Building a Fantasy Sandbox: Step 1: The World!

So it begins, let's see what our illustrious guide tells us to do first:

1. Using one page, sketch a world or continent map

Okay, so off I go, firstly, I recruit Sean back into the fold. For me, world design needs someone to bounce ideas off of and someone to provide new looks at things I might miss.

So, now, off we go. We have our original continent from before. I don't like some things, I want to change things around, but keep the cooler aspects.

Somehow this turns into discussion about islands.

Those become islands in an endless sky.

Those become islands floating above a ruined land.

Those becomes islands floating above a wasteland where a cataclysm happened so long ago no one remembers how it happened, but they do know the land below is cursed, and they don't go down there...

Let's back up for a second. I know it's in general poor taste to boast about yourself, and, despite my massive ego and brash outgoingness, I actually tend to agree. But I'm throwing that out the widow for a moment, but it'll come around to not be about me, watch:
I consider myself a highly creative and imaginative person, I can see but a little kernel of idea and take it to places no one else would think of. I can immediately see a thousand avenues behind one simple concept, all of them vivid full color landscapes, and all of them rushing out of my brain almost simultaneously.
Sean is the only person I know that can not only process everything I say but go along right beside me and not only augment my ideas, but enhance them in ways I wouldn't have thought.

See, not just about me.

Anyway...

So, we agree, our "world" isn't so much one place, it's a collection of places, hundreds of island and island clusters floating above a ruined hellish landscape where no sane being would dare tread.
Some islands cluster together, these are connected by things like vast steam powered cable cars and the like. So now we have elements of steam punk.
Obviously we have air ships, and island clusters are separated by vast rock debris fields, pirate raiders, and weird new creatures. So in comes some swashbuckling.
As we did with Deminar Mk. 1, it's mostly low magic, magic can be powerful, but it's rare, magic item shops don't exist, Cleric and MU adventurers are the exception, not the rule. The isolation leads to lots of superstition. So the Sword and Sorcery elements come in too.

Hell of a mix, if anything, it's gonna be a fun world to build (and hopefully play in)

Step 1 complete!

But wait, you say, where's your sketched world map?
Well, we got around that, see, we don't need a world map, we can design anything we want, with the islands and island clusters separated so far from one another anytime we want to detail a new area, we pretty much start from scratch.

So, our world map, if we have to have one, is this:


Happy now?