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Name: Hrethr & Hrothr

Topographical Map:


Artist Depiction (Not to Scale):

Location:


On the coast of the Darwin Temperate Desert sit two dormant volcanic islnds, Hrethr (Ray-thor) and Hrother (Row-thor).

Hrethr, the larger of the two, sits right on the coast with the mainland. It is in fact connected to the mainland via a sandbar that only appears at low tide and is normally submerged. This sandbar has allowed organisms that are fast enough to make it across. The peak stretches into the sky at a height of 550 meters. The southeastern wall of the caldera has collapsed due to frequent earthquakes and tremors, allowing water to fill the caldera.

To the northeast sits its sibling, Hrothr. Hrothr is an older and shorter volcano, having eroded further. Its highest point is only 400m from sea level. It is further out from the mainland, meaning that the only organisms present would be the ones that can fly or swim there. Hrothr caldera has also flooded, opening to the ocean towards the northeast. It has become a safe haven where flying organisms nest.

This post has been edited by HethrJarrod: Apr 22 2023, 03:49 PM

The "research assistants" angle doesn't work out. You can assume long-established, absolute knowledge from submissions.
You'll need to provide pictures of each, and notes on how they are remarkable as landmarks. That should be fairly easy, from the premise they're two caldera islands that are very close to each other. Hrethr appears to be a peninsula, unless that slight bluish part to the left of it is, in fact, a narrow sea channel.
You could talk about Hrethr and Hrothr's living conditions, such as the rough size of each, the climate, or perhaps how Hrethr works as a sort of barrier island for part of Darwin Temperate Desert.

Alternatively, you could say Hrethr is connected to Darwin Temperate Desert by a sandbar, and any organism that travels between the two must be good at swimming or fast enough to travel between each before the sandbar is covered by the ocean with the tides. (If that bluish spot is a sandbar, it's probably only a few miles, so a human jogging speed of 4-6 miles per hour is surely enough, or even more than enough. This would likely only exclude species which are slow or don't move much, like turtle-like or snail-like species. Arid Plyents are one Darwin Temperate Desert species that almost certainly couldn't make it across. I'm not sure how fast Gulperskuniks are, but they might also be excluded.

edited and Added artwork

If you're trying to bring up the Nauceans, the alien race that seeded Sagan 4 with life and study the planet's lifeforms, you should know the Nauceans are almost never mentioned "canonically". Only 5 Sagan 4 species pages and one meta page directly mention them, although they are implied in the official description of the religion of the Tripodician, and the fact real-life organisms are occasionally referred to as "Terran" (Terran penguin, Terran axolotl, etc.) rather than solely their plain names.

When the Nauceans are canonically mentioned, individuals are not characterized by name. I recommend you ask Hydromancerx about this, but the easiest solution is just to skip including the reasoning for the names.

The picture of Hrethr and Hrothr is surely not to scale. If the islands were close together, the "camera" would be relatively close, and it could detect subtler details, like cliffs, hills, and boulders. They would look so smooth and vaguely-shaped only from a distance, but that would surely make them seem farther apart. Try looking at similar photographs and portraying distance. Alternatively, you can just make a note it's a diagram and not to scale. The island of Santorini is the most straightforward reference for what caldera island(s) can look like.

It appears Hrethr is open to the ocean from the ocean side. That doesn't seem to be the case from the map-derived picture, unless the narrowest point facing the ocean is a low-lying channel that is tidally flooded. If so, that should be specified.

Specifiying the height of each (at least height above sea level) would help in determining what sort of organisms could live there. They're probably fairly low-lying, though. The walls of the calderas seem fairly steep. If they're actually not that steep, it wouldn't require particular specializations to climb them.

If Hrothr's lake is enclosed from the sea, it could be an interesting freshwater feature. Darwin Temperate Desert has no major (e.g., like the Amazon, Nile and Mississippi rivers, and no "great lakes" (e.g., like those of the U.S. or Africa), and it's sandy so the water drains fast. If Hrothr has a freshwater lake, it could be ecologically important for flying organisms, or even aquatic animals that can still move on land and get thirsty if they drink only seawater. (e.g., like sea snakes)

I noticed I've had to give you a lot of guidance with your Moleroot submission, to the point it's more of a collaborative submission. While I'm okay with helping you edit and refine your concepts, if the wording and concept is largely mine, it would exceed the boundaries of what I would accept for a single-person submission. If you have a really bare-bones work-in-progress submission with various problems that you require multiple reminders to fix, it's best to put it on the dedicated work-in-progress thread first, rather than put it on the forum to occupy a submission slot.

Please look at previous landmark submissions to get an idea of what they're like: the naming conventions (e.g., Hrethr & Hrothr Calderas/Hrethr & Hrothr Islands instead), and ecological implications, and interesting geological features. I strongly urge you to pay close attention to the formatting of the template of submissions, too, with a picture on top. I would actually only recommend landmarks to very experienced members, or those with a particular knowledge of geology and/or geographical oddities.

Will draw a more detailed topographic map of the two features later today.

Converting that drawing to an artistic representation is not my forte and if possible, just the topo maps if acceptable, would be great.

QUOTE (HethrJarrod @ Nov 3 2022, 08:43 AM)

Will draw a more detailed topographic map of the two features later today. Converting that drawing to an artistic representation is not my forte and if possible, just the topo maps if acceptable, would be great.

If you mean a "topographic map", a stylized bird's-eye map marking out altitude and broad-scale features, that should be acceptable. It would be unusual, but it should work. It would need to be more detailed than the global-level map view already shown, of course. For future landmarks, you should know landscape or background portrayals are much more important for landmarks than for organism submissions.

Added more detailed topographic map and a hopefully decent description

The topographic map and artist's depiction do not match. Hrethr's little island in the way of the channel into its bay isn't depicted, and Hrothr's bay should be visible if looking at it from the seaward side (roughly east). The topographic arrangements also don't match: there are elevated parts were there shouldn't be, The peak of Hrethr should be on the left for the artist's depiction.

For the landmark, just put one picture on top, the landmark template, the description, and then supplemental pictures. I am extrapolating from organism submission conventions because there are so few landmark submissions, and they normally have only 1-2 pictures.

Fixed the artist depiction