Fed2k's Duniverse

[Lance_Leader]

Well just tell me and ill change or make a new one if i have to. When reading the initial post i must have skimmed over the on the same planet part. (sorry)

-I have changed my house to fit fictional requirments

[Dunenewt]

As soon as Dante posts the continents, we can start.  Also, yes we are all on the same planet.

[Barbarossa]

Well, while we wait for someone to reply seriously to Factions.... I shall join as well.

Minor House Trats-Erif.

With an unstable Political climate, and a past shrouded in mystery- None have had very good relations with the House Trats-Erif. The most that is known of the strange group, is that they arrived Approximately Fifty Standard Years ago, upon the planet and have thus remianed since, secluded in secrecy. Until now- with the installment of a new leader, Iiet Erif, Treatsies for relations have been sent to all of the small Houses Minor apon the Planet. The only other concrete facts known about the House Minor are about their location, as follows.

-They are currently located on the Coast of a Southern Continent, near the equator. They reside within a single compound, Surrounded by Jungle. This area and the Compound itself are guarded Zealously by the Trats-Erifians.

Meh, nothing fancy. Just enough to get started.

[Dante]

Ok... I had kind of been planning to make these as we went along, but if that's what you want. I went home this weekend, and took a break. Nevertheless, one of the continents (never can remember whether it's continents or continents. I think the latter) is finished. I've attached it below.

I haven't given it a scale yet, but for a rough guide it's slightly smaller than South America. It's near the North Pole, and mostly covered in tundra. There's a few mountainous areas and the entire North is covered in snow and ice. In the South there's mostly pine forest, but on the West Coast there's a slightly warmer area where the deciduous trees can take root. They're sparse though, and it's mostly temperate grassland over there. There's a few large rivers, and one huge freshwater lake. There's also a saltwater lake in the North (the salt is probably the only thing that stops it from freezing over like all the others). The very Southern tip is open and barren, populated almost entirely by hardy grasses and sickly trees. At the top you can see the scattered islands and fjords where glaciers have ripped the land apart in previous centuries. Also there is the edge of the Polar ice cap. This is solid ice that can be lived on, but it doesn't have any land beneath it.

Please note that I am neither a cartographer nor a geographer, and thus these maps probably have some horrible geographic errors regarding placement of deserts, forests, lakes etc (no, not all in this one. They'll come later). I don't claim that they're realistic, just very good for something done almost entirely by hand.

Edit: I think we should start another thread for the thread proper, and keep this one for off-topic and maps. Good?

[attachment deleted by Gobalopper]

[Lance_Leader]

Nice,, and who knows, maybe by other planets , our geography is very odd.

[Dante]

Ok, here's the next one. It's done to the same scale (whatever it is) as the last one, so you can compare them. It's not so detailed, mainly because there's less to show (you wait until the third one. It's going to be huge).

This one is almost directly South from the first, by several thousand miles. It rests just below the Equator, and is mostly covered in dense rainforest. There are a few mountains inland. These act as a bowl of sorts, trapping rainwater and forcing it out to the East. Thus the land there is waterlogged and covered by a gigantic swamp.

Falling sea levels have exposed large stretches of coast around this continent, as well as the two large islands just to the West. It has also exposed several reefs around the continent. These areas have not yet been colonised to any great extent by the inner rainforest, and so much of the continent is ringed by wide areas of bare sand. This might give a ship the impression that the entire landmass is desert, which of course is not the case. There are no massive inland lakes, with most of the water being drained into the trees or the swamp.

Don't let this reasonably quick update fool you. I'm a busy guy, I have classes to attend, work to do, and these maps are time-consuming to make. The next one should be done this week, but I make no promises. You might want to start the thread, I can give you a rough outline of what the rest of the world is going to look like.

[attachment deleted by Gobalopper]

[Barbarossa]

So by all means, my House Minor will most likely be located upon the Second Continent?

[gunner154]

Are we to share continents too?

[Dante]

Of course. There will be territory and there will be boundaries (which I can mark on the maps, 'cos I'm brilliant). Barbarossa, there will be three large locations where you could locate your base. One of them is the second continent.

[Dunenewt]

This is going well, Dante can we have an ETA for a finished world map please?

[Dante]

No. :P

Ok seriously, like I said I have other things to do. And like Bethesda softworks with Oblivion, I don't want to give a date when there's every possibility that I won't be able to keep to it. I have computing projects to write, field skills reports to complete, physiology tests to prepare for... and a dance to attend on Thursday. Lets aim for mid to late March.

[Dunenewt]

Ok, I claim the northern land on the 1st Continent.  Is it possible for you to divide the first and second continents up into sections so that we can claim some land and start RPing?

[gunner154]

I claim the very top part of the 2nd Continent.

[Dante]

Ok, there are two ways we can do this. I've attached two images to show how. Incidentally, if Gob feels like archiving these then I'd like to plead for a few weeks after posting them so that people get a good demo. We'll only need like one or two maps for the real thing, and I'll be updating them regularly.

Ok, the first way is demonstrated with continent 2. Here we see a plain outline with lines drawn in to represent boundaries of territory. It's basic, easy to modify, and not difficult to understand. I hate it. It's boring. It makes no reference to natural obstacles such as mountains or rivers, it does not show the terrain of an area, and compared to the next method it's just ugly.

The second method is demonstrated with the first continent. I like this one much better. It assigns a colour to each - heh heh - faction, and marks out the territories that way. Yes, you can pick your own colours. I bags purple. This method shows the terrain, and can easily be sculpted around natural obstacles. It takes me only a few minutes to modify, and is actually easier than the other method, but a little more fiddly. Territories unclaimed or lost are shown without colour. This method also benefits in that the territories are more fluid. House A can move in on House B's terrain without being obligated to take all of it. In the example the territories are huge. In reality they probably won't get that big for a while. Notice that nobody has claimed the mountains because they are difficult to traverse, or the tundra because it's mostly featureless. We couldn't know that with the other map (I can't put the little tree and mountain signs on the first method because it would interfere with the lines).

