RankenphilePassersby were amazedby the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderatormod
edited February 2008
we're really going to need someone who can keep up with all the stuff and provide synopsis as we go. Anyone want to be in charge of maintaining a wiki or something about all this?
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Quoththe RavenMiami, FL FOR REALRegistered Userregular
edited February 2008
I could help with the wiki if someone else set it up, because I don't know how to do that.
Crocodile-based creatures would be awesome. I always wanted to use some half-dragon-crocodiles in a D&D game so I'm sure there's something useable in that idea. I'd write more but I'm super busy, I will think and return.
I think a variety of lizardmen would cover the crocodile-type creatures nicely. What I think would be cool is some kind of giant, crawfish like creatures.
I was thinking full on animals rather than humanoid lizards. Basically taking the big, flat, toothy, water lizard idea and running with it to it's logical conclusion. This may or may not include fast-burrowing crocs and alligators that can breathe swamp-fire.
HawkstoneDon't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things. Somewhere outside of BarstowRegistered Userregular
edited February 2008
Have we considered that the desert natives maybe wont go to the everglades because there is so much water. It not implausable to find lakes and rivers etc intimidating when you whole civilization is built around searching for water. They cant swim, seldom see rain, no concept of boats, fish etc....maybe its just plain scary to them, or was to their more primative ancestors and now it has taken on a taboo quality...just a thought.
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RankenphilePassersby were amazedby the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderatormod
Have we considered that the desert natives maybe wont go to the everglades because there is so much water. It not implausable to find lakes and rivers etc intimidating when you whole civilization is built around searching for water. They cant swim, seldom see rain, no concept of boats, fish etc....maybe its just plain scary to them, or was to their more primative ancestors and now it has taken on a taboo quality...just a thought.
that, plus the idea of giant-ass scary lizard monsters and the fact that their primary access - the valley leading into area 7 - might be entirely flooded during rainy seasons and is otherwise an extremely harsh alkaline/salt lake surrounded by crystaline jagged ground would certainly be more than enough reason to keep them where they are. The few that would brave these three dangers (long, dangerous trek to an unknown area filled with legends of larger-than-man terrible lizard monsters would keep me home, for sure) would have to adopt a whole new way of life. We'd likely see some remnants of their old culture - perhaps they've adapted to fishing with bows and spears, things like that - running throughout the new culture down there, but such a drastic change would definitely have a strong and marked impact on their ways of life.
Also, this continent is not a small place, I assume? Moving to the other side of the world as we know it would not be plausible for most of the nomads who aren't near the bayous/deltas/swamps/keys.
As for those who are a bit closer, I think the presence of river dwelling civilization (again, I'm thinking of something similar to Gyptians from His Dark Materials) which defends it's homeland would keep them out.
HawkstoneDon't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things. Somewhere outside of BarstowRegistered Userregular
edited February 2008
also I was thinking on the affore mentioned Sheepdog type creature. The consensus seemed to be to go away from lizards because we wanted a mammal due to temperature regulation and also to maybe go canine due to the percieved trainable nature of the animal. With that in mind I think we could go with something based loosley on the Greyhound. I think it should be a tall, thin, lithe dog with superior intelligence and that is very fleet of foot, perhaps even speeds just shy of a cheetah. Its thin coat and wirey frame make it suitable to desert atmospheres as it doesnt consume alot of water or over heat a great deal. Also it has adjusted to the harsh climates in a way no other dog has ....it can sweat to cool itself if neccessary, or can pant if it needs to conserve its water. It naturally likes to herd animals and even uses similar techniques when pack hunting in nature by means of chasing severel prey from a herd into a ravine or box canyon where several of the dogs can suround their prey. Thats all I have so far....but if its popular maybe somebody can run with it.
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Quoththe RavenMiami, FL FOR REALRegistered Userregular
edited February 2008
Well, if we wanted to we could ditch that emigration idea and just have the people of the marshes be indigenous. They would still likely be trading with surrounding areas, especially if their lives are water-based; big trade cities on the coast or up the river would be feasible, kind of like the Mississippi delta region (as someone mentioned before).
