Building Biomes - Arctics & Ice Ages | Worldbuilding

Episode 17: Ecology Part 8 - Arctics & Ice Ages
In this video we discuss worldbuilding polar ice caps, ice ages, and which flora and fauna are able to survive within the subzero climate zones.
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WORLDBUILDING CORNER: www.worldbuildingcorner.com
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All music, images, and other media used in this video are available for commercial use with Creative Commons licensing, found on www.pixabay.com and www.pexels.com.
The subsequent listed images are permitted for use under the following Creative Commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Tundra Climate Map image credit: Maulucioni
Ice Cap Climate Map image credit: Allice Hunter
Summit Camp image credit: Capricorn4049 and Neige Calonne
Snowball Planet image credit: Oleg Kuznetsov - 3depix
The subsequent listed images are permitted for use under the following Creative Commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Amundsen-Scott Station image credit: Mradyfist at English Wikipedia

[@worldforger0]

I love this stuff! Too few creators cover ecology and different stages of earth's climate in worldbuilding. Also, polar lions are bloody genius.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Glad you are enjoying it! I wanted to cover ecology in a more 'complete' sense, rather than glossing over areas. I also think many aspects of worldbuilding are easier to understand (and are therefore less daunting) when related to earth. I love big cats IRL so it felt natural to include some, and lions with thick fur all over rather than just as manes has been a cool idea I've been sitting on for a while! As always, thanks for the positive feedback :)

[@therealdarklizzy]

Are you aware of the ancient cave lions that used to exist in ancient Europe? They have cave paintings of them in France, I think. They've also found frozen cubs in Siberia.

[@worldforger0]

@@therealdarklizzy YES! And the Greeks hunted down lions! Badass.

[@andresmarrero8666]

Those two blankets would definitely be used in clothing and communication, particularly when the lights go out.

[@somekid3893]

I'm sure this has been mentioned, but lichens are actually used as a prime example of symbiosis. Lichens are a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and an algae; I had a teacher once who studied lichen and she literally separated the algae from the fungus and was able to grow them separately, so... No, they're neither moss nor algae, but a literal combination of the two

[@Menzobarrenza]

Your dual moss idea is super cool! It has some seriously interesting ecological implications.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

I thought they were cool too! I also have a very romantic image of snow climates, especially as an Australian who never experiences regular snow. I've had the pleasure of seeing the aurora borealis while travelling multiple times, and so the image of glowing tundras and snow fields is firmly cemented in my mind, and something I draw from often as inspiration for fantasy.

[@TBsentmehere]

Hi, Matthew (at least that's the name you've given us in your videos!) I know I'm a little late to the party for this one, but I've just finished watching your biomes series and I'd like to congratulate you on your excellent content! I like how you showed us some species that inhabit each biome, rather than having a single separate video for fauna and flora; it was a nice way to see the actual advantages and constraints of the environment in effect on the creatures that inhabit it. And I especially loved the implementation of the synthesis and severance mechanic into some of these species, allowing some of the magic system to already start seeping into nature in interesting ways. Very excited to see where this project goes! Cheers!

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Thank you! I wanted to present the flora and fauna alongside the climate zones because climate plays such a big role in their development. I would love to have included many more examples of flora and fauna if it wouldn't make the videos unbearably long (both to watch and for me to edit!). Stay tuned for more magic in the near future!

[@BanValsimot]

I love how it sounds “without further ado”. Really love the accent

[@bedlaskybedla6361]

Leonix is truly amazing combination of polar bear and cave lion, I love that! 😂 Milankovitch cycles cause shifting between glacial and interglacial stages of the icehouse, but don't caused it. Icehouse is usually caused by combination of low concentrations of greenhouse gases (Carboniferous, present day) and formation of the supercontinent (Pangea, Rodinia...) or (in the case of current icehouse) if continent is locked by cold ocean currents in polar region (Antarctica). Another significant factor can be polar ocean locked by continents (Arctic ocean).

