Fantasy World Seed: Insideous Mana

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by ericthered

When building a setting like this, the SHAPE of magic vs safe areas is important. If you have a sea of magic with mundane pockets, settlements are very isolated and independent. Each will have its own personality, politics, and cultures. If you've merely got point sources of monsters that won't go away, you're likely to have a single culture that tries to manage the locations. I have a setting with spots that spawn monsters, and a holy warrior order sprang up around tending such locations.

That's a bit more the ratio between them than the shape, but I agree that it's important. If the magical areas form lines that enclose large safe areas, those would form natural borders which - if they don't follow other natural borders - would look quite strange to an outtimer. The reverse could look even stranger.

[Flyndaran]

In my hypothesized setting, elevation mattered too. Mainly to allow an adventuring party in a large experimental dirigible exploring the world outside of their local nation pocket of safety.