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Worldbuilding Blogfest #1: Geography & Climate
It’s going to be interesting trying to get these posted daily, because we haven’t had Internet at home since last Monday, and the nearest coffee shop is a 12-mile drive. Still, the Worldbuilding Blogfest starts on Monday, and I have my posts all roughed out. I’m posting this one a bit early, due to the aforementioned connection issues. Technically it’s due to go up Monday, but, uh, it’s Monday in some parts of the world? Ahem.
I thought about which world to develop for this — it’s not like I don’t have enough of ‘em — but I decided to work on Karamanda, because it really does need a lot of developing, so this will be a good opportunity to work on it. Karamanda is the setting of a short story that some of you beta-read for me in an earlier draft, titled “The Angel Killers” at the time. (It’s now called “Angelcutters” and I’ve tried shopping the finished version around, but can’t sell it. I’ve thought about trying Karamanda as an experiment in crowdfunding, since I would like to write more stories in the world, but other projects keep taking priority.)
Anyway, feel free to comment on any of these entries, critique what I’ve posted, or ask more questions. This is mostly brainstorming to figure things out, so input is welcome! Even if I take awhile to respond to things until we get reliable Internet again.
The Karamanda stories are, basically, hard-boiled P.I. stories set in a city in which everyone has wings. Here’s what’s coming up:
Day 1: Geography & Climate
Day 2: History & Politics
Day 3: Religion and/or Magic
Day 4: Food, Drink, Holidays & Culture
Day 5: Worldbuilding Excerpt
You can also see a list of participants and visit their blogs at the Worldbuilding Blogfest site and more details on each day’s topic here.
Karamanda: Geography & Climate (plus a brief Karamanda overview)
Karamanda is a city in the mountains, in which all the residents have wings. (I originally called it Marakanda, but as that is a real historical city on Earth and this is in no way based on it, I decided to swap some letters around.) On this world, there are no regular humans, but there are a number of different nonhuman species. The Karamandans are one of the most humanlike; they basically resemble humans except for wings and a few other minor differences which vary between the two types of residents; see the next paragraph. There is a very small minority population of other species in the city, but not very many of them, since the city is designed for flying people and the Karamandans are one of the only flying species. The “footbound” — Karamandan slang for wingless immigrants and residents who have lost the use of their wings for one reason or another — live for the most part in slums at the bottom of the city.
Technically, there are two different species of Karamandans who cannot produce viable offspring with each other. However, they don’t realize that they’re actually separate species, since both are basically built along similar lines; they simply think of the two types as composing two of Karamanda’s three social castes (with the footbound and immigrants being the third). The vast bulk of the city’s residents are the caste known as mezzano. They have gray or brown hawklike wings, dark hair and eyes, and look essentially human except for elongated toes for perching and a much larger ribcage and breastbone area than humans have, to anchor the flight muscles. The much smaller caste known as peregrines or Angels rule the city. They have white wings, all-black eyes (i.e. no whites to the eyes), a third eyelid, and a different facial structure from the mezzano. I’ll get into the city’s power structure in the History & Politics entry.
Okay – geography! Karamanda is a vertical city made of towers joined by support buttresses, a complicated and elaborate structure built of stone and concrete that sprawls all over the top of a single peak in a range of high, jagged mountains — think the Andes, or the Alaska Range end of the Rocky Mountains. These mountains (at least, the Karamanda part of them) are not as brutally high as the Andes, however — perhaps 10,000 to 12,000 feet, but with a great deal of vertical rise (that is, they start from pretty near sea level, as opposed to being on a plateau as the Himalayas are). They are located farther south than the Rockies, so they are cool in their heights, and quite hot closer to sea level.
Below the city itself, terraced farmland descends into the fertile valleys below. Some farm workers commute to and from the city; others live in villages lower down on the mountainside. There is a very strong correlation between one’s dwelling height and one’s social position, with the most powerful and wealthy, i.e. the Angels, living at the very top of the city.
A network of cargo trams connects Karamanda to the outside world; rows of tram towers march down the mountain into the valley, up the other side, and out to the world beyond. (I haven’t figured out how the trams are powered yet. At this point I figure their level of technology is somewhere around the early-to-mid second millennium A.D., but they don’t have gunpowder or widespread mechanization yet. I may change my mind about this.)
The weather at the top of the mountain is cool with a snowy winter. The Karamandan physiology is cold-tolerant; they are fairly compact with a layer of fat under the skin, and their bodies are partly feathered as well as their wings. (The Angels handle the cold less effectively than the mezzano; they’re originally from a somewhat warmer climate.) As one descends into the valley, it gets much warmer and more humid. I’ll figure out just what exactly grows down there in a future post. 
