Map for fantasy setting - please criticise

[Weltall_BR]

In this link is the sketch of the map I have been drawing for my new fantasy setting (coastline is black; mountains, red; and hills, yellow). Although I really liked it at first, I have been really unsure lately, and would like to hear some comments.

I was considering connecting it to another landmass (probably via an isthmus) in the Northwest, but it seems to me this could add too much complexity. Let me explain. I don't plan developing this second landmass right now; it would be the foreign, alien land about which none knows much but legends. But with land, ships could easily navigate along the coast and therefore its probable the inhabitants of my "main" continent (the one in the linked map) would have followed that path long ago (technologial level of setting is equivalent to 8th or 9th century, plus low magic). This would demand that I detailed, at least to a certain level, what is to be found there - a work I'm not interested in doing right now. On the other side, I'm a bit unsure of having an Australia-like continent, isolated from everything. It seems to limit my future possibilities.

I'm aiming at a kind of beliavable setting here: if I can't find any reasonable explanation for why my folks would not have sailed that way, I will have to accept they did.

I would like to see what you guys think about these doubts that have been making me unsure. Any critics to the map itself would also be welcome.

 

[Edankyn]

Without an idea of the size of the continent it's difficult to determine how limiting the continent could be. Theoretically the map could be the size of Rhode Island or as big as Asia. That being said a lone standing continent still leaves a lot of open possibilities regardless of size.

As far as people sailing off...you're the author which basically makes you god. The ocean is simply too rough, the people have weird religious taboos against sailing, boats have never been invented, or there are no other land masses in existence could all be reasons why they never sailed away.

 

[CupofJoe]

I'm assuming we are talking temperate latitudes [Europe/Mediterranean] and pretty much earth like climate?
If it is Australia sized, then your North would could be tundra and the south dry savannah. the northern mountains and weather could very easily isolate that thin northern western coastal strip for long periods.
While it is true that humans on earth do seem to have a "lets see what's over there" attitude, not everyone does. And those that do co exploring can normally see something over there [clouds, bird flight etc] to head towards, even if they don't know what it is...
If the next land mass is 200+ miles away there may be little evidence that anything might be there at all. And if a few crazy people get in boats, head off to the "new world" and are never seen again... who really cares...
If it is an isolated continent then there are likely to be some serious currents and winds so even if they find something, they might never make it back.
[Experts please correct me if I'm wrong...] It has only been the last 1000 years that man has felt comfortable sailing out of sight of land for very long [excluding short cuts across bays or seas]. We have been making boats for 20-40,000 years probably longer...
As Edankyn says you are the god of this world. you get to decide the rules. Give then a huge nasty sea monster or shoals of flying piranha to contend with... or even just don't give then a compass and do give them a cloudy sky.

 

[ThinkerX]

Viking marauders and lost Irish monks aside (among others), europe had fairly sophisticated sailing craft for thousands of years before decisively 'discovering' and colonizing the Americas. This DESPITE knowing about Iceland, at least, for a good thousand years before hand.

It depends on the culture, but it is not hard at all to imagine an advanced, large scale civilization NOT being truely aware of nearby continents. Best way would probably be some sort of religious prohibition: 'the last days will begin when the heretic king sends ships past the Isles of Atos, which all know stand near the western rim of the world.'

 

[Weltall_BR]

I'm assuming we are talking temperate latitudes [Europe/Mediterranean] and pretty much earth like climate?
If it is Australia sized, then your North would could be tundra and the south dry savannah. the northern mountains and weather could very easily isolate that thin northern western coastal strip for long periods.
While it is true that humans on earth do seem to have a "lets see what's over there" attitude, not everyone does. And those that do co exploring can normally see something over there [clouds, bird flight etc] to head towards, even if they don't know what it is...

As Edankyn says you are the god of this world. you get to decide the rules. Give then a huge nasty sea monster or shoals of flying piranha to contend with... or even just don't give then a compass and do give them a cloudy sky.

Your guesses on the continent's size, its biomes and the sailing conditions in the North are correct. And your idea of natural barriers is also very interesting, specially that of sea monsters. In the Odyssey, Scylla and Charybdis are monsters that make sailling through the strait of Sicily extremely dangerous. A sea monster (a Kraken?) in a certain area could prevent all but the most daring to travel in a certain direction.

 

[skip.knox]

CupOfJoe has it right about sailing out of sight of land. It's extremely dangerous and extremely scary (people didn't just believe in sea monsters, they knew for a fact they existed), especially at night. Get a two day storm with continuous cloud cover and you won't know where in the world you are.

The only people I know of who really did sail on open ocean before the year 1000 (give or take a century) were the Polynesian peoples. They read the currents. Vikings sailed, but mainly they coasted, same as other Europeans, up until the Viking Age when for some reason a few of them took the leap across the Iceland-Greenland-Vinland route. These were only a handful, though. As I mentioned before, it was also possible to sail the open waters of the eastern Mediterranean, between roughly April and October. It's about three days from Crete to Alexandria or to Tyre. Coasting that route adds a week or more, so there was high motivation to go that way. Contrast this with the western Mediterranean, which also has wide expanses of sea, but where the trading opportunities were not sufficient to motivate people to take the risk. They followed the coast, crossing at Sicily if needed.

In short, there has to be not only opportunity but also motivation. You can easily remove the motivation (nobody hears of another land or even thinks its possible) until you're ready. Then you can have any number of events or developments provide the motives for making the jump.

 

[Ennokos]

I agree with skip.knox and ThinkerX, there needs to be motivation to travel along with just the means to. So if you make the mountains in the northwest especially dangerous, and the waters especially hard to traverse, then there goes the means. But in all reality if the motivation is still there, the people could advance quite far in the logistical side of technology, even with just an eighth century mindset.

I would have to say just take away the motivation for not just the people of the country to travel, but the reader to really care about it. In LOTR, even though they mention other countries that are actually connected to I believe Mordor, but you don't really care about that during the story because you have no motivation to stray from the journeys at hand.

So there are places in the country that can support almost any crop, and some mountains contain enough ore to never leave anyone wanting. Make a lot of greed or disparity disappear, even if it's only for the time being.

Or make the journey so involving that there would be just no time or resources available to go exploring. Just my two cents.