Geology, climate, and municipal development

IanMorrison

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Hello, stumbled on this forum in a google search and I've been lurking for a while.

Anyhow, I've been building a fantasy world for the last few years, and I'm trying to finally gear up for actually beginning work on writing the story (in a graphic novel format). Since getting visual elements consistent from the get go is pretty important, I sketched up part of the town that my protagonists will begin the story in from a birds eye view:

http://starstriker1.deviantart.com/art/Ravenpeak-harbour-102317498

The idea is that this was initially a backwater fishing settlement prior to the cataclysm that made most of the world uninhabitable, and it has since swelled in size to become a town that is self sufficiently supporting--and protecting--several thousand people from four different, uncooperative races. It all starts in the bay area, but quickly extended further up the valley (not pictured) into a series of rural, urban, and fortified segments. As available land ran out, they started terracing the mountainsides and building dwellings and farmland there.

They've been sitting around there for something like 600 years now, and they've exhausted almost all of their safe expansion room by this point. Technologically, these people were roughly WWI level prior to the cataclysm, with magical know-how that gave them an effective technology level closer to the developed world in the 1950's -1960's. When the cataclysm hit, they didn't get knocked back into the stone age, but the sudden lack of resources, infrastructure, and specialized experts has forced them to make do with what they have.

As far as natural resources go, they've got access to plenty of wood, stone, and animals. They're also able to gain rarer resources like metal for tools and weapons via trade with other safe havens that survived the catastrophe, but materials like that are expensive and in short supply.

My first question is going to be: is it plausible to have a mountain range that leads down into an ocean as such, and what kind of climate could the inhabitants expect? This is not a subject I'm very well versed on.

Second, is this a reasonable way for the town to have developed? What kind of solutions would a people of this level of sophistication have employed to make the most of what they have, especially in light of a consistently unstable civil situation and constant threats from violent (if unsophisticated) raiding groups?

Thanks for any help you can provide. I hope I'm not making my questions too broad!
 
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MelancholyMan

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It sounds like a pretty interesting plot. If you have introduced magic don't then try to justify too much with science. Put the town where ever you want and go from there. If you want it cold, place it at a high latitude. If warm, place it at a low latitude. Done.

Your town's development sounds plausible and reasonably interesting, but most people aren't going to care anyway so don't spend too much time agonizing over whether it is entirely believable or not.
 

Kristiina

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Perhaps you should think more in terms of a fjord (a glacially carved valley leading from the mountain range into the sea, look at the map of Norway) than two separate mountain ranges. Geologically speaking there would be only one mountain range, born when two plates hit each other and fold, but look at real world ones, there can be any number of those folds, with lower areas of lands between. What would be best depends on what do you want outside of that particular valley, on land and on sea. Which way to go if you want to leave the mountains?
 

frimble3

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Perfectly plausible

Hello, stumbled on this forum in a google search and I've been lurking for a while.

Anyhow, I've been building a fantasy world for the last few years, and I'm trying to finally gear up for actually beginning work on writing the story (in a graphic novel format). Since getting visual elements consistent from the get go is pretty important, I sketched up part of the town that my protagonists will begin the story in from a birds eye view:

http://starstriker1.deviantart.com/art/Ravenpeak-harbour-102317498

The idea is that this was initially a backwater fishing settlement prior to the cataclysm that made most of the world uninhabitable, and it has since swelled in size to become a town that is self sufficiently supporting--and protecting--several thousand people from four different, uncooperative races. It all starts in the bay area, but quickly extended further up the valley (not pictured) into a series of rural, urban, and fortified segments. As available land ran out, they started terracing the mountainsides and building dwellings and farmland there.

They've been sitting around there for something like 600 years now, and they've exhausted almost all of their safe expansion room by this point. Technologically, these people were roughly WWI level prior to the cataclysm, with magical know-how that gave them an effective technology level closer to the developed world in the 1950's -1960's. When the cataclysm hit, they didn't get knocked back into the stone age, but the sudden lack of resources, infrastructure, and specialized experts has forced them to make do with what they have.

As far as natural resources go, they've got access to plenty of wood, stone, and animals. They're also able to gain rarer resources like metal for tools and weapons via trade with other safe havens that survived the catastrophe, but materials like that are expensive and in short supply.