Crossposted to Wordpress, Livejournal and Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you like.
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However, they don’t realize that they’re actually separate species, since both are basically built along similar lines;
Really? They do look different, they come from different places, and if they can't have kids together and one is a higher social case wouldn't they even like to say that they're a different species? How advanced is their medicine?
How high and how far apart are the towers? If they're close it must be very dark at the bottom and it could be dangerous if it comes to collisions. How much weight can the Karamandans carry, are there elevators for heavier goods? How many people live in the city? Do they have enough space or is it crowded?
How much wind do they get? Near the sea but on a mountain sounds like they could get a lot of wind, which doesn't seem very convenient for flying. Are there any rules or regulations concerning flying?
What does their architecture look like inside? How do they deal with their wings in closed spaces, how much closed spaces do they even have? How much and what clothes do they normally wear?
I'm looking forward to the history&politics entry, and I hope it'll include something about how their economy works. :)
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Really? They do look different, they come from different places, and if they can't have kids together and one is a higher social case wouldn't they even like to say that they're a different species? How advanced is their medicine?
It hadn't really struck me as that much of an odd idea. Do you think so? They don't have particularly advanced knowledge of medicine or heredity. Their medical technology is somewhere between ancient Greece/Rome, up to the Renaissance -- and yes, I know that's a tremendous range, but they're not as far as (say) the 1800s yet. The two species evolved from a common ancestor, but have diverged to the point where they can't produce viable offspring together, at least not reliably. They still look pretty similar, though -- the main visible, outward differences are their coloring and the bone structure of the face.
Originally, I had intended them to be racial variants of the same species, but as I worked on the city, it occurred to me that it would be more interesting if they're actually two different species, technically, but don't realize that they are.
How high and how far apart are the towers? If they're close it must be very dark at the bottom and it could be dangerous if it comes to collisions. How much weight can the Karamandans carry, are there elevators for heavier goods? How many people live in the city? Do they have enough space or is it crowded?
Yes, the deeper and lower you go in the city, the darker and more claustophobic (and harder to fly through) it becomes. This is the main reason why height is a status symbol -- it's just a lot more pleasant and practical to live at higher altitudes, closer to the city's edges. There are boulevards through the towers, essentially wide clear spaces to fly through, which have the incidental side benefit of letting more light into the interior spaces. There are a ton of regulations about towers, bridges, etc. being lit at night, no unlawful laundry lines blocking thoroughfares, so much space between towers, etc etc, which are frequently ignored, especially in the poorer parts of the city.
Elevators, cargo lifts, trams and ziplines are used extensively to move goods around the city. The Karamandans also make quite a bit of use of couriers and a sort of tandem-flying cargo carry, where two stevedores carry something between them (a passenger, for example). I'm not sure how practical this would actually be; it was what I originally had them using before I realized that they would mostly use elevators and pulleys for that sort of thing, so it lingers as a vestige of the original idea.
The basic city structure is rather elegant and well-planned -- graceful stone towers with flying buttresses and plenty of space between them -- but then it's been extensively added onto over the years, so it's kind of a mess now. Also, all the gutters and garbage chutes from the towers drain into open sewers at the lowermost level of the city, which is the area where the footbound live; they have raised causeways to keep them out of the muck, but it's still kind of unpleasant, and it gets particularly horrible when it rains a lot.
How much wind do they get? Near the sea but on a mountain sounds like they could get a lot of wind, which doesn't seem very convenient for flying. Are there any rules or regulations concerning flying?
Oh, that's an interesting thought! I hadn't actually thought about wind at all. You're right, there would probably be some really interest wind currents and storms. This might, paradoxically, make it safer to fly in the inner levels of the city, whereas the outer edges and the top (i.e. the high-status addresses) are prone to sudden, dangerous wind gusts.
The only area where I'd thought about flying regulations is in the laws about obstacles -- i.e. don't block flight paths with clotheslines and whatnot, and all obstacles need to be lit at night. (People are responsible for lighting the space they own, sort of like some municipalities require people to keep their own section of the public sidewalks clear of snow in the winter.) There might be flight nuisance and hazard laws as well -- like interfering with others through reckless flying, that sort of thing.
What does their architecture look like inside? How do they deal with their wings in closed spaces, how much closed spaces do they even have? How much and what clothes do they normally wear?