What kind of commodities would they have to trade?
Well, if we wanted to we could ditch that emigration idea and just have the people of the marshes be indigenous. They would still likely be trading with surrounding areas, especially if their lives are water-based; big trade cities on the coast or up the river would be feasible, kind of like the Mississippi delta region (as someone mentioned before).
What kind of commodities would they have to trade?
rare fish, mushrooms, freshwater pearls, kelp, any rare animals we develop, wood, crafted items like boats and spears...
Should we focus our contributions on the wiki now, and use this thread for more free-form brainstorming / keeping people updated of the changes taking place there? Also, there doesn't seem to be an option that I can find to register, so that we can log in and edit? I can't take responsibility for its overall maintenance, but I could start transferring some of the material over there.
It's been a long while since I took any earth sciences as well so I will also have to defer to others on some of the geological / meteorological forces at work, but one point I do remember being made in Guns, Germs, and Steel* was that the vertical axes of South America and Africa made the diffusion of crop domestication techniques — and by extension, denser more "civilized" societies and cultures — much more difficult than in Eurasia, because of the big tropical and subtropical zones separating, say, the Mediterranean / Fertile Crescent from South Africa, which has a relatively similar climate but which was cut off by the Sahara and the equatorial tropics from the introduction of a high-calorie grain like wheat until much much later.
We've established that this landmass is on the continental scale but haven't really pinned down what that means, in terms of exact area, or where in relation to the planet's equator it's located. The large desert basin and mountain ranges would further impede the easy transmission of cultures and species — there are potentially large disparities between the flora and fauna of the northern regions (2, 3, and 4) and the southern (6, 7, 8), and there could potentially even be gaps between the relatively close 1/8 and 5/6 regions depending on how climatically different they are. Based on Rankenphile's rough starting proposals for each region, the northern end of the landmass is the likeliest candidate for a environment rich in domesticatable plants and animals that could fuel the rise of large-scale civilizations; the "Fertile Crescent" of the continent. If the region is too wet for grains (which is possible, given all those mountains), rice cultivation might be the center of agrarian society; rice is labor-intensive, and requires a large, organized population base, which could be a potential source for the conflict between the kingdoms there. The southern regions, which are currently looking to be more primitive (though perhaps not quite to the degree of the Caldera barrens), also appear to have more of a tropical/subtropical flavor based on what's been proposed thus far.
p.s. - yes to stilt houses in swamps, yes to riverine boat people!
* - my recollections of the points made in the book may be imperfect, so if anyone else has a copy, please chime in. I'll try and visit my local library and see if I can get one, because I really think it is a useful resource for thinking about the history of how societies form and how that ties into the natural environment that gives birth to them.
also I was thinking on the affore mentioned Sheepdog type creature. The consensus seemed to be to go away from lizards because we wanted a mammal due to temperature regulation and also to maybe go canine due to the percieved trainable nature of the animal. With that in mind I think we could go with something based loosley on the Greyhound. I think it should be a tall, thin, lithe dog with superior intelligence and that is very fleet of foot, perhaps even speeds just shy of a cheetah. Its thin coat and wirey frame make it suitable to desert atmospheres as it doesnt consume alot of water or over heat a great deal. Also it has adjusted to the harsh climates in a way no other dog has ....it can sweat to cool itself if neccessary, or can pant if it needs to conserve its water. It naturally likes to herd animals and even uses similar techniques when pack hunting in nature by means of chasing severel prey from a herd into a ravine or box canyon where several of the dogs can suround their prey. Thats all I have so far....but if its popular maybe somebody can run with it.
That sounds like a herding prone saluki on steroids.
