. It is also the unofficial capital / cultural and religious center of the Makai. It is the center of a major fishery and a port for the Makai's boats that travel all across the Great Middle Lake (avoiding only the central waters immediately around the whirlpool of the Hubdeep).
The other towns marked are all quite small (population 1,000 - 1,600). About 1/8 of the human population, and about 1/6 of the southern geonid population (or about 1/9 of the total geonid population), live in towns.
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Timeline
380 AC: initial creation
380-480 AC: establishment of ecosystems
480-510 AC: rock men arrive
500 AC: geonids arrive in the south
500-560 AC: geonids are instructed in many skills by Terra's elemental servitors
505 AC: humans arrive from the Highlands
570 AC: geonids arrive in the north
590 AC: humans arrive from Ierendi
600 AC: gator-men arrive
600-630 AC: phanatons arrive
820 AC: geonid town of Snowsaddle founded
880 AC: dragons arrive
910 AC: geonid town of Shimmerfall founded
950-980 AC: Kingdom of Confluence expands
1000 AC: present day
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Populations
Humans: 105,000
- Highlanders: 80,000
- Makai: 25,000
Phanatons: 42,000
Gator-Men: 12,000
Rock Men: 21,000
- West: 12,000
- East: 9,000
Geonids: 32,000
- South: 22,000
- North: 10,000
Total for all five 'humanoid' species: 212,000.
Note that this is only about 1.1 people per square mile over the whole Flatworld surface! The vast majority of it is still total wilderness.
(Dragons are not included in the above, but there would only be a few hundred at most for the entire Flatworld, green and white varieties, mostly in the southern coniferous forests and southeast/southwest World's Edge Mountains, between the lands of the southern geonids and the phanatons. They would nearly all be "small" dragons with a very few "large"; no "huge" yet.)