Gadash, The Ancient Continent of Heroes

[TK.]

Gadash is the main continent of my personal RPG setting, Infis, set with GURPS ruleset.

This continent is where all the main "modern" cities and hubs are present, among them:

- Whitetemple, The Greatest Capital of the West - governed by the senatorial Polis with its political warfare among the many human nobles hiding within its many circles the League of Extraordinary Beings and the Disciples of Aristotle, ideological rival groups of psionics-capable humans (only humans can flourish psionics) ;
- The Wayfarer Union Trading Center - The merchant hub of the world, connecting all the important and medium merchant routes between east and west, south and north Gadash, the place is ruled by the Twelve Dons, Oloroks (mineral-rocky sentient beings) of immense wealth and power that meet regularly to waggle world-class economics and deals of trade in all sorts of commons, these meetings know as "Cosa Nostra";
- The desert magical wonder, Uberdome, a split multi-leveled flying pyramid of humongous proportion, powered by raw Magika and Technomagik®, home of the inventive and magical race, The Briskans. Creators of the Press, Steam-powered engines fulled by Technomagik®, they also run the prestigious Briskan Academy;
- The temple-city of Kashmadik, the biggest concentration of Faz'rukin (Half-spirit/half-material beings), also the birth place of "Haqam, The Usurper", a faz'ruk that achieved godhood through the "1001 Teachings of Yeowhá" and fought against "Dyazztrazz, The All-Devouring Maw"
- And many, many others!

**EDIT**
Just to add some meta info, dunno if people like it, but I always like these kind of "easter eggs" of sorts:

- All Sidhe cities and places are from Gäelic names - Gwynlein feud uses gaelic names starting with "A"; Fiona feud uses gaelic names starting with "B"; Sorak feud uses gaelic names starting with "C"
- Almost all Olorok cities and places use names of types of salami or cheese, with a slightly change in some letters and their families and lineages use names of famous mafia families
- All the Human hideouts after they broke free from slavery under the Ad'yzztrals are collectively called "Quilombos" and use real names from historical brazilian quilombos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quilombo
- Nomadic tribes settlements use mongolian names from different ages
- Ad'yzztral cities and feuds use japanese resembling names



Done in Photoshop CS6
Took around 30hs of work.
My next goal is to polish my skills with more subtle effects, better composition, more variation on hand-drawn elements (drawing everything instead of creating/using a single brush) and trying a full-color style

@ Names and scenario relevant info may not be used without my permission. This map may be featured, linked or posted by the Cartographer's Guild or on the behalf of the Guild, keeping copyrights as usual.


Gadash v2 final.jpg

[Barek333]

Really nice, and as you said trying to draw by hand forests and mountains will bring this map to a new level. You are on a nice path

[TK.]

Really nice, and as you said trying to draw by hand forests and mountains will bring this map to a new level. You are on a nice path

Waiting for my tablet to arrive and I'll give that hand-drawing a spin....we shall see what comes out of it!

Thanks ero sennin!

[Chick]

It's a nice map. One thing you might consider is that your trees are half the height of your mountains, and your cities are double the size of an entire mountain. This can work in some maps, but it always looks strange, and the viewer has to mentally convert that by saying, "it's deliberately outsized".

[TK.]

It's a nice map. One thing you might consider is that your trees are half the height of your mountains, and your cities are double the size of an entire mountain. This can work in some maps, but it always looks strange, and the viewer has to mentally convert that by saying, "it's deliberately outsized".

Certainly, but the idea was that the creator of the map skewed proportions according to his own beliefs and levels of importance.

Wayfarer Union Trading Center, for example, is actually represented bigger than mountains because it's the pulsing center of commerce for the whole continent and even beyond that. "The 12 Dons" even managed to deal and actually buy the now renamed "Cupolla Mountains" from the rest of the world, dealing and paying for recognition and legitimacy from each and every nation with relevancy.

That said, I'm certain I could achieve this in a more subtle and consistent way, naturally giving this feeling to the viewer. Thanks for the insight!


@@Just to add some meta info, dunno if people like it, but I always like these kind of "easter eggs" of sorts:

- All Sidhe cities and places are from Gäelic names - Gwynlein feud uses gaelic names starting with "A"; Fiona feud uses gaelic names starting with "B"; Sorak feud uses gaelic names starting with "C"
- Almost all Olorok cities and places use names of types of salami or cheese, with a slightly change in some letters and their families and lineages use names of famous mafia families
- All the Human hideouts after they broke free from slavery under the Ad'yzztrals are collectively called "Quilombos" and use real names from historical brazilian quilombos https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quilombo
- Nomadic tribes settlements use mongolian names from different ages
- Ad'yzztral cities and feuds use japanese resembling names

Hope it's interesting for people

[Smårock]

Reminds me of lotr in a couple of ways, very cool!