World-Building, Day Four

World-Building, Day Four

Nyeargh. Day Four.

For 15 minutes, jot down some of the Really Big Land Features you want in your story and just think “what if that were made by….” Write down a couple of causes for those features and scars, and stick it all into your notebook. Which scars are slow-force scars (like plate tectonics), and which are fast-forces (anything that takes less than 10,000 years is medium-to-fast in geological scales).

Y’okay. I need some good high mountains, definitely. I think I’ll put them on the second continent, though, fabled and far off. Flame has been there, but not for long, and only saw them in the distance. They could be acts of the gods…maybe. Come to think of it, I need to figure out some gods besides Flame’s Luck and whatever I named that god of justice in the first story. So…gods made them (to keep two fighting brothers apart? To punish someone? Hmm…) or it was just a couple continents smashing into each other.

There’s the land-bridge, that she took to that second continent the name of which I cannot remember at the moment.

See, Flame first came into being as a Dungeons & Dragons character. When I needed a serial for inclusion in an online magazine, the self-contained storylines of a D&D campaign appealed as a framework. So as an expert treasure-hunter, Flame hires on with questing parties or others in need of her skills, and the story is over when the quest is done. She’s been lots of places, and I plan to take her lots more.

Like…sea-cliffs. I read a piece recently in which Douglas Adams joked about the Great Australian Bight†, and I need me some sea-cliffs. Whether or not something actually took a bite out of a land-mass I’ll have to decide later.

I like ruins, and I’d already planned for a magical cataclysm, so there’s the Tarn Ronoke (I think) deep and dark as Loch Ness…

Of course I’m going to have my karst landscape.

I’m sure I’ll blame a god for that one. :mrgreen:

Karst also means caves, so that’ll be fun.

And a nice super-volcano like what’s under Yellowstone, I’ll need one of those…yeah, I don’t think I’m doing this right.

Whatever. I meant to go to bed early tonight, and it’s nearly midnight, so I’ll have to struggle on with what I’ve got.


† Do not drink while reading Douglas Adams. Good heavens, you should know that.

2 thoughts on “World-Building, Day Four”

  1. Mountains could be teeth. You could have a third entity, or a lesser demi-god or what have you, who challenged Luck and Justice to battle. Luck and Justice kick demi-god’s butt, and all that’s left are his teeth which become the fabled mountains of so on and so forth.

    That’s all I’ve got. O.o

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