This is good stuff. It really brings home the idea that world building is <I>world</I> building — there is almost no part of human experience that can be excluded, if you want to get it right. I’d like to foot-stomp your ideas about the importance of agriculture. Food surpluses are the only thing that can be turned into treasure, not just armies and cities. And without treasure, what kind of adventure am I writing here?

J.R.R. Tolkien finessed the issue by saying Middle-Earth was prehistoric Earth. Telling C.J.R. to work from real-world maps made lots of things work well. e.g., The cities of Gondor are in the right place because they’re based on Egypt, with the river turned around. (Letters, #211).