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HawkstoneDon't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things. Somewhere outside of BarstowRegistered Userregular
also I was thinking on the affore mentioned Sheepdog type creature. The consensus seemed to be to go away from lizards because we wanted a mammal due to temperature regulation and also to maybe go canine due to the percieved trainable nature of the animal. With that in mind I think we could go with something based loosley on the Greyhound. I think it should be a tall, thin, lithe dog with superior intelligence and that is very fleet of foot, perhaps even speeds just shy of a cheetah. Its thin coat and wirey frame make it suitable to desert atmospheres as it doesnt consume alot of water or over heat a great deal. Also it has adjusted to the harsh climates in a way no other dog has ....it can sweat to cool itself if neccessary, or can pant if it needs to conserve its water. It naturally likes to herd animals and even uses similar techniques when pack hunting in nature by means of chasing severel prey from a herd into a ravine or box canyon where several of the dogs can suround their prey. Thats all I have so far....but if its popular maybe somebody can run with it.
That sounds like a herding prone saluki on steroids.
Yes that is almost perfect ...add in the desert adaptations and the strong herding mentality and trainability and you are dead on.
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RankenphilePassersby were amazedby the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderatormod
edited February 2008
the wiki, at least for now, should be used to collect what information we gather int he thread, and all contributions to the project should stay in this thread and as part of this community, at least for the time being.
Pavek, I'll send you an invite to contribute to the wiki, to help keep it updated. Excellent thoughts on the idea of agriculture. I'd thought about where it would sit on the globe, in relation to the equator and such - for now let's assume that the southern portion is approaching the tropics, while the northern area is similar to the middle of canada - heavy snows in the winter, but it does thaw regularly, so we don't have large glacial deposits or a permafrost region.
Great stuff so far, guys. Let's see if we can't apply these ideas to the east and west coasts, and work our way up to the northland as we go. Once we get the landscape painted in, we can work on building the political map and the subsequent magic and religious systems.
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RankenphilePassersby were amazedby the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderatormod
edited February 2008
Okay, I've done some revision on the world map, detailing a few features.
The blue, obviously, is water, in teh form of rivers, streams and lakes. The red lines are sea-wall cliffs, areas where there is no beach but rather step dropoffs to the ocean below, either vertical cliffs or steep jagged slopes unsuitable for providing access to the sea.
As you can see, I added a mountain at the gate of the valley leading from area 7 to the caldera, with the alkaline lake as mentioned previously. Other streams and rivers feed south, forming a small lake to the west of the gate, with numerous streams and rivers one would have to ford to travel to area 8. The other rivers shown are larger and would have numerous tributaries feeding them from the very soggy swamps and marshes around, providing excellent habitat for the delta-dwellers we discussed earlier, as well as the other beasts and critters.
To the east, I added a substantial lake, which would be freshwater, draining into the sea to the south.
I don't know much about river formation, but it sounds good to me. Do we have a name for this region? Anyone want to write up a short paragraph blurb describing it in rough detail for the wiki's geography page? (Or several longer paragraphs for the region's subpage itself, if you like?)
If this continent is anywhere near the size I think it is, that easterly lake is HUGE.
HUGE
Like, Caspian Sea-sized. Which is cool. Just struck me, is all.
yeah. it adds a lot of possibility, I think. All sorts of cultural significance to the inhabitants of that region, as well as tons of opportunity for loch ness monster-type adventures and other ideas.
This thread has slowed down a lot. Folks losing interest? Want to see something here you're not? Speak up, let's make this fun for everyone.
Do we have some idea of the age of the setting?
I'd like to see this as a world on the decline from a forgotten peak of knowledge.
I think it might be interesting to have a small group of people dedicated to preserving knowledge that's been all but forgotten and passed off as myth to the majority of the world. They could have a significant advantage in forgotten technology (reverred and/or feared by outsiders as magic of nearly D&D levels). I'm thinking firearms and the like, albeit in limited amounts. However, instead of devoting themselves to developing their knowledge they've accepted the belief that anything that can be learned is already known and must be recovered and collected. So while they revere knowledge, the scientific process as we know it would be taboo, suggesting that the great ancients didn't know something that you were trying to learn.
