I could see a mountain top spring being an interesting map point, sure why not

Slight update concerning rivers that whim and kiki wanted.


Also

We can start with culture groups ( ethnicity/tradition/all-that-jazz)

I'll post my own example of one in a bit but to give you an idea of what I'm looking for; just colour in a portion of the map, think about a group of peoples. Think about what they look like, what they might eat, where they live, how they speak, their traditions, their natural inclinations, etc etc. our ethnic groups/races can be fleshed out this way too.

Are we sticking to more humanoid races for the time being, or are centaurs/dragons/plant people fair game?

Before we start that, as a suggestion I think we should consider three or so progenitor ethnic groups. That way we can have some sort of logical development of culture to its present state and ancestral links between differing nations. Of course in the present era each resulting branch of the original peoples can be very different from the other, but they'll have linked traits through ethnicity, or language, or even some traditions like religion.

Really, these original groups don't even have to be in existence anymore, as they could have been swallowed by another culture group, or simply die out.

Edit: I think Ichigo said that we were going to save those for a second continent somewhere

Found it!

We should still try to make our original sets of "Humans" strikingly different visually. Now I don't think of myself as a great designer of culture and such, but from a biological stand point I like to think I'm a decent creature designer.

I have a thought for a nocturnal "Human" ancestor group that I'll probably post for consideration later.

I feel like the main continent should be human, with possible other races being fringe. Other continents can be wild cards.

Agreed.

Even then, the fringe races should be very humanoid, ie: say one minor group just happens to have tapered ears due to an attempt to colonize by some sort of elven race that we never meet, but exist out there in the wide world.

Rather, I think that each of our progenitor ethnic groups all human in appearance are made distinct by ethnicity, and hard coded cultural aspects like language and traditions.

And really its not NECESSARY, but I think it will give the continent a great cohesive history if we have our current era nations seeming to have evolved from these early history cultures.

I thought we already had a discussion about (and can to an agreement on) that human-like races, like elves, would just be lumped into humans. Which is why I posted about making VERY different human ancestor groups. I don't mean like Mongoloid or Caucasian different, I'm talking freaking ginger gnomes and Sasquatches different.

I'm not exactly sure about how much genetic diversity we should have. Generally speaking such extreme changes from one race to another aren't generally possible within close proximity, but this is a fantasy world.



also as a quick example, not very detailed.






Farramids
Area of origin: Ferkland
physical description:
Complexion: Light
Facial Features: Rounded faces, large foreheads.
Hair: light hair, generally blond or very light brown.
Eyes: blue, green
Average height: 175cm 5'7"
Language description: guttural noises. Uses tones which are produced from the back of the throat, very little tongue work.
Society: hunter gatherers who eventually settled and became farmers. They later evolved into a warrior society after skirmishing with neighboring tribes

background: (insert story here about how the Farramids spread their culture from central Ferkland through war and cultural genocide. Also tell about how they landed on the mainland and pushed the local mountain dwelling culture back across the mountains into the desert)

Using this you would then assume that Farramid was the parent culture and there could be cultural offspring within the group that don't necessarily work the same way but coexist.

Take all this lightly though. I just want people to start throwing out ideas, no need to be formal about it(my pretend concept sure isn't), we can formalize later.

Also parent cultures should probably be larger sections of the map, unless we want to do more work(wide spread culture mixing) which I'm fine with.

Also as an added note we can determine the exact specifics of each climate whenever. If there's a certain area you want to be a dry jungle or wet jungle, heavily forested, etc. just mention it.

I say one area rains lava.

An area with an active volcano and a people adapted to live in it's shadow would be amazing. Small mountain range in the top right?

I was thinking the black mountain in the bottom left hand corner



get out of here belth, you don't even like this stuff anymore.

Oh yes, even better! That gets my vote.

It might be helpful to establish the scale of the continent.