World Building - Very Shallow Sea?

[lvalero]

It reminds me the "Purelake" of Brandon Sanderson's Roshar World

https://coppermind.net/wiki/Purelake

The inhabitants dont think the purelake is silly or unbelivelable. But, yes, they also think that magic gems charged by storms are normal too. :)

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

As a sanity check for a worldbuilding feature, is there anything intrinsically silly or credibility straining about a significant body of seawater that is only perhaps five or six feet deep on average?

You can make it more plausible by having something operating that tends to make it about that deep. Living things can have nicely complicated behaviour: corals that don't like too much light, for example, or a plant that breaks up limestone readily.

[Anthony]

The natural tendency of any still lake is for silt and/or mud to build up in the bottom, resulting in it becoming increasingly shallow. It's flowing water that carves trenches. However, if it's sea water, unless dealing with a tide-locked planet with no moon, it's going to have tides, and that's going to disrupt your flatness.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by johndallman

You can make it more plausible by having something operating that tends to make it about that deep. Living things can have nicely complicated behaviour: corals that don't like too much light, for example, or a plant that breaks up limestone readily.

I'm increasingly drawn to something like a large atol complex - a series of coral islands with a lot of shallow reef around them, giving an environment in which short swims and long wades can get you a long way.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Do you have elves in the world? Magic? Other such fantastical things?

Then don't worry about it.

I'm not a great believer in "a wizard did it!" ... unless a wizard actually did. Which I don't rule out, but isn't what I was contemplating.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

I'm not a great believer in "a wizard did it!" ... unless a wizard actually did. Which I don't rule out, but isn't what I was contemplating.

Its much more believable if its not the only thing the wizard did. The Purelake, which was brought up above, has some elements of "A wizard (God) did it" but it gets a pass because you can see the other things the Gods have done, and there is evidence of magic capable of shaping landscapes all over the world.


But I agree that a weird organism that shapes the land is a strong candidate for this.

[Railstar]

Did the sea rise recently? Something that was previously very flat land that got swallowed up by the sea. Maybe even see the tops of ruined houses peeking out from the water.

[Dalillama]

I can picture a set of coastal hills with a few channels in them that water comes through at high tide. The land beyond is slightly lower lying, resulting in a shallow sea/broad salt marsh.

[Toptomcat]

To everyone saying that tides would neccesarily make a sea that’s six feet deep on average alternately drain itself and swell to twice the depth: we’re worldbuilding, right? Surely the magnitude of the tides depends on the mass and proximity of the moon, which is a parameter we’re free to fiddle with. Smaller moon, smaller tides.

Bonus: this would also make for a less tectonically active planet, which would make it more plausible that the sea was so uniformly flat.

[Tom H.]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

As a sanity check for a worldbuilding feature, is there anything intrinsically silly or credibility straining about a significant body of seawater that is only perhaps five or six feet deep on average?

I'm curious about the motive or purpose you have envisioned to require such a shallow sea?

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

I'm not a great believer in "a wizard did it!" ... unless a wizard actually did..

Good, because that's not what I said.

I said (paraphrasing) "Do you have other fantastic stuff? If so, don't worry about your Player's suspenders of disbelief." Generally if they can handle the existence of elven wizards or catgirl swishybocklers, they can handle a very shallow sea.