Wow, that is quite beautiful. Thanks for digging up the picture for me. There's certainly nothing like that around here (Great Lakes region, Canada).

@Loopysue Just to clarify, I was thinking of the images earlier on. These most recent ones (ie. the image in the comment before this one) I really like. I don't think I've ever seen the kind of heath you're describing. Sounds beautiful though.

I've been hesitant to say anything about this thread because I feel like I came to it a bit late, and it was maybe past time to mention my impressions. I'm quite a fan of what these days is called grimdark and which I associate more with early (and bleak) swords and sorcery type fiction. I wanted to mention two things, however, and I think you'll see why I've waited.

The first is that as a matter of personal taste I'm not a huge fan of the purplish bits (I think I'm meaning the mountain and moor backgrounds). I can see that lots of people like it, so I'm pretty sure this is my lack of knowledge about color rearing its porcine head again.

The second is a bit more philosophical. I can remember seeing an episode of Battlestar Galactica years ago that focused on the supposedly cursed planet Kobol. It's a lush planet, with tons of vegetation and very little markings of the passage of intelligent species. I remember that making it all the more creepy for me... the supposed cursed state being at complete odds with the beauty of the setting. Another great example is the film Thin Red Line, about Vietnam, which has all of this beautiful scenery and yet people are doing horrific things there and there's a monologue running throughout that comments on it. All of which is to say that for me its the contrast that makes things really dark. A personal aesthetic maybe.

Well, its late, I probably didn't explain that well. The work is beautiful, as always, Sue, and boy now I really do want elven houses that drift on top of the trees. Sorry to be late to the party, and so unhelpful.

I found choosing my best three really tough, as a lot of people have said. I am in awe of everyone's artistic abilities. Some of the things here I wouldn't even think you could do in the software. Thanks everybody. I look forward to studying these fcws and seeing if I can learn anything.

I read a 28 page document on one of your maps. Very engaging reading.

Great map and background information. Looking at the map, I couldn't help but feel I should do a map in that style. It's interesting you drew the parallel to McCaffrey; I immediately thought of the Mystaran Thyatian Empire and its Retebius Air Squadron made up of wyverns, gryphons and other flying mounts.

Looking at the overland map and I noticed that if you look at it closely there is a very dim image of stuff that should be covered over. I used the wasteland fill in place of the regular land fill and where the hill and mountain backgrounds overlap it you can see the darker areas from the wasteland dimly. The hill and mountain fills have edge fade inner on them. Does anyone know how I can make the unwanted stuff disappear?

Hi Quenten. I've just read through some of Wyvern's comments and I wanted to add a few things, particularly around his insight that the land form is similar to Pangaea's. Pangaea was around for a long time and its climate changed due to several factors, but in general it was a much warmer place than the world we live in. It's also believed that in some eras it was prone to extremes - hot desert separated from tundra by narrow strips of milder weather, particularly in the south.

The following site might provide some guidance: http://www.buildyourownearth.com/byoe.html?e1=39&c1=4&v=pm . It allows you to view a number of climatic elements at different periods in the earth's history. I'd suggest for the planet you've presented either the Jurassic, Triassic, or Permian periods, based solely on the shape of the land mass. Myself, I'd look at the Permian.

I actually used maps I downloaded from this tool to develop the climate for a Pangaea like world I developed. I simply took the January and July maps and imported them as an overlay in fractal terrains, and then used it as a guide to develop bars of temperature and precipitation for my planet, smoothing out the results. Then I developed maps to chart the currents and wind directions, and had them modify the precipitation and temperature appropriately. I was pretty happy with the results.

Looking at the map you provided, I'd guess that the inland sea that your desert is on is large enough to develop its own current systems much like an ocean. I'm inclined to think that the current would move into your desert from the south, and that the result might be fertile coasts. It seems to me that given the size of the land mass to the west of this sea, there would be a high pressure zone over the land somewhere in the middle, as there is over Asia (I believe it's only in winter), which is a major contributing factor to monsoons. For that reason I'd suspect a more wet and dry situation over that coast, and it would likely also affect the area where your desert is.

Well, this is all random hypothesizing in the English manner, as Nietzsche put it. If I had the height map I'd be tempted to give it a go. Hope you're well.

I'm thinking its a simple matter to just hide the sheet if it doesn't seem to be working once I put more details in. I mostly wanted the regions to guide my placement of things.

That's funny... I thought this section of coast looked like Israel... there really are a lot of places in the world with a straight coast. I'm feeling better about it.