Personally, I'd see this as a highly exclusinist society. Founding race only (they believe that their race is descended directly from the ancients and only they should have access to the ancient knowledge). For more fun, make them sexist, racist and generally loathed by everyone for their hoarding of knowledge. But they mostly maintain their solitude, knowing that the knowledge they maintain destroyed their world once and could easily do so again if it fell into the possession of lesser minds then theirs.
Location wise, they maintain an impressive and all but impregnable citadel on an archipelago stretching off the tip of region 6, as well as numerous smaller keeps scattered across the continent. Due to the difficulty of navigating to the Citadel, it has obtained a nearly mythical status of it's own. Akin to the fountain of youth or the City of Gold. People believe it to be the storehouse of the gods, and are willing to sacrifice a lot for the chance to obtain the power within.
Plot Hook: We need you to go to a distant villiage and recover a generator [tome of knowledge, ancient weapon etc]. (Oh yeah, the villagers revere it as a god or holy object and aren't likely to be too keen to let an outsider take it)
Plot Hook2: Your tribe or villiage has come down with a terrible illness. The Matriarch has dispatched the most healthy members to the Lightkeepers to obtain a cure. Possibly through diplomatic means, but keep in mind, if you fail everyone you know dies a horrible death.
See, I dunno if that fits with the feel of the world that everyone's been talking about. I think a big part of that is the idea that the mystical exists, but you can't really be sure if it even works. Old mid-wives and crazy shamans are the ones with the power to affect things, and even then it's subtle and spurious.
I just don't think a giant civilization of magic power really fits.
Then again, those are just my thoughts, and I guess it worked pretty well in the Elric books. Thoughts?
I think we need to start thinking about where the various demihuman races will live. The world is already very regionally separated by the mountains, the rivers, etc., but if we make it so the demihumans don't live in the same societies as the humans, then the world will be even more drawn apart. Hell, nonhumans might even be seen in the human kingdoms as they were historically: fanciful, creatures of trickery and grace, like the English brownies or whatever.
Are the caldera raiders going to be human?
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Quoththe RavenMiami, FL FOR REALRegistered Userregular
edited February 2008
I think we decided that there would also be a demihuman underground-dwelling race on the caldera, maybe gnome/kobold/rodent-like creatures that survive by burrowing during the day and foraging at night. They would be small, agile, and unfortunately preyed upon by desert wildlife like coyotes and vultures (or their equivalents).
We don't appear to have any kind of icy area, but I vote that we make one and put some elves or giants there. Reading up on our own planetary evolution, it seems like cold climates favor large creatures, so some 7-foot elves or 12-foot giants would be right at home.
It seems like small people (dwarves or halflings) tend to evolve in a closed system, like an isolated island/jungle/mountain area, though I lean away from mountains as a rule because they are so overdone, and actually would probably be cold enough to favor tall people anyway. Whew, that was a long sentence. But yeah, the dwarves are not likely to have evolved in a place that supports humans unless they were somehow separated, but there could have been some historical event that changed the landscape and brought the two groups together.
Cold environments paradoxically favor larger bodymass (i.e. polar bears and maybe giants) and also compactness and very short limbs (i.e. arctic foxes and maybe dwarves or halflings)
I don't actually see elves doing very well in arctic regions. Those human groups with the longest evolutionary history in frozen environments, like Inuits, Northern Siberians, and Finnish peoples, tend to be stocky rather than lithe and tall.
Well, Rankenphile's suggested that the northern edges of the landmass would be about the elevation of Canada, but if that's the case we don't have anything that would be arctic proper on this continent. The island, maybe? But it's not that much further north.
Placing the developed kingdoms that far north on the globe actually seems a little counterintuitive to me, since the shortened growing season would make it harder to grow the amount food you'd need to sustain large complex civilizations. (Although checking on a map I see that that's about the elevation of western Europe; but then I believe the gulf stream has some effects on its weather patterns. And the first civilizations to domesticate crops did originate further south. But if we're not saying the civilizations in 2 and 3 are the first to develop on this continent, just the ones that survived, perhaps this is a moot point.) It's also been suggested that the caldera mountains are at a latitude where winters are strong enough at the higher elevations to force the nomads down to the low foothills where they come in contact with the raiders; so I guess that puts them about mid-US, maybe, and then the southern edge is getting into the subtropics.
