Welcome back to the Worldbuilding Chronicles! In this article, we will be discussing GEOGRAPHY! From landscapes to the weather and even climate, this article is your guide to keeping it realistic and accurate. More will be explained further in this article. So, let us jump right in!

Landscape and Climate!

When it comes to land and climate there are a few things one needs to know.

One; the different types of climates and how they work and

Two; how you can include them in your world.

In this section, we will not only give you a list of the types of climate and what they are but also how to include them in your story!

Polar and Tundra - (freezing areas with little to no plant life although wildlife can be possible. Most of these places are usually covered with thick sheets of ice. Think of the Antarctic and other places as such. Wildlife include polar bears and penguins among others, who have adapted to the extremely cold temperatures and can blend in or hunt on icecapes.

Mountains - Rocky areas with...well mountains! Mostly covered in snow and at high altitudes, it is essential to remember that altitudes (height) depend on the location(s) and at higher altitudes, there is difficulty in breathing and hence, not everyone can handle that. Usually, people at higher altitudes, have adapted breathing abilities that help them to adapt to living with low amounts of oxygen. And those living at the bottom or the foot of the mountains - and the areas around it - are very susceptible to landslides, avalanches - if the hill contains ice - and soil erosions. The types of animals living in the mountains are able to survive due to their agility in manoeuvring the rocky inclines.

Boreal Forests - South of Tundras, these forests are freezing for most of the year. A lot of conifers and deciduous trees are found in these regions. It is good to be mindful that here, the temperature is below zero most times of the year and hence, only animals and plants adapted to the winter can survive.

Desert - Hot and sandy climate with wildlife and plants that can survive the extreme heat and cold. These have very little vegetation and wildlife due to the extremely high temperatures and usually, it is cacti that thrive. Watering systems run dry often and in the deserts, water conservation is a very important thing to be mindful about. Heatstrokes and dehydration are extremely common. One thing to note is that temperature swings to extreme ends due to lack of humidity, when the sun sets, desert areas are freezing cold. 

Dry Grassland - Yup, there are many different types! With hot summers and cold winters, they have very little rainfall so plant life is hard to grow. These are often referred to as semi-tropical savannas where the temperatures are high and often in hot climates leading to forest fires too. There is the other grassland - the normal Savanna where it is warm but at the same time wet. 

Temperate Forests - With warm summers and cool winters, people are usually well-versed with this type of climate. In such locations, forestry is dense and animal life is usually very rich.

Tropical - Only exists nearer to the Equator due to extremely humid and sunny weather. Such places may not experience winters but they undergo frequent heavy thunderstorms. Due to the high humidity, heat is retained easily leading to warm days and nights. Animals and plants that live in this climate have adapted to losing heat quickly.

Now while these aren't all the types of climate, it's some very well-known ones! Now you might be curious about how you can relate these to a fictional world. It's actually easier than you might think, considering the plants and animals that are a part of your story - you can question yourself by asking how they survive in your world. When you have that in mind you can consider how they can survive in these real-world climates! You can do the same with plants. To figure out how to do that, consider the following: -

How hot or cold can your creatures be to survive?

How much water do plants need?

What do the creatures look like? Do they need places to hide? Do they need to camouflage?

Is the forestry you have in mind, dense or scarce? Depending on that, you can check out what type of animals would thrive. Remember that in places with dense forestry and rich wildlife, the natural way of life - prey and predators - apply and the survival of the fittest fittest is a very important thing.

These are a few examples of questions you need to ask yourself to be able to determine where your creatures live! Of course, you can always make your own climates if real-life ones aren't to your fancy. By doing this you can consider pretty much the same things as real-life ones.! How does it look? What animals can live there? And many more!

Weather

Weather is something all worlds have to deal with, even fictional ones! Now you can use real-life weather or make your own.! One way a lot of authors do that is by altering real-life weather types. Acid rain is a prime example that storytellers can use but of course, making original ones is possible and is super fun too! You just need to consider how it works. Does it rain? How does the sun affect it? Does the land get affected? And more! Now how can you determine how the weather works in your world? Well simple it all goes back to climate!

When it comes to choosing what weather goes well you need to consider what the climate is like. It wouldn't make sense if it rained in a desert, would it? Probably not! So you need to consider what climates you have and work from there doing this is actually pretty simple if you have a map! You can have a visual model of what goes where of course if you don't want to (or can't) make a map you can always just visualize it in your head. All you need to do is determine where the climates are and assign weather to them. Like, are some places more rainy? Likely a rainforest or forest, maybe even a swamp! Is it very hot and sunny? Likely a desert or grassland! With that making weather is easy as pie!

A simple guide to making your own weather:

Consider which real-life weather you wish to incorporate into your fictional world. It could be as simple as adopting any real-life weather, or something uncommon like 24/7 rain. Or weather that is detrimental to human lives such as poisonous air or acid rain.

Consider the effect of the fictional weather on human lives, infrastructure and wildlife. For example, if the air was poisonous, the animals must have developed special breathing organs. If it was acid rain, then humans may hide in their homes whenever there is a warning of rain in the weather forecast.

You can try to mesh, combine or mix certain real-life weather together. But for this to work, you must remember not to combine opposite real-life weather together such as deserts and rain, or tropical humidity with snowstorms.

Water! I Love it You Love it! We All Love it!

Water is a very important part of geography. It's what most things drink, used in cooking, and even cleaning, so it's very important to know where it is and how it works in world-building. You want to consider how it works in your world and what it's used for.

One thing that is very important to remember is water always flows down so it flows down from mountains. Another thing is rivers do whatever they want so you have a lot of wiggle room when it comes to writing the rivers. Writing water is very easy. All you need to do is consider where it is located; does your river go into the sea? Is it flowing through a forest? Are there water sources in deserts? All these things are very important to consider especially for your characters and wildlife! If a place they are travelling through has little to no water, you can consider making this a side plot! If there is little water how do the animals survive? Do they hydrate from something else? You want to consider these when worldbuilding because depending on where water is determines also how communities work.

People need water or some form of hydration as well as ways to bathe and cook! So when worldbuilding you can think about how a community would function with little water or no water at all. Maybe they thrive on water-filled plants, live off rainwater, or even have water as something they want to trade for! If they don't have water do they clean themselves in other ways? Perhaps they use perfumes and lotions to mask the odour they can't wash off. Maybe they use meat liquids as a water replacement! You want to consider how communities thrive without sources of water so think carefully about where it is and how it's used!

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There are many other ways to worldbuild the geography of a world but these are the core pieces. Everything else is dependent on how your world works! With that being said these core segments are what can build the foundation of the world! In the next article, you will learn about plants and animals and how to worldbuild them!

Written by: Evelynfrost23; Pellucidletter; PinkMarbella2050; devianmisfit
Edited by: sardonicbeauty