Alright, so I’ve reworked my proposal, just because I really really don’t like two separate disjointed lands, so I’m gonna do my best to not go that route haha.
So I’m much more of a story guy than I am land design, so I’ve taken a bit of
@D Hindley and
@Outbound concepts and combined them into a general story. I agree, multiple biomes may be a bit much, but I still think having one United land is crucial.
So our story would feature some Arabic merchants sailing to India (or vice versa we could have som Tamil merchants sailing to Arabia) who get marooned on a mysterious island. This island has a bank of fog around it or something that prevents sailors from discovering and charting it. The wildlife here would be incredibly unique, as would the biomes. Rather than multiple disjointed biomes, it would be biomes found on islands within the Indian Ocean. I took a lot of inspiration from Madagascar, having forests of giant trees while huge rock pillars jut out around it.
We could have a population of Maori settlers who already settled the island, bringing some Polynesian influence. They took in our marooned merchants and taught them about the land. About how it was like nowhere else on Earth. The trees grow upside down (they could be like Madagascan Baobab trees) and how the caves underground are rich in jewels and riches. Of course, our merchants want to start harvesting it all, but the settlers say that we are only to take what we need or else the island “punishes you”. That means cut down trees only for shelter and boats, harvest rocks only for building and hunting, kill only what you need.
Over time, more and more people would settle the island and (taking influence from Jules Verne with maybe a bit of a steampunk style) ships and machinery comes to the island. Despite the Settlers warnings, they tear apart the island, harvesting its resources, so the island has punished them. It traps them in time, allowing no technology to develop. Soon, people begin to leave, so when we find it, it is a mostly abandoned village with some people remaining.
We would find the village with old abandoned mining vehicles, marooned steamships, etc. The few people that remain have turned the island into a tourist stop, giving tours of the mysterious jungles and biome of the island, while merchants set up shop, etc. etc.
This concept is a bit different than my first, but it would also keep my story in tact, work in Outbound’s mysterious jungle ideas, and also get to play in a biome that aren’t straightforward jungle/desert while all being unified.
it’d work like Pandora where you don’t need the whole story to grasp what’s going on, but the story will be rich and nuanced for those looking for it.
If this fails, I’ll lay off, but I really don’t want the jungle and desert different lands haha