Indoors spaces are large and uncluttered, if one can pay for it (the houses of the poor are more cramped) but are not too different from human houses, aside from accommodations for a person to land and take off -- usually either a balcony with wide doors, or a perching pole. (Their feet are more adapted to walking nowadays, but are still flexible enough that they can perch on something wide for short periods of time, sort of like humans are no longer optimized for climbing trees, but are still capable of it.) Karamandans can fold up their wings like a bird can, so aside from being a little bulkier than a human, they really don't have much more trouble navigating indoors than a human would; we have enough control over our arms and legs that we don't usually go around knocking over furniture, and neither do they (although I do have one scene in which Franza is interviewing someone in a crowded glasswares shop and is worried about accidentally knocking something over with her wings). They go for a minimalist approach to indoor furniture -- mostly what you get are stools or benches, and low, wide couches upon which a person can sit or sprawl to sleep or relax.
At the time that I worked out most of this, I had been reading about ancient Rome quite a bit, so there's a pretty strong Roman architectural influence in their furniture and interior architecture. Their weather is harsher than the Mediterranean, though, which means that not everything translates to their changed circumstances very well.
Feel free to nitpick any of the above ... it's useful! :D
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Species: What's the difference if they're two different species or variants of the same? If nobody knows (and you're not planning for it to become a plot point) it doesn't matter anyway. If you take "unable to have kids together" as your only criteria of being two different species: it works for donkeys and zebras, so I would expect much more substantial differences than the ones you described.
And if nobody figured out they can't have kids together it means that they're more segregated than I initially thought, and always have been. How old is the city? Who built it, who moved in first? How did the two species meet?
Good thought about the lights and sewers. Are there "flight lanes" like our roads, like flags that say "don't fly between those close towers in this direction", or that more than x people carrying something together are only allowed in special ares, things like that? Carrying passengers sounds very dangerous and I can't imagine why they'd want to, since by your description the footbound don't have high status. (Are there special elevators for foreign footbound guests? What are their relations to other cities/countries full of non-flying people?)
I don't know very much at all about wind, but I could imagine that rumors say Angels are better flyers and therefore only they can deal with the wings up high?
A glasswares shop? Glass seems like a very inconvenient material for such a city. It's often fragile, so it would be at risk every time someone wants to stretch their wings inside. Do they have glass windows? Or do they shut their windows with wood or something else? Otherwise I imagine it would get very cold up high, and they'd need very good heating. They might need to import the sand - what kind of resources do they have near the city, and where do they get the rest, how do they pay for it?
When do their kids learn to fly? I imagine that it'll be even harder to child-proof a house!
Romans with wings :D Are there mosaics? I love mosaics.
I nitpick because I like it :) And it's fun. I want to read the story not only because it's by you, but also because the world sounds ideal for wingfic fusions ;)
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Well, yeah - it actually doesn't, from an in-universe perspective; it's mostly just for me in terms of figuring out their history and the detail that they can't have viable offspring together. Which also makes it easy to drop it if it simply doesn't work out and I decide to go a different route!
Are there "flight lanes" like our roads, like flags that say "don't fly between those close towers in this direction", or that more than x people carrying something together are only allowed in special ares, things like that?
Ha, I like this. :D
I don't know very much at all about wind, but I could imagine that rumors say Angels are better flyers and therefore only they can deal with the wings up high?
Ooh, I like that thought too!
A glasswares shop? Glass seems like a very inconvenient material for such a city. It's often fragile, so it would be at risk every time someone wants to stretch their wings inside.
I'm a little confused here -- are you suggesting they shouldn't have glass technology at all? I don't find that very plausible, because on Earth we've had it for several thousand years; it's one of the fairly basic early-civilization technologies that was worked out along with pottery, metalworking, etc. The shop in which the scene takes place makes luxury goods for the wealthy - glass ornaments and cups and things. I don't find it at all unlikely that they would have such things (though you have a good point that they'd probably have to import the sand -- or more likely, since it's a small luxury emporium, they wouldn't be making the actual glass there, but would import it in lumps for shaping and blowing).
I still need to figure out what their major exports are, though. There has to be a reason why the city is located there, as opposed to somewhere else. Perhaps they mine something ...? Maybe it's just a central location and they handle trade coming through from several directions?
I hadn't intended for their windows to be made of glass, however, so you're right that the houses would be quite chilly! I'm thinking they're more cold-tolerant than humans, as a species, but it might still be unpleasant. I could always make their mountain a bit shorter ...
When do their kids learn to fly? I imagine that it'll be even harder to child-proof a house!
