April 2019 Challenge: Treasures of the Silk Straits

[aeshnidae]

Once an esteemed lawyer in the Barony of Riverhold, Sorrel Blackwell became the most successful pirate to sail the precarious Silk Straits of Kashgar. Known as The Barrister, Blackwell and his ship, the Lady Justice, plundered Kashgarian ships full of spices and silks as revenge for the murder of his wife and children at the hands of the Prince of Kashgar. Legend has it that The Barrister amassed a fortune of gold, silks, and spices and hid them somewhere in Kashgar. Assisted by Kashgarian nobles who had fallen out of favor with the Sultan, Blackwell intended to use these treasures to raise a mercenary army and declare war on the Sultan and Prince. And then...Blackwell and his ship disappeared. Did the Lady Justice meet her end at Cape Doom? At Shipwreck Point? No one knows, but for the past 80 years, adventurers have sought his legendary Treasures of the Silk Straits.

For an earlier challenge, I made a portolan chart of a small part of Kashgar. I've decided to go back to the portolan style and create a treasure map. My challenge entry is based on my earlier portolan chart and my in-game world map but I'm drawing everything from scratch, and this map covers far more territory.


### Latest WIP ###
Pirate map 1.png

[Adfor]

Oh I love the flavor of the lore behind this! Looking forward to seeing it evolve.

[MistyBeee]

Aeshnidae ! Yey ! A challenge is not a challenge without you, as a pirate challenge can't be complete without a portolan \o/

[aeshnidae]

Oh I love the flavor of the lore behind this! Looking forward to seeing it evolve.

Thanks! I'm also looking forward to seeing it evolve.

Aeshnidae ! Yey ! A challenge is not a challenge without you, as a pirate challenge can't be complete without a portolan \o/

It really did seem like the perfect challenge for a portolan!

I've got the gold inlay finished and I'm starting to add some color (which will be more muted, I just haven't gotten there yet).

### Latest WIP ###
Pirate map v4.jpg

[arsheesh]

Great backstory to this piece, I could very easily see a campaign arc developing from this hook. Looking forward to seeing more of the map.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[aeshnidae]

Great backstory to this piece, I could very easily see a campaign arc developing from this hook. Looking forward to seeing more of the map.

That's...a really good idea!

I added a lot of portolan chart stuff. I still find it very strange to look at sideways mountains and such, but it's the style. I started to play around with some font but it's still in very draft form; I need to move the names around, for starters. Lots more to do overall but it's starting to take shape.

### Latest WIP ###
Pirate map v6.jpg

[Deeds]

Wow, that gold inlay, especially on the coasts, looks good and realistic (I see you say you are hand drawing, but didn't know if that is tablet or physical paper or whatever; anyways looks great, if I found it I'd go want to go treasure hunting)

[aeshnidae]

Wow, that gold inlay, especially on the coasts, looks good and realistic (I see you say you are hand drawing, but didn't know if that is tablet or physical paper or whatever; anyways looks great, if I found it I'd go want to go treasure hunting)

Thanks, Deeds! I'm using a Wacom Intuos tablet to draw in Photoshop. For this map, I drew the coasts with pencil on paper and then transferred it to Photoshop to do the rest. The gold inlay is from a photo I took.

I didn't get a ton of time to work on this over the weekend, but I'm curious as to whether you all like the partially colored ocean. I'm torn between no color (the bulk of portolan charts don't have a ton of color), partial color, or full color for the areas covered by water.

### Latest WIP ###
Pirate map v7.jpg

[aeshnidae]

### Latest WIP ###
Pirate map v9 (sm).jpg

[MistyBeee]

Ooh, interesting how labels change the whole map