a fantasy world map

building a fantasy world just for the heck of it. basically meant to be an alternate-dimension upside-down pleistocene europe. my question is: could you tell?

I'd re-evaluate your tundra.

It doesn't follow the natural progression of tundra that I'm familiar with, at least for large land masses. There just isn't a way to position an arctic/antarctic circle that doesn't cut into the otherwise green parts, and there aren't mountain ranges or large bodies of water that stop the cold from travelling.

If you look at a map of Canada like this one or this one, you'll see the amount of frost follows, roughly, the arctic circle. The main reason there's such a sharp upward dip towards the West is that's the Rocky Mountains, which would greatly impact the weather.

You can't just draw a line and say "this is icy" and "this isn't." Ice conditions are heavily impacted by geography, and places like Winnipeg actually get extraordinarily cold because arctic air flows down so easily (it's fairly close to the cut-off line of the map, just West of the whale shaped province).

Now, of course, you have to keep in mind that you're dealing with the Southern hemisphere in your current map, so things might work differently. You might not have tundra at all, depending on how far away from the antarctic circle you are. But there is still weather and geography to consider.

Good luck!

was usin this map for reference

https://www.qra.org.uk/media/img/posts_ ... iation.png

also when i said upside-down i just meant that the people drew their maps upside-down compared to ours not like the earth is actually rotated 180

So that map doesn't reflect what parts of Europe are "icy" and "not."

The UK gets very little snow that stays on the ground. If you take a look at this site, which I'm inclined to trust seeing as it's the meteorological office for the government, you'll see that Scotland only has 30-40 odd days of snow a year. It wouldn't be any place I would consider "tundra" like the map.

Also, your map doesn't indicate that it's simply "the North is put in the South" because you have the uppermost body of water be called the "North Sea." If you wanted me to believe that the North really was in the South, you'd call the sea by the tundra the North Sea. Icy areas only happen in either the extreme north or the extreme south, so logically, if you don't have the north be icy, I must assume that your continent is in the south.

Another thing about that map is there's oceans to account for the snow. Cold oceans produce what's known as "sea effect snow", which can turn coasts into winter wonderlands. While you have some cold ocean to account for this, you lack the seas between You don't have much of anything to drive the snow the way it's there, especially to the west of the lake (lake effect doesn't travel that far, and neither does sea effect). There's also no lake effect around the smaller lake, which would very much happen and not produce that odd, claw-shaped portion of green.

I maintain that the map doesn't make sense to me from a geological standpoint.

@Rosendorn

The Pleistocene (pronunciation: /ˈplaɪstəˌsiːn, -toʊ-/,[1] often colloquially referred to as the Ice Age) is the geological epoch which lasted from about 2,588,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the world's most recent period of repeated glaciations. The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period and also with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology.

also they're callin our south north and our north south if you get my meaning.

so their south is actually our north

Just out of curiosity, which tool did you use to make this map? I've been looking to convert some of the ones I have drawn into this format.

@CarryOnMrCaulfield

Used a drawing tablet and a program named Krita to make the map. Photoshop for text cause kritas text tool sucks

Jyva wrote:@CarryOnMrCaulfield

Used a drawing tablet and a program named Krita to make the map. Photoshop for text cause kritas text tool sucks

Does it cost anything?

I think that looks pretty cool! To answer your question -- I think most people would not recognize it at first glance? I'm pretty sure I wouldn't if you hadn't said it was an upside down map of Europe during the ice age. If you really want to make things confusing, drain out the Mediterranean basin and the Black Sea more if you can. Both would have been shallower anyways back then. However, I think it looks pretty good right now.

CarryOnMrCaulfield wrote:

Jyva wrote:@CarryOnMrCaulfield

Used a drawing tablet and a program named Krita to make the map. Photoshop for text cause kritas text tool sucks

Does it cost anything?

nup, free

drawing tablets are costly though. at least good ones.

Nate wrote:I think that looks pretty cool! To answer your question -- I think most people would not recognize it at first glance?

I find this interesting. Actually, before I even read the post my first thought was "hey that looks like Europe upside-down"
I'm guessing it has something to do with generally recognising patterns? Maybe, or I just tend to think about what stuff looks like from different angles and perspectives in general.

Either way, though, I could buy an idea of a fantasy world that's an inverted version of our own, even if it's recognisable, if done well.

@Jyva

The fact it's an ice age doesn't really line up? Like, I am going to fixate on the little claw-shaped thing by the lake, because that is the one thing that breaks my suspension of disbelief completely. If a lake is surrounded by that much ice and snow, it will produce lake effect freezing. This will, in turn, make the area of the lake cold and snowy. So having this tiny little portion that should, logically, based on winds and water, be still part of the frost, is the one thing that makes me go "this was an arbitrary line drawn."

So unless you fix how water, winds, and frost line up, I'm not going to believe that map.

And yes, I saw the parallels to Europe immediately.