My first question is going to be: is it plausible to have a mountain range that leads down into an ocean as such, and what kind of climate could the inhabitants expect? This is not a subject I'm very well versed on. Of course, it's plausible, I was born and raised in a town so very much like that! (Only less exciting) Ocean Falls, B.C., not even on the maps any more, but at one time it was hot stuff, 5 thousand people. In your linked info, you say you were influenced by Fernie, so I'm guessing you're from B.C.? As someone else has posted, the fjords along the B.C. coast are just the example you want, mountains rising straight out of the sea. The climate would depend on a lot of factors, but it was really wet, the clouds would come off the ocean and be unable to get over the mountains without dumping rain. One other factor, depending on how far up the inlet you are, the mountains will block the sunset/rise. The sun just sort of drops behind the mountains, and because the arc of available sky is narrow, there isn't a lot of daylight, comparatively.

Second, is this a reasonable way for the town to have developed? What kind of solutions would a people of this level of sophistication have employed to make the most of what they have, especially in light of a consistently unstable civil situation and constant threats from violent (if unsophisticated) raiding groups? What made this town grow more than other little towns? Leadership? Resources? Location?
With Ocean Falls one factor was electricity, there was a river that ran through the valley, it was dammed and flooded for hydroelectric power, which gave cheap power to run the town. It would also provide a start for an industrial base, at the cost of flooding all that flat farmland that your people are using for growing food (we imported everything). Modern run-of-the-river power plants might be a way around that.
Also, how are the raiding groups getting in? If the mountains surround the town on three sides, the inhabitants should be able to guard the passes, if any. There were no roads into Ocean Falls, and the people of Bella Coola had to build their own, notoriously steep and twisty. In 600 years, they should have developed enough of a navy to blockade the inlet. A boom of floating logs would do the trick at a low tech level.

Thanks for any help you can provide. I hope I'm not making my questions too broad!
If this has been of help, and you want more info,just let me know.
 

IanMorrison

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@MelancholyMan:
Actually, while magic is a major force in the world I've got, I'm trying to treat it as more of a fundamental force than a set of incantations... more science than wizardry. I'm very much interested in scientific/geological justifications for this. :)

You're right, though, getting a desired temperature is easy. Since I've opted to give them ocean access, it'll also be fairly humid with low temperature variation. What would the seasons look like, though, and how much rainfall could they expect? Would they need to build an irrigation system to get water to the terraces, or would what naturally falls be sufficient? Those are things that would influence the behaviour and culture of the denizens pretty strongly.

@Kristiina:
A Fjord? That's an interesting idea! From doing a bit of digging around, it would lend itself to the kind of geographical features I'm looking for without needing to throw a mountain range there... and might make for some interesting vista's along the way.

A question though: my story calls for my protagonists visiting a city that is a few weeks travel by caravan. It was heavily populated prior to the cataclysm and a major trade hub built along a river. Would the same glaciers that created the Fjords have left geography that would be suitable for such a large trading city, or would something have to interfere with that to give me suitable land for a major urban center and a bunch of trade routes?

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@Frimble:
Edmonton, actually. My family owns a hosue in Fernie, though, and I've a huge fan of BC's landscape. I'll look into Ocean Falls, sounds interesting!

Alright, so it would be wet and fairly dark, especially in later seasons. That'll influence a lot of things, especially since fresh rainwater is a bit poisonous in my world when it's still falling! I'm thinking that the architecture will involve wide roofs to keep people sheltered, then.

As for what made the town grow so much, it's more necessity than any other factor. The cataclysm I keep babbling about left almost everything uninhabitable, but a few places were shielded from the disaster. Ravenpeak is one of those places, and prior to that event it was a backwater with a population measured in the hundreds, at best. With the cataclysm came a whole lot of refugees, however. Ravenpeak is not, in general, an ideal site for a large settlement, but there's few other places to go.

The raiding groups are from a species of nomadic hunter-gatherers that can safely live in the area known as "the blight" to everyone else. The passes can't be easily guarded because they don't fall under the protection from the blight that the rest of the valley enjoys, so maintaining more than token perimeter defenses/lookouts is a large logistics problem. I'm thinking that the segments of the town further into the valley are heavily fortified, with possible fallback positions and redundancies built in. Since the raiders are probably well suited to travelling through the mountains in small groups, I'm also thinking that Ravenpeak would send out small 6-8 man "wolf packs" out to scout and hunt any of them foolish enough to do so. They'd probably be out for about a week at a time. I'm also thinking that the raiders are determined and numerous enough that they sometimes sneak around or punch through these defenses, leading to adults being required by law to be armed in case they're called up as an impromtu militia.
 