There you have it. I would infinately prefer the second method, which is much prettier, easier to do, and more useful. Why anyone would choose the first method I do not know, but I'm giving a choice nevertheless.

In other news...

There will be four continents in total, as well as a large subcontinent and two extensive ice sheets. The first two continents you have already seen. The third will be larger than the two of them put together, and the fourth slightly smaller than that. There will be no maps of the ice sheets (they're ice. What do you want me to do?) unless requested. My own starting point will be somewhere in the centre of the third continent. I hope to have it finished before Monday, and the last one sometime next week. Once again, no promises.

[attachment deleted by Gobalopper]

[Barbarossa]

I call Green.

[Dunenewt]

Yeah, lets go with the second method, as it looks far better.

[Mihail]

Come now, Barbarossa, we haven't seen all of the continents yet. Do not be hasty. Aaaanyway, I, too, prefer the second method. Up Method 2! Huzzah!

[gunner154]

I'm taking grey.

[Lance_Leader]

Sounds great, and yes method 2 pwns method 1. Ill go black  8)

[Dante]

Black might be a bit tricky. Since I'm working in tints it won't be a solid colour. The best you'd get would be a dark grey. I could do two different shades of grey for yourself and gunner, one much darker than the other...

Well, much to my surprise, I have in fact finished the gigantic third continent. And truth be told, I'm actually a little disappointed in it. It was supposed to be vast, detailed, diverse. It just looks... big. I think I hurried too much. I'll try to take my time more with the last one. Make it look better. Aaanyway:

What we have here is an extremely large landmass. Larger than any of the others in fact. It's ever so slightly further South that the first continent, and further to the East as well. In the North we see the same shattered terrain, but not to such a degree as on the first continent (I'm going to start refering to them as '1st,' '2nd,' and so on, ok?). In the NorthWest you can see a part that's been cut off. That's a relatively narrow land bridge to the 4th. There's also a rather ugly dark circle in the North. That's a crater. A very large crater. Nothing much grows in there. It's wasteland. The lake in the middle is stagnent. The water probably toxic. It's got a few mountainous areas in there, implying that it's volcanic rather than meteoritic (is that a word? I don't care) in origin. Nobody really knows.

Further South, the temperate belt. This is taken up entirely by forest, mostly pine. There are some deciduous areas. There are three large lakes, and an inland sea here. To the West is a large peninsula. Also forested.

Further South, a large mountain range. Extinct volcanoes, mostly. The mountain range moves straight into savannah, which itself is framed by two large rainforests. Further still, as we meet a very large area of desert. The rest is pretty self explanatory. More savannah/scrubland and some rainforest on the coast.

There. Now I am VERY tired, and more than a little annoyed for completely unrelated reasons. I'm going to bed. Hmph.

Oh yes, one more thing. That mountain range in the middle? Mine.

[attachment deleted by Gobalopper]

[Lance_Leader]

Dark grey is fine. Looks like i get all the second hand landmass  8). I dont got a real good idea of what it looks like in my head so ill wait until its done.

[Dante]

Ok, here's the lowdown.

I bit off more than I could chew. Yeah. I got physiology tests and conductivity reports (*shudder*) to work on. Add to that the factors of a new PC with a 6Ghz processing speed and the release of Oblivion, and you can see that I will just be far too 'busy' to finish the final continent in the near future. I actually told Dunenewt a while ago that he should start the thread. Seems that hasn't come to pass, so I'm just giving an update.

But I'm not about to leave you empty handed. I'll still do the tinting work for the existing maps, it takes all of ten minutes to do after all. Keep in mind that these are huge landmasses, we arent short of territory. Which reminds me, you also need a scale. I'll use the first map as an example. You'll see on it that there are two large lakes, ok? See that one without any rivers attached to it, the one in the North? It's about five hundred miles long, top to bottom. There's a rough scale. I'll put a more exact one on later.

This brings me to my next point. These maps, despite their brilliant and awe-inspiring artistic merit, do not show small detail. They are not exact. This means that you could, say, invent an island that isn't shown there. So long as it's reasonably small, this isn't a problem. Keep in mind though that I have to mark territory on this thing and anything too small to be shown on the map will have been grouped with something else. A group of small islands, for example, might only show the biggest member of the group.

The same applies to lakes, canyons, small mountains, itty bitty deserts, most lakes and rivers, etc. The only things on the maps are the big things. There's a lot of freedom left, and that's deliberate.

Be sensible though.

Also, I'm not going to leave you without at least a rough image of the fourth continent ( + subcontinent). So attached below is my very first sketch of the world. Heavily modified, but still there. You can see the rough shape and position, and should be able to figure out the colour coding. It's probably inadvisable to claim territory there right now. I can't mark it after all. This map also serves as an approximate guide to the relative positions of the landmasses.

And finally. If anyone could direct me to a free method of hosting these files away from Fed2k, I would appreciate it. Photobucket won't let me use files of this size and I really don't like eating up Gob's space like this.

[attachment deleted by Gobalopper]

[Dunenewt]

So everyone up for starting now then?

[Lance_Leader]

Aww this cant be dead already  :'(. I was looking forward to doing this thing since it is my first. Soooo lets get it going? And considering i dont really get the map positions just put me somewhere strategic  8)

[Dunenewt]

Ok, well I'll start it tomorrow then.