I created the world.
Zanian
Member Posts: 332
So I wanted to try something different today. Naturally, I created the entire world of Abeir-Toril. 
You can see Faerûn, Kara-Tur, Zakhara, and a tiny bit of Maztica popping in on the left side.
Just call me Ao.
You can see Faerûn, Kara-Tur, Zakhara, and a tiny bit of Maztica popping in on the left side.
Just call me Ao.
9
Comments
Also, Bryce 7 and PS CS6. It's probably the first 3D model I have done, where 95% of the time wasn't spent in the modeling software, but in PS in order to create the texture map. Once that was done, the Bryce stuff was trivial to say the least.
It strikes me how much that globe map looks like a zoom-in on Eurasia, only with Africa missing to the south.
I've found that almost all fantasy world maps are based on the geographical shape of Europe, with the more "exotic" places very strongly resembling coastlines around the Mediterranean Sea, and "remote islands" looking like either Australia, or a remote, barely known "New World", i.e. North America. That's kind of understandable, I suppose, since most Western high fantasy imagination is spawned from the King Arthur set of legends centered in England, combined with Norse mythology from the Netherlands and Germany, Greco-Roman mythology from Italy and Greece, and a dash of Egyptian mythology for spiciness.
Below is a shot of the planet upon which the entire Might and Magic series takes place, from MMVI and HoMM I, up through HoMM III. Notice again the resemblance to the Mediterranean coastline, although, since most of the western coast of that largest continental mass in the northern hemisphere is desert terrain, it could also be modeled on North America.
We write and create what we know, I suppose. A real Earth-like planet somewhere out there that is not Earth, would surely have a continental arrangement that bears no resemblance whatsoever to real-life Earth - or would it? Either we have a failure of imagination when creating fantasy planets, or, the laws of physics tend to cause all Earth-like planets everywhere to follow a similar geographical path of development.
BTW, upon studying the globe of Faerun that you provide further, I am struck with seeing an even stronger resemblance to the west coast of Europe. Icewind Dale appears to be positioned in what would be Sweden and Norway, moving down into France and Spain. (In fact, it looks like the common tongue of the Sword Coast is likely French, from that map, while the common tongue of Amn would be Spanish.) There is even a small chain of islands in the near western sea that could be Britania - perhaps first discovered by "Baldur", and overrun with werewolves in the version of it we know from the game.
You bring up some good points, but I don't really think it's so much a lack of imagination that's the cause for the similarities, but more just good business practice.
If we take the forgotten realms as an example (because in here of all places, why wouldn't we?), you want a world where the heroes can sail trough perilous oceans, cross vast deserts, and climb snowy peaks.
If a story (or in this case, hundreds of stories) all took place in one supercontinent (like in the truly old days of yore), it would quickly become tiresome. It would also limit the amount of different cultures.
And, to be honest, whenever you have a planet with blue water, all the varying biomes, and continents/islands, it's going to look a lot like Earth. At least from our own perspective.
That's my 2 cents anyway.
I love this image, it sort of sends chills down my spine, thinking that that's what the world we're all so familiar with would look like from space.
Then, around on the other side of the world, you have Maztica, which is a huge continent representing the various Americas. The Maztican book Trilogy takes place in the Central Americas, with cultures based on Aztecs, Incas and so on, with Central American-based classes like Eagle Knight and Jaguar Knight, and Pluma and Hishna magic. Beneath Maztica is Katashaka, a secretive continent, and a fourth continent, Osse, lies between Western Maztica and Eastern Faerun/Kara-Tur. Osse is unexplored, but given its size and where it was located, could conceivably be the Abeir-Torilian equivalent of Australia and the major Pacific Islands like New Zealand, The Phillipines and etc. combined.
And then we have that mystery island to the West of the Maztican continent, and whatever makes up "Lapongo", said to be North of Katashaka and South of Maztica. I wonder if we have any sunken continents on that planet...! Or maybe some floaties.
Even with as much as we know about that map, I still get a little panicky, and recall all those maps of Arda during its Ages...