After events of the past couple weeks in-game, I wanted to drop a line to the devs, both current and past, for something that until these past weeks I'd taken completely for granted. That being said, I should go into a little bit of detail.
I was asked by certain members of Order Shard about some of the terrain around Istaria. Suffice it to say, the question was on faultlines and whether or not one exists. Well, being the RPer that I am (and a geology major at that), I headed off and started looking around in the region in question. I came across a startling discovery. As it turns out, it appears there is a normal faultline cutting through Istaria, with a bit of a strike-slip component. It follows all the accepted patterns of normal faults, right down to the differences in rock and resources (yes, certain areas show gems and metamorphosed resources for gathering). It amazed me that I'd been across that area before and had never REALLY paid attention. It even went so far as to follow the rule of Vs for water flow (for those who don't have any training in geology, the rule of Vs says that on a topography map, you can follow where a river goes or went by connecting the points of the Vs made in the contour lines).
Then again, when out by Feladan harvesting bright wisps a while later, I noticed just how the terrain is. It never occurred to me before until I saw the red in the ground clutter that I'd seen this in real life. Feladan is surrounded by karst topography (what happens when a flat region of limestone is worn away by underground water, making caves, and the caves collapsing due to too much weight and not enough support) and probably a beautiful cave system underneath that is unstable and incapable of supporting lairs. My surprise really showed up when a dragon asked where the nearest lairs were. I was floored that it really followed well (by the way, either the Feladan elves are flooding the bedrock under the town with concrete or Feladan's in for one heck of a fall when the big cave they're sitting on collapses).
So, that being said, I'd really like to thank you for putting in all the little details, including in the geology of Istaria, to really make this a fun, challenging, and beautiful game. It makes me want to do some more paleogeologic mapping to see what else is out there. For instance, I know somewhere there's an obduction zone otherwise the elves of Feladan would never have gotten all that beautiful green ophiolite they decored the town with. So, that should be somewhere available. I'm still guessing where they quarried it. And since obduction comes from subduction, my guess is it'll have to be along the coast north and west of Dralk, possibly covered in blight and hidden or in a band between Trandalar, Dralk and Kion, since all have active volcanos.