Map of the known world of Lost Kingdoms

[Rubikia]

Hi all,

Recently I have been working on a micro-setting book thing for my project 'Lost Kingdoms'. This setting is a spiritual successor to the themes and world of the fantasy game Hype the Time Quest which in my opinion has a lot of interesting things going on such as explorations of the fallibility and greed of mankind who, upon discovery of the literal home of the gods, ransack the place.

I have expanded upon these and added quite a lot including other races, countries, and histories. The micro-setting itself is a small area around the city of Torras, and I have made a more detailed map of that too. So far that has been going well, but I have felt the need to really expand on the wider world so I can make reference to different historical events, characters, races, cultures etc from outside the city, and kingdom, of Torras.

I started making a continental map a few years ago but quickly abandoned it as the scope was too large at the time. But this map is what I based my current WIP on.

Temp.png

Over the past few days I have been redoing the coastlines, adding mountains, trees, and more to hopefully make the world seem more realised and interesting. This is what I have done so far:

The Continent LQ.png

Most of the locations I have labeled are kingdoms of man, though I intend on adding more natural locations and kingdoms and countries of other races, such as dwarven strongholds in their kingdom of Kardum or realms of elves (who are quite small like folklore elves) and undersea creatures.

EDIT: I realise that it is quite Tolkien-esque or high fantasy. I don't want to go too close to that parallel, at least in regards to the setting itself, but I don't mind that it remains an inspiration for the map style.

[Kâ Lys]

I think it looks beautiful and I love the naming. I'd like to point out two small things though. I found out that it is often better looking to just not overlap labels over assets when it is possible. Par exemple, the "Kardum" or "Scattered Form" labels overlap some mountains when they could be moved a little bit out of the way. Also I've noticed that the outline of many labels hide the symbols of your settlements. Anyway I'm no expert and I like it very much. If you have lore to share, n'hésite pas!

[Rubikia]

Thank you very much I am just happy that I was able to do it all in Inkscape alone !

I found out that it is often better looking to just not overlap labels over assets when it is possible.

I definately do see what you mean. I reckon I will slightly curve the labels for "Kardum" and the "Scattered Forms" to prevent that overlap. I did make the outline around the text semi-transparent, but yeah it is better when there isn't anything obscuring the mountains and other details when possible.

Also I've noticed that the outline of many labels hide the symbols of your settlements.

Good eye! I accidentally left the layer for the text outline above the settlements layer. I have made that mistake when exporting it before, but I will now double-check before exporting haha

[Rubikia]

A bit more progress. Made it so there's different symbols for dwarven and manish cities, dded some more locations and forests, made the compass a bit bigger and fixed that thing with the labels.

The Continent LQ.png

I want to add undersea kingdoms in between the Frozen Shore and the Sundering Marsh, but I don't really know how to portray that. I feel like red text, like everything on land, will not stand out well and the blue text will make it just look like the name of the sea. I'll have to have a longer think about it, as it's not immediately obvious to me.

EDIT: There's a mistake with the label for the 'River Arogelir' where it's outline is covering the actual river, oops

[Kâ Lys]

Looks good. For the undersea kingdom, you could simply put your settlement symbol(s), with the black label, and to name the underwater realm you could use the color of the title of the map instead of the color of the label you use for naming the sea? Or you can go with a whitish color, not immaculate white for it would stand out too much compared to your actual color palette. I was also intrigued by your lake north of Nam Agalan. I see there's no outlet. Now I don't know what is your tolerance for realistic features, but this would be impossible in real life. It is too close to the ocean, I also presume it is not in a similar environment as other real life endorheic basin. After a while, the lake would overflow and flood every lowlands nearby and farby and create rivers. And the way I see it with your mountains placement, it seems the lower lands are in Argenaea. So what I suggest, if your heart desire it, is to create one or a couple of opening that will connect the ocean with it. In any case, it looks good and looking forward to see more of your progress.

[Ilanthar]

Looks good and clean. I would soften a little the drop shadow effect on the coasts to avoid some kind of "floating lands" impression.

[Rubikia]

Thank you Kâ Lys and Ilanthar for your advice!

I was also intrigued by your lake north of Nam Agalan. I see there's no outlet. Now I don't know what is your tolerance for realistic features, but this would be impossible in real life. It is too close to the ocean, I also presume it is not in a similar environment as other real life endorheic basin.

I see what you mean, I didn't make the land between the lake and the sea mountainous enough, but I would rather have a forest instead of mountains. I added a small river connecting the lake to the sea beside Nam Agalan so now hopefully it won't flood Also thank you for the advice on underwater kingdoms! I have experimented a bit with that and am in the process of just tweaking it.

I would soften a little the drop shadow effect on the coasts to avoid some kind of "floating lands" impression.

As soon as I read your comment I could see what you mean I changed the opacity of the shadow effect from 85% to 50%, I think it makes it a bit more subtle but it still has a noticable effect on the overall map.

The Continent LQ.png

Here is the updated version. I haven't been able to do much recently but I intend on adding a border, key, and scale soon. I am also changing the edges of the map more and more, and making it fit with this larger, world sketch that I have done:

20211014_144741.jpg The World of Lost Kingdoms with Ref.PNG

This map covers the region to the west of the world. In this setting, the world is split into four regions: north, east, south and west which each corresponds with one of the "Four Jewels" which uphold the natural order of the world. This map of is the 'West', which in ancient days housed the Royal Jewel under the dominion of the kingdom of Palandor. Palandor's territory contained what is now Torras, Liore, Talen, Ilandor, Angost and Ithis, and under the reign of Talminos during the War of the Four Jewels the kingdom betrayed its allies in the north, east and south and stole the other three jewels. All of this may inform future regions/battle locations included on this map.

[Rubikia]

Added a border and scale to the map, I'm quite happy with that's looking. The things in the corners are meant to represent 'the Four Jewels' that both are vital for the natural order of the world, and are also incredibly integral to many mannish cultures such as in their calendar system.

The Continent LQ.png

I'm not sure if it's just me, but I feel like it looks a tad bland like something is missing. This style of mapping is pretty alien to me, and I guess I'm taking a much more unconventional approach by using Inkscape instead of photoshop, but yeah still feels incomplete. Maybe it's the settlement symbols, maybe I've left something out. If anyone has any suggestions I'd really appreciate it.

[Rubikia]

I decided that the settlement icons I was using weren't really fitting with the rest of the map, so I created some new ones for mannish, dwarven, and elven settlements heavily inspired by John Speed maps. I think they look okay, hopefully they're more inkeeping I also changed the battle symbols to be red, as I think that fits more with the rest of the 'style'. Oh, and I also made the text-outlines a bit blurred which I think looks nicer.

The Continent LQ.png

Next I think I might add roads...though I really don't know if I want to go for a dotted style, or maybe parallel lines. South of the river Palgog (bar the Land of Dragons) is far more connected by roads than the north, so there'll be quite a few crisscrossing around.

I have also toyed with the idea of featuring the great underground dwarven canal system that connects many of its cities to the sea at Oreport. I had a thought the other night that they could be featured in a map insert on the left? I don't know though.

EDIT: This is what the roads look so far with two parallel lines (just a small snapshot export). I'm not 100% happy with it as I feel it looks too digital. If any of you have some thoughts that would help a lot

Small Snippit.png

[Falconius]

Looks great so far. I can see why you've made many of the decisions you have and I'm curious to see how some of these solutions turn out.