They fledge out when they're five or six years old. (Hmm, I need to think about child safety considerations for younger kids. Young nestbound birds stay still rather than wiggling around until they fall out of the nest; I've picked up baby birds, in the process of returning them to their nests, and they will sit calmly in your hand -- they just aren't wiggly! Perhaps very small children are not physical explorers the way human children are.)
Are there mosaics? I love mosaics.
Oh! I hadn't thought about that, but now you've said that, I MUST have mosaics. :D
You know, I could solve several problems if I move them to a lower, warmer, more Mediterranean-like location. It would remove the problems of cold and wind, and make it easier to have the kind of open architecture that I suppose I'm unconsciously imagining for them. I wonder if, rather than putting their sprawling city on a mountaintop, I could have it sprawling all over cliffs or low mountains near the ocean. Or perhaps they've colonized an island with cliffs and hills, like a Crete kind of place ... hmmm!
And yes! Wingfic! :D
(ETA: And thank you so much for asking all of these thoughtful questions! It's giving me plenty to think about, and I'm really having fun answering them, and thinking about the details of the world.)
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Yes, there definitely needs to be a reason why the city is in that particular location. On a mountain with surrounding farmlands initially made me think of a strategic castle + tribute-paying villages situation, but with the size of the city I'm not sure if that's sustainable long-term. Although the Karamandans can easily conquer large areas and keep them under their rule: they are hard to attack in the air and they only need to drop something that sets a lot on fire.
I like the idea of an island and warmer climate very much. A place near the ocean with cliffs and opportunities for fishing (spears!) also sounds like somewhere they might have lived before they had cities. It would make it even easier for the Karamandans to dominate the whole island and establish trade with the footbound farmers to very good conditions, and if they can fish they're not as dependent on them (although that aspect probably lost significance as the city got bigger.)
In addition to the city-typical crafts in our world they could be quite good at meteorology and help the farmers prepare for any weather, or sell maps they made from their view from above. Islands often trade with other islands, but it would be much easier to control that kind of trade than on a continent, especially if the other islands are too far away to fly to. At the same time shipping goods would be much less dangerous if you know more about the wind and can see further ahead.
For fast messages there could be "supply ships" along certain routes of the ocean where messengers can rest and/or pass on the message, and these could also be controlled by the Angels, which gives them another source of power.
You're welcome! It's more relaxing to poke at a world when I don't have to worry how it's going to affect my story *g*
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Oh, and that is a WONDERFUL idea that they started out as flying fishermen, with spears and nets, and then became more urban (but of course there are still villages of fishers on the sea cliffs).
eeeee I love this! :D That's such a wonderful mental picture -- the brilliant blue ocean and white cliffs, and winged people flying around with spears ... hmmm, now that they're more oceanic, I wonder if I should give them brighter colors? I had wanted them to have hawk-type wings, but now I'm starting to be wooed by the idea of maybe giving them brighter colors or more interesting wing patterns. I could have different subgroups on different islands. (Heh, it's also a COMPLETELY different atmosphere than the story I wrote, which has a very dark, brooding, gloomy sort of feeling, in a cold rainy city where there's a lot of fog and mud and gloom. Bright Mediterranean cliffsides are basically the opposite of that. But I like this enough that I don't care if I have to rewrite a bunch of stuff. It'll probably be better for it!)
Perhaps I will sit down with some paper this afternoon and make a map of the islands, and figure out where all their city-states are ...
About the glass thing, I think that I had misunderstood you a little (sorry!), and I do see what you're saying, but I still don't really see the fragility issue being that much of a problem. They would perhaps have to be a little more careful than we are with small items on shelves, but once someone is an adult, they would know to keep their wings folded indoors. I do like the idea of their style of glassware being more solid and chunky rather than going for delicate and fragile, though. (Perhaps the really fragile items are incredibly expensive!)
and establish trade with the footbound farmers to very good conditions,
Actually, I hadn't meant that the farmers were footbound (I was probably very unclear about this, though). It's a low-status occupation, because one spends most of one's time on foot, but they're still regular flyers. The footbound are a relatively quite small proportion of the population, the people whose wings were injured or congenitally deformed or otherwise are incapable of flying properly (as well as immigrants). Now that I'm thinking it through, though, I'm thinking about doing away with the footbound stigma, at least to the extent that I had been thinking about before -- even though it kinda means that my plot doesn't work anymore -- because it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It feels unnecessarily dystopic; it basically amounts to throwing out the disabled to fend for themselves in the slums at the bottom of the city, and that doesn't feel like a very human thing to do. It might happen -- in fact, it probably does happen sometimes -- but having it happen on a societal level doesn't make a whole lot of sense.