Mappae Solis: Venus and the Elves

Venus and the Elves:

Venus is hot and humid, and even though it has a thick cloud layer, its proximity to the sun causes a large amount of UV radiation to pierce the clouds. To the human eye, Venus is mostly a dense swampy jungle of thick black mycelia. Descended from the altered fungi that helped terraform Venus in ancient days, the current ropy tree-like growths cover the majority of Venus’ surface. Although they usually form biomes that are some flavour of “hot, wet, and fungus-trees”, there are a variety of biomes ranging from wetlands and dense jungle, to swamp, moor, shallow sea, and massive river deltas.

Intro to Mappae Solis

So this is a project based on a few ideas. The first is the mappae mundi, or medieval world maps. Maps are always our attempts to represent some part of the world in abstract. Most modern maps strive for realism, to mathematically match their symbols and lines with the physical. The mappae mundi did the same, charting the world according to the people of the time.

Who, given that this was the Middle Ages, were bugfuck crazy. Things they thought were real, beliefs they held, real places, actual fiction: it all got thrown in. The result doesn’t map the physical world, but the metaphysical. The mappae mundi don’t chart distance, but relationships. Like a modern subway map, where a station is in the world doesn’t matter as much as what other stations it is linked to. 

Pangaea

PANGAEAN SUPERCONTINENT

A world dominated by a massive landmass, and an even larger ocean. Crossing either is unheard of, except in the most extreme cases closer to the poles.

The continent is orientated mostly N-S, and has a massive megamonsoon, a seasonal dry/wet cycle. Air flows from the cool ocean to the hot landmass in summer, pulling moisture with it.

In the East, it is met (after over two thousand kilometers of travel), by a massive mountain range, almost impassable. As the air tries to flow over the mountains, it cools further, and dumps its water. The land east of these mountains are wet and plentiful, and abound with rivers and lakes. Blizzards and snowstorms in the coldest areas, thick drifting rainstorms in the temperate, and massive hot lightning in the tropics. The West does not have mountains large enough to cause this effect, and so its clouds travel further, almost 12 thousand kilometers, before the last of their moisture is lost. The coast is wet, the middle forested, and eventually plains fade to scrub fade to desert fade to badlands.

GLOG class: Action Botanist

Action Botany is the art of imbuing seeds with strange abilities through alchemy. They are also known as Seed Wizards or Horticultural Alchemists. They don’t cast spells, instead planting specifically created seeds that grow into useful and magical plants. They are more utility and support focused than most casters, and rarely have damaging abilities.