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Essentially, I want some characteristics for my world, and I want to have some amount of realism, so that I can use that realism to guide my writing.

My world, Treyidal, is an about earth sized planet, but has several additional moons orbiting it. The increased tidal forces on Treyidal have led to more tectonic activity, with smaller plates. Tides being stronger lead to large tidal plains, and shallower oceans.

With the smaller tectonic plates, mountain regions are more common, as are volcanoes and earthquakes. When viewed from space, certain areas of the planet, with large inland seas, may look reminiscent of tidal pools.

Essentially, I want these characteristics because my magic system operates off of pressure - I also have merfolk in the oceans, and I'd prefer the oceans be shallower to be more conducive to them.

So is this world semi-realistic? If not, how can I adjust it/ what other options are there to achieve my desired geography?

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There are some points which do not sound right:

  • a lot of smaller plates resulting in more mountains: to lift a mountain you need to have, in a first approximation, the volume of rock you want to have in the mountain existing beforehand as volume of the plate. Thus, smaller plates means smaller or no mountains, because you don't have enough material to lift.
  • more volcanism and sea: volcanos emit ashes and gases. On Earth intense volcanism result in cooling down of the atmosphere, as a result of increased light reflection in the upper atmosphere. With a more intense volcanism you might end in a glacial era.
  • it makes more sense that the tidal heating is more noticeable on the smaller body than on the larger one
  • explaining many large moons for an earth size planet can be tricky, based on the actual models
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  • $\begingroup$ May work with just 2 moons of equal masses, orbiting closer to the planet, in antipodal position, at least for a couple of geological areas. As for the geological landscape, lava plains, like those in Western Victoria, Australia (PDF warning). A fragmented tectonic plate system will favor a release of magma pressure more often, so that large explosive volcanoes may not happen, so air quality and consequently the cooling may not happen... $\endgroup$
    – Adrian Colomitchi
    Oct 28, 2021 at 1:19
  • $\begingroup$ ... but agreed, the probability of high mountains is small. There'll be some mamelons (as the Hanging Rock) or lava tumuli or even scoria cones (like the Mount Elephant, but all of them of small heights. Occasionally, the titlting and fracturing of a small tectonic plates may raise higher relief forms (like the Victorian Grampians) $\endgroup$
    – Adrian Colomitchi
    Oct 28, 2021 at 1:40

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