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frimble3

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Ocean Falls specific, so modify to suit what you need: we had about 170 inches of rain a year, so I hope the falling rain isn't really toxic. Probably no need for irrigation, depending on the crops, although more of the rain falls in winter, the summers can be nice. If the temperature gets below freezing, you'll see a lot of snow. That would most likely block the passes and keep the raiders back, giving a respite from attacks. So, an air of anticipation might emerge in the fall, "Will the winter be bad enough to do some good?" The mountainsides are covered in evergreens, so dark green, blue-green are the dominant colours.
As for the caravan, probably your best bet would be to (visualize map of B.C.) follow the river valley back through a pass, up into the Interior, where things could flatten out into a plateau. Bella Coola to Williams Lake, say. Up and down the Coast would be too, well, up-and-down to make passage practical. Even these days, boats are the way to go north/south.
 

IanMorrison

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Well, the rain isn't so much toxic as it is dangerous to magic-sensitive creatures (ie, basically everyone in the havens) and it only stays that way for a very brief time once it enters the protected area, so simply keeping the people indoors when the rain is falling should be sufficient. I don't think it'd be that much of a threat to, say, the animals or the crops. Might make defending the town during a rainstorm a hairy proposition, though.

The heavy snowfall is great... that brings the winter respite, as you said, maybe even being the basis of a winter festival of some kind. It also puts a time limit for people who head out to come home. They either get in on time, or have to winter somewhere else... that'll be great for when the shit hits the fan for my protagonists and they have to get home in a hurry before the pass closes!
 

Sarpedon

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Mountain ranges tend to be parallel to coasts. It is the movement of tectonic plates that produces both things. I would find it very odd indeed to have mountain ranges perpendicular to a coastline.

Mountain ranges can be very close to a coast, however. These would tend to be jagged, 'young' mountain ranges, while older ones would be further inland. (E.g. the Andes vs the Appalacians)

You might also have a very local event where the coastline skips inwards in between two mountains, thus having a spit of water that runs inlands perpendicular to both the dominant coast line and the mountain range. These can be formed by glaciers and are called fjords.
 

blacbird

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My first question is going to be: is it plausible to have a mountain range that leads down into an ocean as such,

Get thee to an Atlas. All kinds of mountain ranges on earth extend into ocean basins: The Alaska Peninsula and Aleutian Islands in Alaska, and the Andes in South America are prime examples. Climate will depend on a lot of factors, notably including latitude and prevailing wind patterns.

caw
 

IanMorrison

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Mountain ranges tend to be parallel to coasts. It is the movement of tectonic plates that produces both things. I would find it very odd indeed to have mountain ranges perpendicular to a coastline.

Mountain ranges can be very close to a coast, however. These would tend to be jagged, 'young' mountain ranges, while older ones would be further inland. (E.g. the Andes vs the Appalacians)

You might also have a very local event where the coastline skips inwards in between two mountains, thus having a spit of water that runs inlands perpendicular to both the dominant coast line and the mountain range. These can be formed by glaciers and are called fjords.

The Fjord suggestion is looking better by the minute. I'd never noticed the tendency for mountains to follow a coast, which seems obvious in retrospect. Where do you find information on this stuff... university geology textbooks, or is there a more accessable source?
 

Sarpedon

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I kind of stare at maps all the time. And there are lots of atlases these days that also describe geological processes.
 

Kristiina

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For basic geology: google mountain building, the first thing to pop up seems to be pretty good. At least when I did that I ended with something called physical geography net. Chapter 10: introduction to lithosphere had a pretty good basic introduction to geology.

About fjords: the coast of Norway (well, actually most of Norway) is an old and pretty eroded mountain range. Check 'Scandinavian mountains', the wikipedia article seems good enough. So you got a mountain range on the coast, lower lands behind it. But if you want mountains that go into the sea, look at the southern part of Norway.

I never got my degree, but once upon a time I managed to go through most of the courses needed for a masters in geology and mineralogy, although I have to admit I don't remember them all that well, and what I know best is just the Baltic shield area.
 
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