[@meetarthur9427]

Overwhelming amount of information

[@arixsalas6811]

YEEEAAAHH!!! I was waiting for this video, i am really excited because you are closer to start speaking about sapient species, and i love the candidates you have shown this last videos. I love your content and this channel as well

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Thanks for the positive feedback! I'm really excited to get into designing sapient species! I love the 'world' building side of worldbuilding, but designing civilisations and cultures is easily my favourite part of worldbuilding. Glad you are enjoying the content!

[@commandereclipse5373]

Seeing that map filled in was so satisfying!

[@bravesirrobbins4849]

Loving the series! Question - did you do your own art, mapping, and map layer animations? What resources and processes did you use? Thanks - keep it up 🎉

[@vadalyiahomes7048]

You should cover ocean habitats and their animals,animals should be able to become sentient even if they evolve in underwater habitats ❤Love your show ❤🎉you should keep going I find these videos very helpful for learning to worldbuilding🎉❤

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Thanks for the positive feedback! Glad you are enjoying the content, it absolutely will be continuing. I have been working on a big video soon to come on sapient life and fantasy races! I do plan on covering ocean life! Sea creatures can absolutely become sentient, and possibly even sapient, though they face significant hurdles such as inhibited speech and lack of access to fire. Without access to fire, there can be no technology like metallurgy, and so sea dwelling creatures looking to develop civilisations of their own will struggle to move past the stone age. Though in theory, not impossible!

[@Menzobarrenza]

I really look forward to seeing you develop sapient life. The options you've pointed out are all incredibly interesting! My personal hope is that you choose to have all of the candidates reach sapience, as each particular option looks so interesting.

[@Menzobarrenza]

P.S. Since you're adding elements of fantasy to the world, it just feels on-theme to me that there would be multiple sapient species.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

@@Menzobarrenza without spoilers of which ones will achieve sapience, I certainly do plan for more than one :)

[@Menzobarrenza]

@@WorldbuildingCorner That sounds like great news to me! 😁

[@Menzobarrenza]

I've just finished watching all of your videos over a few days. This us really good stuff! I'll be using your videos coupled with Artifexian's videos to flesh out my world's ocean currents and climates 😁

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Thank you for the positive feedback! I'm glad you've enjoyed everything so far. I'm honoured to be put on a list with Artifexian, I'm a big fan of his work! He's one of my inspirations for the channel :)

[@ShiKageMaru]

12:15 lichens are the fungus. They're a combination of funguses and plants.

[@Lilas.Duveteux]

I think tundras are under-used for classic fantasy races worldbuilding. Dwarves would have the same advantages against the cold that Neanderthal had over Cro-Magnon in terms of lung-capacity and heat-conservation. This, combined with a more solid bone structure, which they would seem to have more chances to survive falls. All in all, even if the biome would limit the capacity for agriculture, they would definitively have the upper edge against normal humans in such a biome, namely because they would be less sensitive to hyperthermia and in case of alpine tundra, would be able to breath fine. Elves, despite their structure being absolutely bad for heat conservation, the fact they are so light-weight and agile, and in some folklores capable of flight, suggests hollow bones, which again, would be great for alpine tundra since: more oxygen! And if you decide elves or dwarves to be at least partial fungivores, then they would actually be able to develop agriculture in this biome (although it would have little ressemblance to what we humans do for agriculture and would be in stone-built structures as opposed to open fields) and might even be able to cultivate lichens. Yum. Can you imagine: complexe civilisation among the tundra and glaciers. Arctic and subarctic climates are home to enormous reserves of fresh water, however salt and food can be more difficult to find, which means that if they live in a continental setting, the capacity to conserve electrolytes would be a must. Any creature inhabiting the continental parts of this biome would need specialized kidneys to filter out excess water and conserve electrolytes as much as possible. Homo sapiens have originated in the African dry heat, and thus our kidneys and bones were never meant to take in melted glacial water nor eat snow, and having it as your only source of hydration would be terrible for your health. In fact, people who were forced to do it for any considerable length of time ended up with horrible bone issues as they literally pissed away a lot of their bodily minerals. Should you decide that a fantasy race would have the capacity to treat this large quantity of mineral-less water would have a huge advantage. This however, would only be true if they are away from the sea and coast.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

