Asking some questions on worldbuilding (Medieval Fantasy genre) worldbuilding

Greetings r/worldbuilding.

I'm an amateur worldbuilder, and haven't actually done anything yet but I have been visualizing my world(s) on my head and want to start putting it down properly. Recently (err, just last night) I signed up for Inkarnate so I could try it out and I can say with its limited set of tools I can do a lot on it. I saw that other post that talks about it, so I'm aware of what it is and what it's not (and also the low opinions of people who considers Inkarnate as some sort of abomination in mapmaking). I wanted to use the tool to "draw" my world as quick and easy as possible, and I do not mind if I do not develop artistic skills of actual cartography along the way. I just need to "write" down my ideas before they poof off my head.

But enough of that.

I posted here hoping to seek knowledge of enthusiasts here to answer some questions lingering in my mind. Your pieces of advice may be worth gold to me so replies are appreciated. You may opt to answer all of them (respective dieties of your world praise you) or you may answer only some of my questions you feel like answering.

Some context about my world before I get started

I am setting my world in "Medieval" Fantasy, though the Medieval part is still tentative for me since I have yet to set to stone my technological time period, but for the most part my world is filled with swords and magic ("magic" to elaborate later), and early concepts of guns as ranged weapons. Technological marvels are mostly in the style of steampunk gizmos and gadgetry and are not yet prevalent in the world including but not limited to airships (and trains?? up for question later) for transportation, bio-domes to grow food in harsh cold environments, and automatic crossbow turrets for defense.

For a brief background on my "magic" system, "Magic" is basically a manipulation of Mana inside a living being's body and the omni-present Ether in the environment (structure may be cliche at this point, but I do want to use standard tropes to ease understanding of the basics of my magic system). Ether takes the form of the four basic elements of alchemy (Earth Fire Wind Water) represented by the four general directions, then Light and Darkness above and below respectively, and Time in the outermost layer. "Magic" is applied and used regularly in society and is developed side-by-side with technology to further progress nations. Through its basic structure magic (more particularly Etheric Manipulation) can also be used by animals instinctively.

Sentient inhabitants of my world are mostly humans. Demi-humans and humanoids like Elves, Dwarves and Halfling do not exist in my world, but there are human-like races like Orcs and Goblins that are categorized as "Fiends" in-universe much like other species are categorized as Beasts and Reptiles. As such, technological and magical progress in my world can mostly be attributed to Humans with some special exceptions.

Four great nations in my world have vastly different cultures. To ease understanding for now I'll label them as Victorian Era Knights, Norse Hogwarts, Persian Gladiators and Wuxian Elves (They're still humans though they act like the traditional tree-hugging elves inspired by Chinese Wuxia fantasy). Of course their names won't be as such, like the "Persians" won't call themselves Persians, but those are my placeholder names since I'm basing my actual nations from those cultures.

Finally, while I want to make a vibrant world by itself, I may want to allow certain points of realism be compromised for the sake of adaptation into game and novel. That's not to say that such adaptation will actually come true, but I may consider certain aspects to be adjusted so as a would-be Player Character would not be walking 10~20 Kilometers in-game just to get to the next town, or perhaps I need to congest points or people of interest for a Hero or Heroine to interact with. Of course, finding that right balance is part of the challenge.

I guess that's sufficient context for now. Onto my concerns then.

[Questions about nation-building]

• I need to make vibrant cities and villages with respective districts like Industrial, Commercial and Residential. Perhaps they're not totally district-ified, but all the functions should at least be present in each city / village. That said, considering a fully functional captial city, is 1 kilometer radius (3.14 square km if my calculation is not mistaken) enough for all that?
• In a similar question above but for small villages, is 0.5 km radius (0.785 sq km) good enough for around 250~500 residents while having at least one major industrial or commercial function, like a floral village or a fishing village?
• What is the standard distance between two settlements (capital, village, hamlet)? I saw in some video in Youtube (posted here, I forgot which one) say it's 10 kilometers. Is it okay to lower that to 5 kilometers? That seems to be a reasonable travelling distance for horses on roads.
• How does a province created and how big is a province? Is it possible to declare an area as a province with only one village plus its surrounding area of 5 km (78.5 sq km)? Or perhaps it's too small?
• Crazy idea but... is it reasonable for a Village to be owned by a different nation each year? Let's say a Village is contested due to its Gold and Silver mines, then that Village will be fought over by the four great nations and every year (or maybe even every month) it switches national ownership. Is that possible in the real world and what are its repercussions?

[Questions about technology]

• While I have airships in my world for international travels (in place of airplanes), I only have coaches and caravans for travel inside a nation. Is that too wide of a gap in technology? I don't want to introduce steam / coal trains in my world as that may be cause for air pollution which compromises health and the Etheric composition in the air, but if need be I may cook up an Ether-powered train in my world. But a more important question is... does humanity need Trains? To top that question, if I introduce trains do I also need to introduce cars? But that might break my supposed "medieval" fantasy setting and I prefer sticking to mostly mounted transport (commonly horses in roads and griffins for limited flight)
• Is it bad worldbuilding if I introduce modern (20th century) commodity in my Medieval Fantasy world while attributing it to magic? Some things like Magic-powered Refrigerators, Heaters, Light bulbs and lanterns, "Magic Televisions" and the like.

[Questions about culture]

• Victorian Era Knights. This nation is the center of my dilemma that my "Medieval Fantasy" won't be so medieval anymore if their level of sophistication and architecture reflects the 1800's. Basically, this nation of mine should still be all about traditional Arthurian swords and staves, but I also like the style of the buildings and classiness of Victorian Era, who pride themselves as the Era of "refined sensibilities". Would it be bad and convoluted for a fantasy world to just pick up the culture and class of Victorian but not the Technology equivalent to 19th century?
• Would it be culturally insensitive of me if I had the great nation of Persian Gladiators be built close to a much more ancient but presently broken civilization based on India and Hindu mythology? Historically they weren't on good terms, perhaps some people out there may get offended about the placement of my fantasy nations, but hopefully I won't do it tasteless and I wouldn't raise an India-Persia controversy in my world.
• I wonder... is it okay if I let modern culture in my world as part of a radical movement in the world of entertainment? Like a group of young female bards got tired of singing tavern songs and started forming an idol group, or maybe a certain dramaturge pride himself for making Noir-style theatrical plays.

[Questions about the Inkarnate tool]

• How do I make my map bigger? Is there a way to increase canvas size?
• Any extensive guide out there that I can use? I already saw the ADVICEPOST here, but I was thinking about literally how to use the tool.
• Are there any keyboard shortcuts available? I found myself instinctively pressing Ctrl Z whenever I make a mistake, only to be left dumbfounded that nothing happened. Is there an Undo / Redo button at least?
• Is there a copy-paste feature here? Say I want to copy the lowermost portion of Map A, then paste it to the uppermost portion of Map B just so it feels seamless (and probably easier to combine later).
• Apparently, the object tool allows me to put my own assets onto the map. Is there somewhere that offer free assets for use in Inkarnate?

Those are my questions for now. I know it's reeally lengthy, and at this point it's a miracle if anybody actually read everything I wrote down. But hopefully somebody does read it and answer my questions.... please. m(_ _)m

Submitted January 31, 2017 at 10:32AM by Black_Heaven http://ift.tt/2kaZRtb worldbuilding