I'm kind of stalled on ideas for the caldera because it seems like we've sketched out fairly clearly what kind of civilizations are living there, at least the dominant nomad groups, and now I'm not sure where to go next. Do we want to get down to the level of detailing individual tribes?
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
The red lines are sea-wall cliffs, areas where there is no beach but rather step dropoffs to the ocean below, either vertical cliffs or steep jagged slopes unsuitable for providing access to the sea.
I'm really not seeing that lake at the southern end of Caldera Basin... it just doesn't make sense to me. The Basin is low in elevation, and would be a closed basin... any sort of lake would probably be more towards the middle. In my mind, the southern pass is still a pass that's higher than either side, and would be a watershed boundary.
Imagery always helps me think about a place in a campaign setting.
I wanted to throw this image out there for Caldera Basin. This is in Dallol, Ethiopia, where the extreme environment created by heat, sulfur and salts makes for a very otherworldy scene.
Owens Valley is an inspirational landscape to me in this regard, and these photos (i like the ones of mono lake with the "tuffa towers" created by the water that has receded and left behind the results of alkaline precipitates) do well to characterize the low rainfall, sparsely vegetated white mountains which might bear a resemblance to the landscape of the Caldera. Horses and mules can make it in such an environment, though it ain't always easy. Granted, those in the previous picture are domesticated and given other feed, but I've seen plenty of wild horses and burros in the great basin.
There are noshortageofphotosofDeathValley. It's an amazing place of rich geologic diversity that is imprinted upon every facet of the landscape... I see this kind of harsh beauty and vividness when I picture the Caldera Basin... the kind of place where you don't just get sandstorms... you get salt storms.
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RankenphilePassersby were amazedby the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderatormod
edited February 2008
sorry I've been lagging behind... busy weekend. I like a lot of what I've read so far, I'll try to compile everything tonight and get this moving some more.
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that, plus the idea of giant-ass scary lizard monsters and the fact that their primary access - the valley leading into area 7 - might be entirely flooded during rainy seasons and is otherwise an extremely harsh alkaline/salt lake surrounded by crystaline jagged ground would certainly be more than enough reason to keep them where they are. The few that would brave these three dangers (long, dangerous trek to an unknown area filled with legends of larger-than-man terrible lizard monsters would keep me home, for sure) would have to adopt a whole new way of life. We'd likely see some remnants of their old culture - perhaps they've adapted to fishing with bows and spears, things like that - running throughout the new culture down there, but such a drastic change would definitely have a strong and marked impact on their ways of life.
As for those who are a bit closer, I think the presence of river dwelling civilization (again, I'm thinking of something similar to Gyptians from His Dark Materials) which defends it's homeland would keep them out.
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What kind of commodities would they have to trade?
Pearls? Valuable shells. Prolly ceramics. Wood, maybe?
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rare fish, mushrooms, freshwater pearls, kelp, any rare animals we develop, wood, crafted items like boats and spears...
Should we focus our contributions on the wiki now, and use this thread for more free-form brainstorming / keeping people updated of the changes taking place there? Also, there doesn't seem to be an option that I can find to register, so that we can log in and edit? I can't take responsibility for its overall maintenance, but I could start transferring some of the material over there.
It's been a long while since I took any earth sciences as well so I will also have to defer to others on some of the geological / meteorological forces at work, but one point I do remember being made in Guns, Germs, and Steel* was that the vertical axes of South America and Africa made the diffusion of crop domestication techniques — and by extension, denser more "civilized" societies and cultures — much more difficult than in Eurasia, because of the big tropical and subtropical zones separating, say, the Mediterranean / Fertile Crescent from South Africa, which has a relatively similar climate but which was cut off by the Sahara and the equatorial tropics from the introduction of a high-calorie grain like wheat until much much later.