I love the idea of Arctic dwarves! A challenge tundra dwelling creatures would have for developing sapience is needing to find a fuel source for fire. Polar climates by definition have no trees, and the mosses and lichens of the tundra are often waterlogged and generally unsuitable for fire. The possibility of exploring non-tree based fuel sources however is interesting! Methane reserves trapped in ice? Flammable fauna? Combustible flora? I imagine the most realistic solution however is to skirt the subarctic zones where fuel in the form of trees is abundant, perhaps with outposts in the subarctic to gather wood to bring into the species' arctic homes.

[@Lilas.Duveteux]

@@WorldbuildingCorner Dead lichen is very flammable. I mean, at the time many cave paintings were made, it was significantly colder, and thus dead lichens was probably the fuel used. Another fuel used could be animal fats or bone after the marrow and collagen was extracted. Near shore lines, one could also find some dried up, unedible alguea that could be used as a fuel. Dried poop would also be extremely useful as fuel. Also, tundra does host many species of grass. Methane under ice would be plain too dangerous, however, having some sort of device that would trap their waste and the gases released might be a slightly safer option in the summer. Also, cooking methods that uses thermal vents would likely develop whenever possible. The consumption of raw or frozen fish near cost lines would be a very popular option. A fuel-saving cooking technique is also to finely chop and steam the food. Tea is also likely to be a large part of what they drink, since berries present in colder climates are rarely sweet enough to make good alcohol. However, other, heatless conservation methods could be use, such as aging, lactic acid fermenting and drying are all possible.

[@therealdarklizzy]

Another important thing to remember for fantasy ice age settings is that frozen regions at lower latitudes would have more vegetation. Scientists were confused why large animals like mammoths were able to survive in a tundra environment, until they realized that because cold climates existed further south, plants were able to get more direct sunlight. The mammoth steppe was very lush because it was at lower latitudes than the modern tundra and had more plants.

[@d1g1beastpr1me7]

@@WorldbuildingCorner I've heard that the intuit got ahold of driftwood that washed ashore for making spears and wooden figures. All an arctic species would need to figure out is how to light it. Enough well placed lightning or a pleasantly fiery volcanoe would help

[@brockscanlan8891]

🙌🙌🙌

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

🙌

[@catsjacinto]

Just finished the biome series for the second time. What a wonderful ride! Thanks for your work on this, it is incredibly helpful! One minor observation: shouldn't the Leonix be a Calidi (warm-blooded) instead of a Frigidi (cold-blooded)? EDIT: I think the rolling fluffies of the desert were also described as Frigidi in their image, which also caught me off guard. EDIT 2: Also wanted to add that it would be pretty great if you could somehow find a way to compile all of the Locus information (sans the explanations of things) in a kind of wiki of the planet, but I understand if it's not possible for your schedule and such. Great content either way!

[@JordanDesira]

Loved this! ❤

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Get ready for your own ice age up in Canada over the winter! Thanks for the support :)

[@LionelSondy]

10:42 🤔 I'd love to adapt the information in these videos to a planet with an axial tilt of only 9 degrees and an average temperature of 10 degrees Celsius. What do you think the key differences between the climate zones of Locus and those of this other planet would be?

