About Georgaphy

About Geography.

How about we have some floating islands? I don’t mean sky islands; I am talking about realistic-ish islands that float in the oceans of the world. This is not a new idea, but Iv never really developed it in a setting before. They offer some very interesting gaming situations you can not have in a normal setting with immovable land masses.
They make travel more challenging, as you may lose your home island. Navigation is always something of a gambol. Even if the pattern of movement is rather predictable, storms can move islands way off course. They can make a game have the feeling of a space adventure, with the big islands being like alien worlds. Islands may break up in large storms. They may collide with each other or with the main land. They may slip from the north to the south, radically changing their climate. They may become stranded in one of the calm zones. Also of important is the idea that not all islands move at the same speed; small ones moving faster than the big islands.
Having said all that, I should point out that there will also be some normal fixed land masses. They can provide the more traditional settings for civilizations and adventuring. I am considering rather large continents near the poles and one or two equatorial continents.


How do the islands float?
They are made mostly of volcanic pumice, a kind of porous rock that will float on water. Large rafts of pumice have been reported in real life near underwater volcanoes. However they eventually become waterlogged and sink. So we need a reason why they do not in this setting. 
The Heyfel corral is an ocean organism that loves to grow on pumice. It produces Ethenium gas as a byproduct of its digestive system. Ethenium is rather like hydrogen, but a bit less flammable and with more lifting power.  Over time the Ethenium fills the pockets in the pumice and those created by the layers of corral growth.  Thus the islands float. 
Top soil and vegetation accumulates naturally over the centuries, making the islands livable. However there will be almost no metals of hard rock with in the floating islands. A civilization restricted to one of these islands would be thus limited in several ways. They would have to get their iron and other minerals from the fixed continents. 
Fresh water would accumulate from rainfall and most would run off naturally. However it could be a problem if an island had to much water. 

As the image shows, a sizable part of any island would be underwater, a bit like an ice burg.  Keep in mind this would be a very small island, not even half a kilometer across. Many islands will be much larges than the one here.  



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