We've established that this landmass is on the continental scale but haven't really pinned down what that means, in terms of exact area, or where in relation to the planet's equator it's located. The large desert basin and mountain ranges would further impede the easy transmission of cultures and species — there are potentially large disparities between the flora and fauna of the northern regions (2, 3, and 4) and the southern (6, 7, 8), and there could potentially even be gaps between the relatively close 1/8 and 5/6 regions depending on how climatically different they are. Based on Rankenphile's rough starting proposals for each region, the northern end of the landmass is the likeliest candidate for a environment rich in domesticatable plants and animals that could fuel the rise of large-scale civilizations; the "Fertile Crescent" of the continent. If the region is too wet for grains (which is possible, given all those mountains), rice cultivation might be the center of agrarian society; rice is labor-intensive, and requires a large, organized population base, which could be a potential source for the conflict between the kingdoms there. The southern regions, which are currently looking to be more primitive (though perhaps not quite to the degree of the Caldera barrens), also appear to have more of a tropical/subtropical flavor based on what's been proposed thus far.
p.s. - yes to stilt houses in swamps, yes to riverine boat people!
* - my recollections of the points made in the book may be imperfect, so if anyone else has a copy, please chime in. I'll try and visit my local library and see if I can get one, because I really think it is a useful resource for thinking about the history of how societies form and how that ties into the natural environment that gives birth to them.
That sounds like a herding prone saluki on steroids.
Yes that is almost perfect ...add in the desert adaptations and the strong herding mentality and trainability and you are dead on.
Pavek, I'll send you an invite to contribute to the wiki, to help keep it updated. Excellent thoughts on the idea of agriculture. I'd thought about where it would sit on the globe, in relation to the equator and such - for now let's assume that the southern portion is approaching the tropics, while the northern area is similar to the middle of canada - heavy snows in the winter, but it does thaw regularly, so we don't have large glacial deposits or a permafrost region.
Great stuff so far, guys. Let's see if we can't apply these ideas to the east and west coasts, and work our way up to the northland as we go. Once we get the landscape painted in, we can work on building the political map and the subsequent magic and religious systems.
The blue, obviously, is water, in teh form of rivers, streams and lakes. The red lines are sea-wall cliffs, areas where there is no beach but rather step dropoffs to the ocean below, either vertical cliffs or steep jagged slopes unsuitable for providing access to the sea.
As you can see, I added a mountain at the gate of the valley leading from area 7 to the caldera, with the alkaline lake as mentioned previously. Other streams and rivers feed south, forming a small lake to the west of the gate, with numerous streams and rivers one would have to ford to travel to area 8. The other rivers shown are larger and would have numerous tributaries feeding them from the very soggy swamps and marshes around, providing excellent habitat for the delta-dwellers we discussed earlier, as well as the other beasts and critters.
To the east, I added a substantial lake, which would be freshwater, draining into the sea to the south.
Thoughts?
Like, Caspian Sea-sized. Which is cool. Just struck me, is all.
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yeah. it adds a lot of possibility, I think. All sorts of cultural significance to the inhabitants of that region, as well as tons of opportunity for loch ness monster-type adventures and other ideas.
This thread has slowed down a lot. Folks losing interest? Want to see something here you're not? Speak up, let's make this fun for everyone.
I'd like to see this as a world on the decline from a forgotten peak of knowledge.
I think it might be interesting to have a small group of people dedicated to preserving knowledge that's been all but forgotten and passed off as myth to the majority of the world. They could have a significant advantage in forgotten technology (reverred and/or feared by outsiders as magic of nearly D&D levels). I'm thinking firearms and the like, albeit in limited amounts. However, instead of devoting themselves to developing their knowledge they've accepted the belief that anything that can be learned is already known and must be recovered and collected. So while they revere knowledge, the scientific process as we know it would be taboo, suggesting that the great ancients didn't know something that you were trying to learn.
Personally, I'd see this as a highly exclusinist society. Founding race only (they believe that their race is descended directly from the ancients and only they should have access to the ancient knowledge). For more fun, make them sexist, racist and generally loathed by everyone for their hoarding of knowledge. But they mostly maintain their solitude, knowing that the knowledge they maintain destroyed their world once and could easily do so again if it fell into the possession of lesser minds then theirs.
