Is it possible to have mountains without plate tectonics?

Maybe an extreme canyon situation? Huge "mountains" created solely through erosion? Could that work under some fantastic circumstances?

Mountains? No.High places that affect the environment somewhat similarly to mountains? (Act as a river source for example or a geographical barrier) Sure. Kartsts, Eskers and hill types that form without tectonic plates. Take your pick.

>Is it possible to have mountains without plate tectonics?
Of course, just say its the spinal column of some dead God(s) or Giant(s)

Even if it isn't possible, do the people in your setting necessarily understand how mountains are made? Assuming your setting's technology isn't on par with modern technology or better, it's highly unlikely that the theory of plate tectonics has been devised yet.

In such case, come up with some theoretical reasons a pre-modern culture would for mountains existing, and sprinkle them around. Take magic into account, too - a setting with powerful elemental spirits will have a lot of myths about elemental nature spirits making the mountains.

After all that, decide whether or not you need to actually revise how mountains are really made. Unless this setting actually IS using modern or better technology, then you've got an entirely different set of priorities here.

Ancient Giant sentient Trees that covered the planet in green but got crystallized after a calamity and became the cliffs and mountains of the world.

Yes. You make a fantasy setting.

Fantasy setting implies that, you know, things might not work 100% the same way they do on Earth.

Why is this even a question?

I still love that 'There are no trees on earth' is an actual conspiracy theory.

What's the deal with that?

I read an article on it a while back. The general idea seems to be that stone isn't actually a thing, it's all petrified wood, and 'real' trees were enormous, towering things of which only the stumps are left- In the forms of mountains. What we think of trees are basically just weeds.

The 'evidence' mostly consisted of pictures of tree stumps that looked kinda like mountains and mesas.

Flat earth and hollow earth are separate conspiracy theories.
Now that I think about it I wonder if they have a rivalry going, or if they prefer to gang up on the globe people.

Just use a different theory of an internally dynamic world:
publicdomainreview.org/2012/11/01/athanasius-underground/
I copied this one for my setting.

That's actually really interesting. Thanks!

People had various explanations for the origin of mountains before anyone knew shit about plate tectonics. Just have one of those explanations be true.

Yes, there are planets/moons in the solar system that do not have plate tectonics but have mountains.

Geologist here, yes you technically can:

1. impacts cause mountains
2. canyon formation due to rivers and moving water
3. A planet without plate tectonics would most likely freeze anyway so who cares

Gotta run sorry I can't answer more questions. Have fun fa/tg/uys

Most of those mountains were due to short lived plate tectonics and the lack of any serious weathering though.

Upheaval of the crust from ancient super weapons!

Venus lacks plate tectonics, but it have a lot of volcans, Instead of tectonic rifts check the venus geology in the wiki

There still needs to be internal consistency and reasons for things being the way that they are in a fantasy setting.

Why? When is the existence of mountains going to come up as something relevant in most fantasy games? The only reason it would is if it was a plot point, which would mean the GM already had an explanation prepared.

Things don't need explaining if there's no point or value to having the explanation.

Because mountains aren't unrelated to the rest of the world. How mountains are formed affects how an underground dwarves fortress was made for example. By explaining how mountains are formed you now have something to build off for a bunch of other stuff

Just say God did it.

Or you could just build all that stuff as you get cool ideas for it, and then go back and figure out an explanation later if you really need one. Which you probably won't.

Like, I can see a cool idea for how mountains formed becoming a part of a setting and other aspects, sure, but it's never something I'd go out of my way to think of when I'm designing a fantasy world.

Or, y'know, you could euthanize your sperglord group of autists and maybe yourself while you're at it.
Literally when would any of that come up in a game? I never sit down and look at the river a couple blocks from my place and ask "why are you here", I just fucking accept that it exists and get on with my life, because it doesn't matter.

To each their own I guess, I usually have a better time world building by starting with a few ideas and then following the consequences from there since that way everything interconnects

Why are you so mad? It's just world building

wtf i love this

Article on it- theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/09/flat-earth-truthers/499322/

I was curious what flat earthers thought of lunar eclipses since a flat earth can't make lunar eclipses.

wiki.tfes.org/The_Lunar_Eclipse

>Lunar Eclipses are caused by some unknown "Shadow Object" that is around five to ten miles in diameter and eclipses the moon in the same way an object close to a light source will project a much larger shadow.

I think the most annoying thing about this is all the other celestial bodies are spheres, but Earth arbitrarily isn't.
Though, for the record, I actually looked this up before I posted and flat earthers are extremely inconsistent and only united by their inane flat-earth conspiracy.

Sure thing. Just bring my wife near a molehill. And in response to the backlash: "Fuck you, i wanted to say the joke so i did, Fuck you".

Oh my god some crazy fresh from the source rosettedelacroix.com/?p=2599

Mountains being massive fossilized trees would fit into a biblical model of earth, on the basis that pre-flood earth; "Antediluvian", never saw rain, but instead was constantly misted and covered in a thick precipitating fog that would water everything each morning.

If you had such massive trees then the whole world could be a rainforest more or less.

It detracts from the actually important bits

>what are many of the African mountains, especially the ones in South Africa
>what is basically every mountain in Europe, including the Alps, the Carpathians, the Norwegian coast and the Scottish Highlands
>what are the Appalachians and the Brazilian Highlands
>what are the Anatolian Highlands, the Urals and the Caucasian Mountains
>what is the Great Dividing Range in Australia
Essentially, old as fuck deposits. They're pretty erosive, all in all, but they are actual mountains.

you could just make it a basin, and then have anything look like water erosion rather than tectonics

Not really, if anything it makes the game better when properly worked into a campaign, you can get a lot of bang for your buck without detailed world building or a lot of prep but putting in the extra time pays off

But the whole point is that to make it relevant you have to go out of your way to do so. If you want to do that, sure, but if you don't bother nobody is ever going to realise, notice or care except nitpickers, and they will find something to complain about no matter what you do.

At least for me when I'm playing I can tell when the GM has put effort into the geography. Everything about the world tends to be more detailed because the GM usually uses the geography to explain other aspects of the world such as what the local foods are, what kind of monsters live in the area, or what local commerce. You absolutely don't have to do this, it's definitely time consuming, but it definitely makes a difference

What local commerce is like*

But I do all those things, I just base them on the themes of a place rather than geography. I draw the geography from the theme, too.

Do your players ever notice that everything fits neatly into a theme? And what if your theme is more down to earth and "realistic"? I'm not judging, just curious

They notice, but that's part of the point. I tend to not run realistic games, I more aim for mythic feeling fantasy when I do fantasy stuff. With modern stuff it's more action movies or thrillers, operating of their logic rather than anything close to realism, while with sci-fi I tend to vary between pulp space adventure and full on space opera.

Ok that makes sense I tend to run more realistic but not necessarily dark games and my end goal is to make the players feel like they're in a breathing world so that when they're faced with a problem they've got a logical, detailed world to help them make a decision. Honestly though while I feel it's a lot better than when I just wing it, the improvement in quality isn't proportional to the time invested

Mountain spirits didn't like the place they were originally and moved.

Meteors or small planetoids crashing into the planet would cause lots of variation in elevation and ridges. They probably wouldn’t look quite like earth mountains though