what's next? Atlas Elyden

Ok, so now that the Almagest map is ready, I’m thinking about what to do next. The next logical step is to continue with that general region. Now that Almagest, Azazem, Korachan and Pelasgos are done, All that’s left to complete the N-E part of the Inner Sea coast are Skaros (S of Almagest) and Laaskha (S of Skaros and W of Azazem), and I’ll have a continuous string of nations stretching from almagest in the N to Pelasgos in the E.

the Inner Sea - finished maps so far

If I also complete the nation of Vaalk (S of Laaskha, across the Inner Sea) that will complete what’s known as the ‘Seven Tribes of Korachan’ - basically the first 7 nations (Pelasgos, Azazem, Laaskha, Skaros, Vaalk, almagest + Korachan) that were taken over by the Archpotentate Malichar in the first decades of the Korachani empire’s rule, 4 millennia past (of course the Seven Tribes are no longer recognised in the present day – Vaalk is part of The Sarastroan empire, and Almagest gained independence 1,000 years ago, for instance).

There’s a few other regions I’m itching to map.

The first is Khamid, which is probably the oldest region in terms of my writing – Khamid was a campaign setting a I had devised for D&D about 12 years ago – an Egyptian-themed setting, heavily influenced by Stephen Sommers’ the Mummy and the Mummy returns, amongst others. Even in that old iteration it was a region shaped by a massive magical calamity that sundered thousands of square miles, reducing the landmass of Khamid, leaving the entire region flooded and peppered with cliff-sided archipelagos – the remnants of the land. Only a small hooked peninsula remained in the west, enough for the region to not go entirely extinct and to remain, embittered by the glories and hubris of the past. (the setting was basically transported into Elyden as I started fleshing it out many years ago and remained one of my favourite regions since. I have mapped this area before, as part of the Venthir and Tzallrach map, though it’s never been the focus of a single map before.

Another region I’m interested in fleshing out more is Saviud, or the Surrach as it is known in the Korachani empire. It’s a vast dry region of independent city-states, each ruled by charismatic individuals – tyrants, otherworlders, sorcerer-kings, theocracies, mystery cults, etc. Each city is unique and tends to control a particular resource, making trade an important aspect of life, with merchant caravans and caravanserais a common sight. It’s the setting of the serialised novel I’m working on at the moment and deserves to be fleshed out more. The problem is its an even larger area than Almagest was and the the A3 format I’m working with seem a bit too constraining. I might work on a larger map and then divide it map in two – Surrach north and Surrach south – for more detail, with the larger one featuring in a generic overview of the region that concentrates more on territories and resources.

Any feedback?

Pelasgos and Azazem - Atlas Elyden

Here’s some WIPs on the next batch of maps. Since I have the topography for all of the Inner sea ‘done’ (I use the word done loosely as I’m already seeing parts I’m not happy with on the Korachan map – I need more levels of topography, so I’m thinking of 15 total, so I need to make a swatch/palette for the extra levels, but more on that some other time) I can now concentrate on the maps themselves – transplanting details and features from my old Inner Sea Map over to the newer and far more precise atlas maps.

the Inner Sea

So Far I’ve been working on Korachan’s coastal neighbours to the west and east – Azazem and Pelasgos, respectively – as parts of them were already done when I was working on Korachan (though that doesn’t mean I skipped half the work – as I each map is a different scale, I have to re-label them, so that text and icon sizes remain a constant size across maps regardless of scale).

Pelasgos is farther along and is almost done. You might notice a new ‘road’ design which represents umbra pipelines. Umbra in Elyden is a magical substance that takes the place of petroleum and oil in the real world. Most technarcane engines run on processed umbra and it’s a vital resource. I just need to do a bit more tinkering, add a few more labels (like rivers, lakes and geographical features, mostly), before I can call it done.

Pelasgos

Azazem is a bit more raw, and so far I’ve just managed to transplant the old labels from the Inner Sea map to it and found encyclopaedia entries for the region and am in the process of fitting them into the new geography I came up with. I love this part as I get to rediscover old features and details I came up with years ago that I had forgotten about, so it’s a bit like a historian/archaeologist, piecing history together, expanding upon it and placing it in the world. Azazem is also the first of this new batch of maps to be displayed in landscape mode, due to its orientation.

