Which started back when a friend of mine asked her to help make a “Discworld like fantasy world” And basically had me exploring in a bit more detail what ‘A’ discworld would be like and various aspects of how it would function in different settings…
After finally getting off my ass and finishing things up, I offer up the results here for a final critique and evaluation.
( A final note… Much of this is written “In Character” as it were, as part of a request by my friend who wanted me to write it, as if it was being read ‘By her’ from a fantasy book )
Chapter One: A discworld, but not THE ‘Discworld’
In the spaces of the Infinity of Universe, it is said there is room for all eventualities to take place. For anyone who is familiar with “The Discworld” series of books, you will see how this plays out. For those that are NOT familiar with the “Discworld”…
Firstly, I DEEPLY recommend reading them.
Second, they are a marvelous ‘setting’ for story telling. A world that lends itself to tales as timeless as the universe. For it is not just a “world” but a mirror of worlds. Concepts and stories from other universes constantly float through the ether across its flat surface. In short, the concept of it and how ‘it functions’ is an ideal environment for anyone who wishes a fantasy based world of their own.
Now of course, I do not wish to simply copy it, I wish to make more of homage to it in a newer fantasy setting.
The ‘real’ “Discworld” is a flat disc, held on the back of four giant Elephants, who in turn stand upon the shell of a Turtle some 10,000 miles long. What does the Turtle stand on? Don’t be silly, Turtles don’t stand on anything, they swim. And so, this Great Turtle swims endlessly through the void of space carrying its precious cargo.
This new world, my own disc world, after much thinking and planning is similar, but should be sufficiently different.
To begin with, it is carried, not upon Four Elephants, but one single “World Snake” a mighty Serpent that encircles the world fully and provides a good stable foundation for it. What does the snake lie upon? Well not a turtle that has been done already… Instead, it lies upon a mighty ‘Star Ray’ or a Manta ray some 10,000 miles long.
A Manta Ray is a good substitute for a turtle. They are slow moving gentle creatures, they ‘fly’ through the water in much the same way a turtle does, in a lazy unhurried manor. Also they have a nice broad flat back perfect for a snake to coil up upon.
Chapter Two: The Mechanics of the new world
The “Star Ray” or “Gigas Piscis venal Sidus” (Giant Fish of the Stars), does differs from the Discworld’s turtle in that it “swims”, not through the endless void of space, but around a single ‘normal’ Star like that of earth.
Solar Cycle and Years:
It swims in slow loops, turning over and over as it’s vast maw feeds off stellar radiation and filters out various energies.
Each ‘loop’ takes almost exactly 28 hours, thus creating a ‘Day Night’ cycle on the Disc. As it turns slowly, the disc comes into view of the sun, and as it keeps turning on it’s loop, it eventually will move the Disc so it receives light in a way similar to Earth before turning away from the sun and moving the disc into ‘Night’.
Swimming ‘around’ the Sun takes it nearly 400 days, which also allows for the creations of “Seasons” on the disc, moving the world along a traditional summer and winter path.
Physical Size:
The original Discworld was always stated as being ’10,000’ miles across. Which at first glance, seems to be a nice convenient size for a fantasy world.
However looking into that particular number brings up something interesting, if you put the Earth and Moon together, their combined lengths equal approximately 10,086 miles.
Creating a Disc of the combined sizes seems to be a reasonable shape, as a Disc made from this length comes out to be a bit bigger than a flat Earth, giving one a nice amount of surface area to world with to make a world and it’s landmasses.
(EDITOR NOTES)
In the interest of trying to keep things ‘Different’ for the world my Friend requested, I wanted to come up with a similar, but not exactly same unit of measurement. Additionally, I wanted to come up with a reason why a world (even a fantasy one) should be such an exact number as ‘10000’.
For my own purposes I figured at some point, various Scientists of the world would come up with a standard unit of measure, similar to the Meter. One of the original ideas for creating Earth’s meter, was to define the metre as one ten-millionth (1/10 000 000) of the length of a quadrant along the Earth's meridian.
I imagined at some point, Scientists of this world would come together and do something similar and say “Our measurement will be 1/10000 of our Worlds length” And come up with a standard based upon that.
Weather and Climate:
The disc itself, unlike the Discworld, is encircled in a vast unending mountain range.
This encircling wall provides two key functions. Firstly it ensures the Oceans of this disc do not spill away into the void of Space (the Discworld does have oceans that spill away, but, it makes ‘arrangements’ to refill it’s oceans through various magical means).
Because of the ‘bowl’ shape to this Disc, as it faces the sun, heat is focused in the middle. So the “climates” of the world radiate outward from the middle. From hot dry desert climates, and then as you approach the Mountain wall, you get colder and colder till you approach the Arctic like climate of the mountain range itself.
What this means is that water is kept in a very efficient cycle.
It will evaporate in the middle, and spread upwards and out due to the radiating heat. The huge clouds of vapor are then pushed to the Rim, where they cool, and crash back down first as rain, then as snow and ice against the mountains along the very edge.
The snow eventually flows down and melts into water, which fills the oceans, and repeats the cycle.
