The Exalted Plains, from Dragon Age: Inquisition (note the dramatic mesas rising above the fog):
The Titanic Plains, from Risk of Rain 2:
The Plains of Erathell, from Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
The “plains” biome, in Minecraft:
Now, let us compare the example of other locations with “plain” or “plains” in their name.
The Great Plains of North America:
The Wallachian Plain in Europe:
The West Siberian Plain in Asia:
Hmm. Something about those video game locations seems off. Could it be, oh, I don’t know, plains are supposed to be fucking flat? Could that be, in fact, what the word “plain” signifies?? Terrain lacking dramatic changes in elevation over short distances??? From the Latin planus, meaning “level” or “even”??!?! Could it be that if you have a zone in your video game with the relief profile of the fucking moon, as if it had been pelted with meteorites for four billion years and never had so much as a drop of water or breath of wind fall on it, that maybe you should not call it a plain?? That there are dozens, if not hundreds, of RPGs and open-world video games that have all sorts of environments that are engineered to both cleverly guide the player around, prevent them from stumbling out-of-bounds, and to resemble real-world locations, without naming themselves after things they clearly are not?
Don’t toss me in a desert and call it a water level. Don’t put me in a cave and talk about how bright the sun is shining. And don’t drop me in a fucking canyon and call it a plain!
If you are trying to think up a plains-adjacent-but-got-other-stuff-going-on landform, check out dual lands
The top exports of Iceland are Raw Aluminium ($1.74B), Fish Fillets ($984M), Non-fillet Fresh Fish ($336M), Non-fillet Frozen Fish ($283M), and Processed Fish ($264M),
really love the idea that Fish Fillets, Non-fillet Fresh Fish, Non-fillet Frozen Fish, and Processed Fish refer to 4 sufficiently distinct exports for anyone to care
well I like the idea that aluminium + fish forms a natural category
raw aluminium, fresh aluminium, frozen aluminium, processed aluminium
those combined fish categories would equal 1.867 billion, which means someone really wants to emphasize aluminum exports as “the biggest category”
*stoutly* Iceland, NOT just a source of fish fillets
Once again remember “raw aluminum” is essentially an export of geothermal power; aluminum takes a lot of electricity to refine from bauxite
Uptown/downtown and right/wrong side of the tracks are distinct patterns of economic geography based on the form of long-distance transportation the city grew around.
For shipping, the city grows around a harbor and eventually industry and commerce grows up in the sea-level area around it (“downtown”) while acceptably low-density, high-wealth residence expands into the higher-elevation (“uptown”) hinterlands
Railroads allow inland towns capable of 360° growth, the pattern there is for industry (and subsequently working-class residences) to grow away from the rails in one direction and commerce and administration (and thus middle-class residences) in another
I suppose suburb/inner city is the equivalent pattern for the highway era.
Indeed, getting lost in familiar territory was a real hazard: Suetonius records that Julius Caesar, having encamped not far from the Rubicon got lost trying to find it, spent a whole night wandering trying to locate it (his goal being to make the politically decisive crossing with just a few close supporters in secrecy first before his army crossed). In the end he had to find a local guide to work his way back to it in the morning (Suet. Caes. 31.2). So to be clear: famed military genius Julius Caesar got lost trying to find a 50 mile long river only about 150 miles away from Rome when he tried to cut cross-country instead of over the roads.
Apparently, Gulf War 1 was sort of a big deal in that even in 1991, you couldn’t just start randomly driving across sand dunes through the desert like that.
ALT
