Climate Zones of the Wilderlands

Originally posted here

The 1e City State book has a frontispiece sketch map of the Wilderlands, with the Equator clearly shown. It runs in a line west to east through the Underwing Jungle, Grindwell, Gulf of Pinnacles, just north of the Eyestones Jungle, just south of the Starlight River.

This, combined with the Great Glacier to north of Valon, the Ament Tundra in the SW, and the scattered nature of the rain forest cover, raises the inevitable conclusion: THE WILDERLANDS IS AN ICE AGE WORLD. No getting away from it, and it explains a huge amount about the world - for instance, Ice Age = Dry. No vast tropical rain forests as we presently see on Earth, just scattered patches. It explains the Ament Tundra very nicely. It means the 'Demon Empires' to the south would seem to be mostly a howling frozen wasteland - but why not? That would explain why they've played so little part in the history of the world.

With the official Equator line in play, using 15 miles to the hex and a polar circumference of 24,000 miles gives the following latitudes:

+4.5 Degrees: Ossary, Trident Gulf

+9 Degrees: Croy, Thunderhold

+13.5 Degrees: Forbidden Forest, Uther Pentwegern Sea

+18 Degrees: Just North of Valon

(At 5 miles/hex either divide by 3 or accept a very small planet!).
Conclusion: The Wilderlands is not like contemporary Earth. It more resembles Earth in the grip of a more severe glaciation than any in the current Ice Epoch.

Still, parrallels to Earth climate zones can be drawn within the compressed climate zones necessitated by the overarching dominance of the Ice.

Some of my thoughts for my campaign, from equator northwoods:

Antil: The coastal areas are swampy and humid, with a Caribbean climate suitable for maize, sugar cane, and cotton. The Windgod Hills are much drier, largely treeless and carpeted in a soft red moss.

Ossary: A warm, sunny Mediterranean climate - think Normans in Sicily.

City State: Warm, but well inland and subject to more seasonal variation than Ossary, with regular snowfall in the winter months of Gloomfrost and Thawmist BCCC (White Wolf & Snow Leopard in CC) .

Croy, Brezal: Cool and windy, with a climate generally similar to north Germany, Denmark and Southern Sweden, glaciers in the upland mountains.

Valon: Often very cold, but amenable to the Valonese, with low humidity and little wind.

leadjunkie wrote:
"For years I decided to imagine mine much further south. It was not until I read a post Bob Bledsaw made on these forums that I came to the same conclusion that you did about an ice age"


Hi leadjunkie - yes, I too had assumed a much further south equator, and then wondered why the southern Wilderlands is temperate, turning to subarctic in the Ament. But I realise now that the climate zones depicted fit very well with what we know an Ice Age to be like, you don't even need any magic AFAICS, though the Land of Beasts seems unusually warm compared to Valon to the east. That may be due to off-map geography, notably the Great Glacier pushing down from the north affecting the Valonese climate, eg by calving Icebergs into the Uther Pentwegern.

"I would very much like to see expanded comments from you on other Wilderlands areas."

A lot of areas in the Necromancer WoHF have local climate notes, I haven't seen any that needed changing. It'd probably be worth noting that the Ghinor Highlands are temperate turning cool at higher elevation, and the 'Demon Empires' in the far south are likely cold to Arctic.

"Are your latitude demarcations intended to indicate tropical, subtropical, temperate and subarctic generalities?"

Roughly speaking:

+0 Degrees: Tropical

+2 Degrees, ca Antil: Sub-tropical

+4.5 Degrees: Ossary, Trident Gulf: Mediterranean warm-temperate

+9 Degrees: Croy, Thunderhold: Northern European cool-temperate

+13.5 Degrees: Forbidden Forest, Uther Pentwegern Sea: Cold temperate

+18 Degrees: Just North of Valon: Sub-arctic, to Arctic on the Glacier

My current campaign is set in the CSIO so I give a fair degree of thought to the climate there. I see it much like Rome ca 1 AD, Mediterranean climate but rather warmer and wetter than today, far enough inland to have a hot summer and short cold winter, but most months being balmy, such that a loinclout is usually adequate garb for poor commoners and slaves alike.

I treat the Estuary of the Roglaroon as a glacial feature (like a fjord but shallower), an indicator that at least once in the past few million years or so the Ice came within 7 degrees or so of the Equator, and threatened to enfold the world.

I have the Wilderlands' Sun be notably (to an Earth native) redder and cooler than our own, the planet is probably further towards the cold limit of habitability and may initially indeed have been too cold for life, but over the billions of years of the Main Sequence gradually increasing solar output has sufficiently warmed the globe for non-crystalline life to take root.

Edit:  Axial Tilt looks to be around 6 degrees, so that in the Summer the Sun is directly overhead as far north as the City State, leading to hot summers, while lands further north remain cool all year.