[@ProjectAtlasmodling]

You probably won't see this but it would be nice to see you make a video on a extreme till world where season becomes really weird For example a 40° till can cause the artic to swing from being extremely cold to a nice summer day

[@nerd8502]

Sorry for the big comment ahead, I'm just very curious about the world you're building. Do you plan to take a deeper dive into aquatic life on Locus at some point? I know you already ended the Building Biomes series, but I'd love to see you develop primarily aquatic organisms, as they're some of the life form that intrigue me the most. Also, is there a specific reason you made no synthetic or severing Ambulia (at least I don't remember you talking about any), be it a biological explanation (like how animals on Earth don't photossynthesize because it creates too little energy to support them), a meta explanation (like you just thinking it would overcomplicate things) or anything else (like it having been possible, but it just turned out to not have happened)? I also wonder if it would be possible for living beings to create via synthesis the very energy they consume to be alive, like a plant who survives in the dark by using photo-synthesis (creating light) to support their, well, photossynthesis (tranforming light, water and co2 into o2 and energy they use). Besides all that, I'd like to say that I'm really liking the series as a whole and all the effort you're putting into it.

[@bxphoo]

hi! abit late just curious what you used to make your map blend well like that! awesome vid!!! loving the series

[@lauramoustacakis7871]

Great Episode, but how or where can I Create a map like this?

[@vadalyiahomes7048]

What about denizens of underground habitat

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

As in, creatures that generally live in caves and caverns? I'll be making a video on that in the future!

[@ATOM-vv3xu]

why don't you have an abundance of autoarcanosyntrophic species, that feed of self-created energy?

[@kentario1610]

Leonix was listed as class Frigidi here, which is something I didn't expect to notice. It's just a mistake, I assume, but I wonder how exotherms might be able to survive in a tundra... my guess is just not being able to, much too long periods of time that would be in a deep sleep and much too little for food and recreation.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

Good eye! It is a mistake, I didn't catch it until a while after uploading haha. I believe the short answer to exotherms in the colder climates is that they would need an external means of staying warm otherwise they could not. In a fictional setting however, the threshold for how cold they could get and retain bodily functions might be different though.

[@clairetellkamp6253]

Wait, is the Leonix a reptile??? I think you showed the wrong thing in the bottom left, that's the path for the Magnamaw, the crocodile guy from the rainforest episode.

[@sproge2142]

If the average temperature of a planet is 0 C would that not mean that it would be above 0 at the equator? Meaning that the water on the equator would not be frozen like a snowball planet?

[@Menzobarrenza]

Btw., does upvoting comments count as engagement for the purpose of having the algorithm favour you?

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

I don't know to be honest! I believe that commenting in general does help but beyond that I'm not sure. My research has yielded vague results. I appreciate the engagement even if it doesn't help the algorithm though! Always lovely to speak to other worldbuilders and those interested in my content :)

[@Menzobarrenza]

@@WorldbuildingCorner Good enough for me! I find your content extremely interesting, and very useful practically for my worldbuilding. I'd even say you've inspired me to add some more focus to some parts of the world, such as the flora. You've also made me think hard about how exactly I want to define the magic of the world. It's meant be used for Dungeons & Dragons, but also potentially for a book I'll be writing, so the magic system is extremely flexible, which means I need some kind of fundamental logic underpinning things to help constrain what magic and can't do, and how it would naturally affect things without sapient involvement.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

@@Menzobarrenza Stay tuned then, I'll be covering magic and magic systems soon :)

[@allanwidner9276]

I wonder if Mu even has natural ice caps that aren't "Jaghut Ice Fields". (Malazan Book of the Fallen)

[@storyteller6348]

How did you do that to the map. Did you draw it or is there a program that merges biomes and stuff.

[@NRACZ]

They're using Wonderdraft, you can merge biomes using the options and color palette it provides.

[@broEye1]

Lichen isn't a fungus. It's a fungus *and* a plant usually algae, living in symbiosis.

[@sunenkhbayar3060]

Ad some very big under water animals like Erath's whale's they othen live in the article environment.

[@WorldbuildingCorner]

And narwhals! I haven't showcased the ocean life of Locus yet, but it will come in the future!

[@luminecorce7578]

11:09 11:11

[@RoryRose_]

i wonder what he's called when he IS totally frozen solid

[@tazykat1]

Love your work but Arctic in your culture is only call so not because it is cold but because it is literally "the land of the bears" with Antarctic being a "land without bears" please cold it polar