Azazem - WIP

I mentioned the topography above, and it’s something I’m not 100% happy with. On face value there’s nothing wrong with it, though it seems a bit off – particularly the mountainous levels. They seem a bit bare, so I want to revisit the individual levels to make them more intricate and ‘realistic’, if that makes any sense. At this point it’s just polish though and I can live without it for now, though I do want to go back and revisit the levels in the future, maybe once I have some more regions finished, particularly around the Inner Sea.

Speaking of the future, I’m looking forward to moveing away from the Inner Sea, and somewhere a bit more virginal. I’m thinking of the continent of Bror, in the southeastern hemisphere. It’s an interesting shape and the only true island-continent in Elyden, so it’s something different to the Inner Sea. Either that of the Surrach, which I’ve touched upon before, though not explored in much detail so far. 

BROR - in the S-E of the map

So many choices!

the Atlas Elyden

I've been working away at more leafs for the Atlas Elyden, trying to get the neatlines and graticules done on as many maps as possible. Its a very tedious process, and possibly the most time-consuming part of each map, other than the labelling, (which, given the fact that only a fraction of the intended areas, settlements and features currently exist may take a while once I get round to them).

the Republic of Almagest

I Got nine done in all so far, including those previously posted. I've tinkered a bit with the degrees outside the neatlines, making every tenth number bigger than the others, to make it stand out more. And I also tried my hand a little characterful thing I often see in atlases - making certain areas protrude from the neatline as way of better using page space. I think they look quite nice, though wondered if anyone has any opinions?

the Haréshk

I've also started coming across areas of maps whose peripheries copy maps that I've already made, though in different orientations and scales. It's been fun challenging myself to make sure I'm not changing any areas and that everything aligns up properly - for instance the bottom right of the new Venthir map includes the bottom left of the Tzallrach (Char Mathi) map; or the entire right-hand side of the Korachan map is repeated in the Pelasgos map. To make sure I don't map the same coastlines twice with different results I'm using the same land layer masks on different maps when they share land area - the best way to make sure coastlines remain correctly proportioned to one-another and properly aligned, which is something I'm very concious of! I'll be coming across this more and more as I go along though look forward to the challenge.

the Heartland of the Korachani High-Empire

Something else I'm also thinking of doing is dividing larger nations or those with lots of different territories, like Almagest and Korachan, respectively, into many smaller maps with more detailed information - like perhaps heraldry or other pertinent details.

the Pelasgosi Free-isles

Included in the new maps is a map of the City Kingdoms of the Haréshk, which some of you might remember is a region of my world I've already mapped. That was a map created by someone from the region. This will be a foreigners' map of the same region so it will be interesting to see the differences. This map also contains a small inset map of an island that's part of the Haréshki kingdoms though which did not fit on the page - I'm pleased with it but I'm not sure it's entirely clear. Any feedback on this? I've also uploaded a resized and re-oriented version of the Korachan map that's been changed to be more in-line with the new pages.

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On another note I do love it when people leave coments as it shows that people do read my ramblings and often have ideas and questions about certain things. This is very encouraging to me as it also makes me think and question certain things I might have missed otherwise.

Such an exchange of comments led to someone mentioning one of my favourite characters: Queen Hetepheres the Strangler, a sphinx (one of the last, if not the last of her kind). It got me thinking of a short story I hope to post here in the coming weeks. Fingers crossed (but lets not hold our breath)

Aedenis

another contest entry for cartographersguild.com; a largely inconsequential island off the southern coast of Pelasgos in a 16th-17th century style. the contest guidelines were to base a map of of a cloud, so that's what i did, using a threshold layer and various other styles to get the effect i wanted. I'm pretty happy with this one, though as always i spent too long on it - about 10 - 12 hours I reckon, which is simply too long for a map this size (though i did create everything from scratch, apart from the paper and the cartouched and ship, the latter of which i might be changing.

There's a small story attached, indicating that the map was found by someone and then handed over to 'My Lady' for examination. Speculation commence!

Aedenis