This disc, like Earth and The Discworld, has a small moon orbiting around it (The gravity from the mass of the Star Ray is more then enough to keep a moon in orbit around it.) Aside from a large amount of other important things, the Moon ensures a smooth and steady Tidal cycle. However…
Unlike the Discworld Great A’Tuin, this disc does NOT ‘spin’ or rotate and as such there are no centrifugal forces being applied outward.
Because of this, the world will NOT have two tides, but only a single and much slower ‘High and Low’ tide each orbit of the moon.
As far as the Geography and ‘map’ of this disc world… That is something that is yet to be created. A world is shaped by the stories created for it, and not the other way around. For now however as a rough idea of what one possibility MAY look like, has been illustrated purely for conceptual purposes.
Chapter Three: Fictional Substances
Any fictional world is bound to have a host of fictional materials and elements… As with several other things, I do not fully know just what ALL of these may be, so this will be a fairly short entry. As stories are created, the need for certain substances may come about. However there are few such materials that ARE known and will be described:
“Ubertonium.”
This substance is an extremely rare metal found often in the same area (and with the same rarity) as Gold with several strange properties. It’s weight and mass density is similar to copper and can be worked at the same temperature as copper. However once it has been cooled it takes on strength similar to tempered steel.
Aside from this, it has one other very unusual property.
When an electrical current is passed through the metal, it will become colder. The more current passed through, the colder the surface of the metal becomes. This is due to a set of ‘magical’ crystalline impurities in the ore.
What this means is that after the first time the metal has been forged and cooled, it loses this property a bit at a time as the crystal impurities are burned out from it.
“Energist Stones”
Large Coconut sized crystals that can produce immense amounts of electricity. When found naturally in rock (normally in metamorphic rock where diamonds would normally be found) they give off a weak electric current of a few watts. However when placed in an Übertonium ‘Socket’ they can produce far more electricity.
When Ubertonium metal comes into contact with an Energist crystal, it reacts and increases more electricity. The more of the metal that is in contact, the more electricity produced.
Typically most crystals can produce a maximum of 2 Kilowatts before they would shatter from strain.
“Levistone”
Found mostly in areas of high background magic, the stone has the same density and weight as Granite, but with a bluish, almost purple color to it. The stone itself tends to absorb a great deal of magic; many people would realize this since most non-magical rock doesn’t fly.
Levistone, true to its name can levitate depending on the temperature it is subjected to.
At a base temperature of 50 degrees, 1 pound of contiguous rock ‘generates’ 1 pound of lift, or is neutrally buoyant.
If cooled artificially, each 5 degrees cooler generates 4pounds of lift.
1pounds of stone at 30 degrees = 16pounds of lift or 15 useable pounds of lift.
The ‘useful’ physical limit a single pound can generate is 20 pounds; beyond the surface begins to shatter from the cold.
The Minimal amount of stone that can be used is ½ of a pound. Below that amount no lift is generated by the rock.
As some might expect, in the current state technological state of this world, most of these materials will have little current use or practicality. For instance, “Ubertonium” is mostly used in weapons because once cooled, it hardens as firm as steel, which itself is hard to produce. Although in truth, because it is about as rare as gold (although far less shiny) it is really only used by nobles or wealthy people. A Sword made from the material is both functional and a sign of great wealth.
Energies Stones are used mostly in Jewelry (many people thought they were massive diamonds, and some still try and flog them as such to certain unwary customers.)
The fact they “tingle” when touched is more of a curiosity than anything else. A few cultures see them as holy artifacts reserved, but most happily cut them up into jewels, obvious to the immense energy production they are destroying.
Levistone, now that is something that for obvious reasons is more widely known. Many more primitive cultures see it as sacred or holy material, and large natural ‘gatherings’ of the floating rock are usually seen as holy sites. In a few of the more advanced areas of the world people have tried to “fly” using the substance. It is known that making it colder will make it float higher, however currently there is not much technology for artificially cooling something, and the only places with functional Levistone ‘flying machines’ are in the high mountains where it stays very cold.
Also the names for these materials are rather general for the moment. “Ubertonium” obviously is a good name for a silly fictional substance, but would be out of place on a world with no Germanic language to create the root word “Uber” The same goes for the other materials, they may have several different names for cultures or races. The names given here are more placeholders than fixed names.
Now, one might ask why include such substances in such a primitive environment? The answer is that things do eventually change. A fantasy world will not forever be a place of sword and horse drawn carriages. Any writer who decides to have a fully ‘static’ and unchanging world is, perhaps not a ‘bad’ writer, but maybe one without much imagination… While most people romanticizes the “traditional” fantasy setting, usually a medieval to early victorian setting, the truth is such settings have poor sanitation, poor health care and medical facilities, extremely primitive infrastructure, and virtually no such thing as a flushing toilet.
(which as some might expect, is a cornerstone to modern civilization)
A world and its inhabitants need to grow, and while many of the stories of this world may take place during the more “primitive” age, at some point a creator has to ask “What’s NEXT for them?”
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This ends the ‘In character’ aspect I have written up for my friend.
As stated earlier I am interested to see what others think of the set up and if are there are any glaring faults or oversights I have made in terms of trying to set up a ‘Discworld-esq’ world.