Epic geography
Dec. 12th, 2012 09:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethMy epic fantasy story is set in a place in my head, but I've been poking the map of the Pennines to see what kind of actual places there are, and also possibly nick place names.
The made up place has a water source at the top that flows down through the whole town and is what it's famous for. There's a wide green bit that's for Strangers, those who aren't allowed in the walls. And then there's a town which is all about fitting as many people inside the walls as they can without moving the walls out. It has mines digging back into the mountain and probably housing built that way too.
I found a place called High Cup Scar, with a waterfall at the top called High Cup Nick that sometimes gets high enough winds to make it go upwards instead. It's a great big valley carved out like a sword stabbed the mountains, and it has cliffs all around the top edge. Wiki reckons it's stuck into Mickle Fell, previously spelt Mikill.
High Cup is a great name for a water city, especially a proud one. I could dig the most defended houses into the cliffs, so instead of a walled city it's a city in the walls, and leave the Strangers to live in the Scar. The waterfall would be the center of civic ritual and the water would go through all the other layers of city. At the end is the Eden Valley, which I already decided was the perfect place for zombies.
The only thing is, it's possibly not epic scale enough for a spectacular epic fantasy city. And, also, defensible places are usually on top of hills, not dug into the sides where people could stand on top and throw things. But it would look so cool if it was just talked up a bit. Turn it all up to 11 and I can totally put all the fights and things I had planned against that backdrop.
So do I use real-ish place names and add zombies and epic scale?
Or would I just sound like I'm borrowing other people's places and getting them wrong?
... the odds of me getting started writing an actual story, as opposed to thinking up interesting ideas and poking pretty maps a lot, are not great, so it probably don't matter.
*sigh*
The made up place has a water source at the top that flows down through the whole town and is what it's famous for. There's a wide green bit that's for Strangers, those who aren't allowed in the walls. And then there's a town which is all about fitting as many people inside the walls as they can without moving the walls out. It has mines digging back into the mountain and probably housing built that way too.
I found a place called High Cup Scar, with a waterfall at the top called High Cup Nick that sometimes gets high enough winds to make it go upwards instead. It's a great big valley carved out like a sword stabbed the mountains, and it has cliffs all around the top edge. Wiki reckons it's stuck into Mickle Fell, previously spelt Mikill.
High Cup is a great name for a water city, especially a proud one. I could dig the most defended houses into the cliffs, so instead of a walled city it's a city in the walls, and leave the Strangers to live in the Scar. The waterfall would be the center of civic ritual and the water would go through all the other layers of city. At the end is the Eden Valley, which I already decided was the perfect place for zombies.
The only thing is, it's possibly not epic scale enough for a spectacular epic fantasy city. And, also, defensible places are usually on top of hills, not dug into the sides where people could stand on top and throw things. But it would look so cool if it was just talked up a bit. Turn it all up to 11 and I can totally put all the fights and things I had planned against that backdrop.
So do I use real-ish place names and add zombies and epic scale?
Or would I just sound like I'm borrowing other people's places and getting them wrong?
... the odds of me getting started writing an actual story, as opposed to thinking up interesting ideas and poking pretty maps a lot, are not great, so it probably don't matter.
*sigh*