Thread: geography in fantasy

Hi, all.

I'm a fantasy writer. I created a world for my book and my problem is that I can't reconcile time with distance. For example, one country is about the size of the US, but I have no idea how long it would take to ride a horse from one side to the other. This is imperative to being consistent in my writing.

Can anyone provide resources or suggestions on how to solve this problem?

Thanks.

The biggest question here is: "Why the hell is that country so damn big?"

It's a harder answer than you think. Their are wars and geography to consider. Very few countries ever see the size of the US and what they all have in common are wars with the native peoples and a lot of "empty" space. Matter of fact is the only large country on the map that wasn't started as a colony is China (which has a hell of a lot of wars and space no one wants).

Spaces that big usually have many types of land in them. The US has a piece of everything in it. You'll need to figure out what kinds of geography the character's direct path goes through.

How fast a person can travel depends on the land's topography, temperature, weight carried, travel method, weather, traffic, roads, and how prepared the character is.

Topography is primarily vertical shifts in the land. It's about mountains and valleys and canyons and such. Mountains are a pain in the ass for travelers. They're at best hazardous. Valleys aren't necessarily easy either, but usually have water. Canyons... well he better find a great bridge or walk a long way around.

If it's hot, travel's slow. If it's cold... well, it's slow. Heat probably kills more travelers than cold. If it's hot, great quatities of water are needed and travel is best done at night. If it's cold, he might need snowshoes, but he'll need to bundle up.

Probably your number one pain though will be the horse. You'l need to research them to get them right. They're not fuel-less trains you can gallop for years on end. They need to rest and walk and drink. They must be brushed and have their saddles taken off. They don't just eat grass because your character won't give them twenty hours a day to graze, so you'll have to give them higher calorie foods for the journey.

I think Siegfried makes some good points, especially on country size, but as for horse details and similar chores of existence I don't think going into them is necessary. It's true that horses take maintenance and upkeep, but so do cars, and in contemporary literature do you frequently see cars being stopped and refueled, or getting the muffler fixed because it's developed a curious rattle? No, because it's boring and detracts from the story. In moderation such devices are probably okay if you're especially desperate to prove to the reader how believable and stable your world is. But it's fantasy, how much stability are you going for?

You're allowed to take artistic license and skip the boring, necessary things. Maybe acknowledge them with one or two topical sentences like it's a collect call. By the way, our horse died so we bought a new one. It had old shoes so we replaced them. Bill died there was a funeral. I won the lottery bought a house got married had kids. (That's a little too topical.)

Over such a long distance trek, it's a good idea to have the horse as a character. Unlike cars, beasts of burden have personalities and when those personalities are written into the story, the animal (and thus the story) become memorable for readers.

A good read on the subject of animals would be Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy. It's fantasy and it has horses that are not sentient in any way but are faithfully interpreted as being of realistic horse intelligence, habits, needs and temperament.

In fiction, the only reason horses are not treated with the same respect as dogs is because the writers typically know shit about horses, which are by and large viewed like medieval cars and things to bet on at racetracks. This is the reason knowing some basics about the animal and giving it a personality work so well in a story. Readers want every character to haul weight and, like iot or not, a horse is a character. If it's 2-D, the world falls a bit more flat and the sotry seems ill-researched.

You can get out of it by not having a horse. Perhaps a wizard's guild does teleportation spells for a price. Perhaps the world has motor vehicles or a different animal used as a beast of burden (but then you have to research that animal, or make up something else and give it realistic habits).

Seig has given some fantastic advice here. My first though on reading your post was also "Why the hell is that country so damn big?"

Which is not to say that it couldn't be. Rome was very large, although it was actually much smaller than it seems, because the Mediterranean was smack dab in the middle. One issue with a large medieval country is travel, as you have just said. The Romans had very well-maintained roads, and China was not actually unified for long periods of time until recently. Also, as seig said, there was a lot of un-enticing land within China's borders. Both countries had large, organized armed forces. Depending on your time period, you may want to consider shrinking the country in question, which would do a lot to solve your timeline issues. This is best if it follows a medieval European pattern, or any other form of feudalism/manorialism.

This topic is pretty relevant to a recent project of mine. In the story, the protagonists wind up riding a sort of woolly mega-mammoth. If you imagine those oliphants off LOTR, like them except mine are wooly, they don't look like elephants (no trunk, tusks), and they have huge, sharp jaws. They're still herbivores, but all they eat is evergreen needles. I tried to take into account how much energy a creature of that size would need just to exist, so I say it spends a good portion of the day eating. It's got a pretty cool technique too, it wraps its jaws around the trunk of a pine and runs its mouth up and down the length of it. (not all that plausible, but hella cool, yo)

As for surface area of the creature's back, its significantly larger than an elephant so a bit of a riddle was coming up with what they use to ride it. I also tried to give the mammoth some personality, they feed it bucketfulls of pinecones as snacks and are pretty conscious of when he's eaten. It's a very sad event when it gets eaten by a dragon (that actually happens).

There are a lot of mitigating factors involved; terrain, environment, horse breed, health of the horse, the quality of the rider, and how much of a load the horse is carrying. The average over all breeds is about 20 to 30 miles a day - assume they have supplies, armor, bulky warriors... say 20 miles a day - that's taking it easy. Portland to New York is 2,895 to 3,297 miles depending on your route. According to google map, a cyclists should be about to make that distance in 11 days and 8 hours. Someone walking could make it in 38 days.

So Unless your fantasy nation is a clone of the Roman Empire (road builders) it should probably take them about as long as a person walking on modern roads.

More sound thinking from the Dr. here.

I don't see why people want to shrink his country for him. Maybe this is a major point of the story. Who knows.
I definitely agree with the "horses moving at the rate of a human walking" (about 3 mph, 20 miles a day) in places without roads--and don't forget there will be rivers to cross, etc. that will slow things up.
My guess is, like any good medievial fantasy, you've got quaint roads and eldritch inns and cute turnpike cottages and cunning bridges and ferrymen. Which could mean around 50 miles a day.
One figure I know, the Oregon Trail was about 2000 miles and took people with families and wagons 4-6 months

I read somewhere that riding by horse was only moderately faster than walking, because they have to be rested and fed frequently. I think 50 miles may be a lot to travel every day for a horse, but considering it's a fantasy world maybe horses are a bit heartier there.

It's not travel as the crow flies by any means, especially around mountains, lakes, rough vegetation, etc. Months is a good estimate.

WikiAnswers says:

Horses oveiously cant travel all day but they could go about 50 miles a day on flat terane. If the conditions are bad or the treain uneven then about 20-30 miles per day. The easiest gait for a horse is the trot wich dosn't go as fast but much less stress on the horse than the canter.

Horse can go about 50 miles a day (w/ breaks) on good terain and good weather conditions. If these are not good then about 20-30 miles is more reasonible. How in shape your horse is will also make a big diffrence in you travil to because the less in shape the more stops for breaks. There are other conditions to be considered too such as the breed of the horse and riders expirence.

While the grammatical mistakes do not lend credance to this source, the details given do sound reasonable to me.

Considering the amount of travel being done, exploring the relationship between horse and rider, developing it as a character, and becoming familiar with the details may be necessary to have your writing ring true.