Location wise, they maintain an impressive and all but impregnable citadel on an archipelago stretching off the tip of region 6, as well as numerous smaller keeps scattered across the continent. Due to the difficulty of navigating to the Citadel, it has obtained a nearly mythical status of it's own. Akin to the fountain of youth or the City of Gold. People believe it to be the storehouse of the gods, and are willing to sacrifice a lot for the chance to obtain the power within.
Plot Hook: We need you to go to a distant villiage and recover a generator [tome of knowledge, ancient weapon etc]. (Oh yeah, the villagers revere it as a god or holy object and aren't likely to be too keen to let an outsider take it)
Plot Hook2: Your tribe or villiage has come down with a terrible illness. The Matriarch has dispatched the most healthy members to the Lightkeepers to obtain a cure. Possibly through diplomatic means, but keep in mind, if you fail everyone you know dies a horrible death.
I just don't think a giant civilization of magic power really fits.
Then again, those are just my thoughts, and I guess it worked pretty well in the Elric books. Thoughts?
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Are the caldera raiders going to be human?
We don't appear to have any kind of icy area, but I vote that we make one and put some elves or giants there. Reading up on our own planetary evolution, it seems like cold climates favor large creatures, so some 7-foot elves or 12-foot giants would be right at home.
It seems like small people (dwarves or halflings) tend to evolve in a closed system, like an isolated island/jungle/mountain area, though I lean away from mountains as a rule because they are so overdone, and actually would probably be cold enough to favor tall people anyway. Whew, that was a long sentence. But yeah, the dwarves are not likely to have evolved in a place that supports humans unless they were somehow separated, but there could have been some historical event that changed the landscape and brought the two groups together.
I don't actually see elves doing very well in arctic regions. Those human groups with the longest evolutionary history in frozen environments, like Inuits, Northern Siberians, and Finnish peoples, tend to be stocky rather than lithe and tall.
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Placing the developed kingdoms that far north on the globe actually seems a little counterintuitive to me, since the shortened growing season would make it harder to grow the amount food you'd need to sustain large complex civilizations. (Although checking on a map I see that that's about the elevation of western Europe; but then I believe the gulf stream has some effects on its weather patterns. And the first civilizations to domesticate crops did originate further south. But if we're not saying the civilizations in 2 and 3 are the first to develop on this continent, just the ones that survived, perhaps this is a moot point.) It's also been suggested that the caldera mountains are at a latitude where winters are strong enough at the higher elevations to force the nomads down to the low foothills where they come in contact with the raiders; so I guess that puts them about mid-US, maybe, and then the southern edge is getting into the subtropics.
I'm kind of stalled on ideas for the caldera because it seems like we've sketched out fairly clearly what kind of civilizations are living there, at least the dominant nomad groups, and now I'm not sure where to go next. Do we want to get down to the level of detailing individual tribes?
Imagery always helps me think about a place in a campaign setting.
I wanted to throw this image out there for Caldera Basin. This is in Dallol, Ethiopia, where the extreme environment created by heat, sulfur and salts makes for a very otherworldy scene.
Owens Valley is an inspirational landscape to me in this regard, and these photos (i like the ones of mono lake with the "tuffa towers" created by the water that has receded and left behind the results of alkaline precipitates) do well to characterize the low rainfall, sparsely vegetated white mountains which might bear a resemblance to the landscape of the Caldera. Horses and mules can make it in such an environment, though it ain't always easy. Granted, those in the previous picture are domesticated and given other feed, but I've seen plenty of wild horses and burros in the great basin.
There are no shortage of photos of Death Valley. It's an amazing place of rich geologic diversity that is imprinted upon every facet of the landscape... I see this kind of harsh beauty and vividness when I picture the Caldera Basin... the kind of place where you don't just get sandstorms... you get salt storms.
Thanks for the references, horseshoe.