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Looking at the maps of Golarion and the other regional maps that have come out, the coastline looks a bit too smooth. Maybe it comes from growing up on the east coast where we have barrier islands all over the place, but even looking at maps of England and the Mediterranean there's a TON of islands. There's very few islands in the inner sea, and the ones that are there are gigantic.
At first it could be just suggested that that map is at too large a scale, but looking at maps of Osirion and Andoran in the campaign setting there's no islands either.
Kind of detracts from the world for me, was wondering what others thought.
That's interesting -- I hadn't noticed that. I could understand not including small islands on the larger maps, but it's an interesting choice not to put some in on smaller maps of the coastlines.
One thing that comes to mind, in the case of islands that are a good ways off from the mainland, is that they may not have mapped them because they haven't "been discovered" yet. To some extent, the map may represent the known world, as opposed to a full representation of what's actually there.
I don't have my copy handy, but does the Campaign Setting indicate how old the world is? An older world would have fewer small islands, as tides and waves slowly eroded those that existed in an earlier epoch.
Other than that, I couldn't say. Stylistic decision perhaps?
CR
Its moreso that its a large scale map, little islands are too much extraneous detail, so there is of course many little islets and spurs of rock and coast, but they wont show up prominantly because the scale and detail would just clog the map. Also be a bother to order from their cartogaraphers, and not look particularily nice.
I'd say anyway, or maybe the tides and coasts have slightly different dynamics on Golarion.
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Looking at the maps of Golarion and the other regional maps that have come out, the coastline looks a bit too smooth. Maybe it comes from growing up on the east coast where we have barrier islands all over the place, but even looking at maps of England and the Mediterranean there's a TON of islands. There's very few islands in the inner sea, and the ones that are there are gigantic.
At first it could be just suggested that that map is at too large a scale, but looking at maps of Osirion and Andoran in the campaign setting there's no islands either.
Kind of detracts from the world for me, was wondering what others thought.
10,000 years ago, there was a disaster that caused part of the west coast of Varisia to fall into the sea. Sandpoint (ROTRL) has a cliff face of about 50'. The part that fell into the sea was probably just as flat, so most of it is now under water. Any islands that may be there are most likely the tops of hills that survived the disaster and have resisted erosion over the years.
It definitely needs more fjords. Improves the atmosphere, gives the whole place a baroque feel.
10,000 years ago, there was a disaster that caused part of the west coast of Varisia to fall into the sea. Sandpoint (ROTRL) has a cliff face of about 50'. The part that fell into the sea was probably just as flat, so most of it is now under water. Any islands that may be there are most likely the tops of hills that survived the disaster and have resisted erosion over the years.
Yes there is some of this. 10,000 years is next to nothing geologically speaking. Wasn't the Inner Sea formed by a damn meteor falling into it as well. The rest of the maps don't have enough of closeup to say whetehr there are inlets and islands.
The inner sea is devoid of islands because it is, more or less, artificial. It was created when a large big meteor smashed into the world. That event also caused parts of western Avistan to sink into the Arcadian ocean, and obliterated the whole continent of Azlant.
I guess elsewhere in the world there are more islands, but we only have maps of the Inner Sea region.
It definitely needs more fjords. Improves the atmosphere, gives the whole place a baroque feel.
Well, what do you expect from unskilled labour?
Creative Director
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Looking at the maps of Golarion and the other regional maps that have come out, the coastline looks a bit too smooth. Maybe it comes from growing up on the east coast where we have barrier islands all over the place, but even looking at maps of England and the Mediterranean there's a TON of islands. There's very few islands in the inner sea, and the ones that are there are gigantic.
At first it could be just suggested that that map is at too large a scale, but looking at maps of Osirion and Andoran in the campaign setting there's no islands either.
Kind of detracts from the world for me, was wondering what others thought.
The main reason you see this is that the vast majority of RPG world maps are not designed by cartographers, but by game designers. Game designers who, generally speaking, are better writers than artists.
I did try to make Varisia's coastline, at the very least, pretty complex and interesting, for what it's worth...
I'm just glad that we don't have any rivers that flow apart and empty into the ocean multiple times.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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I'm just glad that we don't have any rivers that flow apart and empty into the ocean multiple times.
Hey, we went into that on the chat once, it *does* happen, just not very often on major rivers except at a delta (and really, most are at deltas in general).
Here's a really interesting distributary - one branch into the Pacific, one into the Atlantic. Woo!
As far as the coastline - I'm assuming most minor islands just aren't on the maps at the scale shown.
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Creative Director
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I'm just glad that we don't have any rivers that flow apart and empty into the ocean multiple times.Hey, we went into that on the chat once, it *does* happen, just not very often on major rivers except at a delta (and really, most are at deltas in general).
Here's a really interesting distributary - one branch into the Pacific, one into the Atlantic. Woo!
As far as the coastline - I'm assuming most minor islands just aren't on the maps at the scale shown.
It does happen, yes. But not often. And certainly not in the way the Nyr Dyv drains into to different oceans.