Ferenj

[damocles]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

I knocked this together in a hurry as I wanted to see what Ferenj might actually look like in the Nverse.

I assumed that there would be a massive geologic event different from the scraping ice sheets that caused the North American Great Lakes, so I postulated a super-volcanic eruption that pushed mantle material across half of what we call "Australia".

Results? A mile high wedge called the Marsaryk Plate or plateau about the size of  Switzerland that dominates the center of Ferenj. The plate has sheer sides and is shaped like a 40/70/70  triangle with the long point aimed roughly at Af Gaceidi.

The other terrain features are the Waste, a horrible desert to the south of the Plate, caused as much by its splitting the winds at that latitude, as by the hot temperatures that beat down on the bowl left as the lava cooled into the world's largest washing board.

To the north of the Plate are where the lava floes carved and deposited on the Iron Lands, where the world's worst farmland and richest mineral and metal deposits are.
     
To the east, the same mighty lava flows found a depression to gouge and tear apart. These became the Lakes using lava to do what ice did in North America.

To the west are the Lowlands, with rich soil from as yet unexplained ash deposits left there ten mullion years ago. It has a brilliant climate, like Southern France, only with a permanent rain laden west wind that feeds it heavy rains, like Maoria or Hawaii. It is heavily forested. with broken meadows and marshland along the coast. Here there still exist giant ground birds who are the dominant niche predator in this neck of the Nverse.

To the south and southwest is the Gold Coast named for the color of its beaches more than anything else. here is where the first settlers landed and here is where most immigration settles today, despite the promise of free land and  generous tax breaks by the Ferenji government to encourage settlement in the Lakes and the Lowlands. The fact is that the country is sort of quartered by "the Plate" and most people prefer to stay south of it for good reason.              
============================================
Now to make a good map I need more time than I have now. But I sited cities and gave it a road/rail net. Most long distance travel is still by ship. Most settlement is coastal with interior settlement in the southwest.    

[Valles]

Hallelujah! Someone else who actually thinks about this stuff! Every time I've tried to go into something like this, I've gotten "I can't believe you went to all that trouble..."

That said, I really like the work you've done here. Australia as a whole is still probably one of the dryer continents under this regime, simply given its placement relative to the global wind and rainfall bands, but the supervolcanic activity is going to make soils across the entire continent much more fertile - apparently the wasteland we're familiar with has as much to do with poor soil quality as it does the admittedly wretched climate. Even the 'upwind' fallout from that probably enriched soil across much of Firanj.

[The Rock Doctor]

I'm having difficulty accessing the map, but the write-up is very encouraging and appreciated. 

[damocles]

I should have the simple terrain map up by tonight. I do not intend to do this for states that have there own caretakers, but it looked like Korpen ran this place awhile and since it was incomplete I sort of took what Ciders said about it to heart and decided to at least supply geography, so that when war comes here(if it comes), we have some idea of the lay of the land.

D.       

[damocles]

http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/9326/nverseferenjtopology.jpg

Its large and I don't know how to thumbnail it for thus HTML, so I will do this:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

As you can plainly see, about ten million years ago, there was a terrible event in Western Australia (Like Tjuba or Yosemite only much worse, that rivaled at 1/8th scale the vulcanism that shaped northern India and southern Tibet about 300 million years ago? The ecology and terrain is nothing like anywhere else on Earth. Even east Australia beyond the barrier formed by the Lakes is nothing like it.    

The closest I can consider to it; is south and west China, but dominated by giant ferns, super kangaroos four times the size of a modern Joey, and giant ground birds evolved from parrots and finches that are carnivorous, fast, and not afraid of men at all. Velociraptors with feathers and beaks, I call them.

And of course there are the ten meter crocodiles of the Warhammer River that flows from the Lakes to the southern Pacific .

That river is navigable by ocean going vessels all its way to the Lakes. Once there, then you must use a canal and lock system to reach the Lakes north to south. The water is sea saline as far north as Gaaryk!.    

[The Rock Doctor]

You should be able to embed the full image here by adding a front square bracket to this:

img]img714.imageshack.us/img714/9326/nverseferenjtopology.jpg[/img]

However, my efforts to do this produce a fraction of the image before it freezes; it may be because I'm on dial-up.

[damocles]

I hope that makes sense as to what I imagined and that it is acceptable?

[The Rock Doctor]

Must be my machine, then.  It did it again.

[damocles]

Can you see it now?

[The Rock Doctor]

Just the top quarter of the image.  It's an issue with my computer - it does this occasionally. 

[Borys]

I can't believe you went to all that trouble...

[damocles]

I can't believe you went to all that trouble...

Why not? It fills in a blank, and if accepted, it makes a new player's job a lot easier if his make-believe country has an actual geography and a "history". It will explain what the Ferenj are and how they play out. These guys fight giant lizards, giant kangaroos, and giant chickens.  Can't be clearer that these guys who immigrated there are INSANE? They have velociraptor kavalrie!

     

[Logi]

If need be, I can work on a more detailed version of the above map. ;)

[miketr]

damocles for bonus cash.

Michael

[Sachmle]

damocles for bonus cash.

Michael

Seconded.