The Talor Empire and Its Surrounds - My first map (WIP)

[Esker]

Hi guys. A few years back I ran a D&D game set in a world of my own creation, and drew some incredibly poorly-done super-basic maps to assist the process. I'm thinking about starting up a new game in the same setting, and figured I may as well try to map the place properly, or at least in a manner that is recognisable as a map.

I found Ascension's tutorials and have stepped my way through them to this point. I'm currently thoroughly stalled for names - I've put in the ones that I made up when I was running the game, but I never really needed anything more so left those places unnamed. I'm curious as to how people arrive at country names (or in this case imperial province names) for their maps.

I'd also appreciate some constructive criticism on the map itself. It's a first effort, and I know it's probably quite heavily flawed....

[ravells]

Hi Esker, lovely first map, you've followed the tutorial well, although I'd be inclined to reduce the opacity of the white glow around the coastline a bit - it's quite dominating. We have a whole section in the guild dedicated to the naming of places. Check out the Toponymy and Linguistics section and have a poke around there. Lots of good advice.

[Esker]

Thanks for the kind words and advice. I've backed down a bit on the glow now, as you can see.

I'll have a snoop around the Toponymy board too, thanks.

[Ascension]

Looks pretty good so far, the only thing I might suggest is changing the name Achaea - it is a region of Greece and also a game (MUD). Also, you might want to double up on the mountain layer for extra "oomph".

[cjs0216]

Wow, man, nice map...I like the way the water looks. Never really seen that before.

[Gallifreyan]

That is a nice map Esker. I agree with Ascension that a some more "oomph" in the mountains would be better, they look kinda flat right now. About the names, I get a lot inspirations for names while fiddling around on Google Translate (translate.google.com).

[Esker]

Bit of an update today. I came up with names for the rest of the imperial provinces and outside nations, partly through http://nine.frenchboys.net/country.php and partly through browsing Google Maps across Europe until a name caught my interest, then altering it a bit to suit. "The Island Nations" is a nod to Suikoden, but is generic enough to suit the idea of this being a map made by an imperial scholar (with magical assistance for the relief colouring). I intend to, once I finish with this map, make an alternate version that is more likely to have been put together by a regular cartographer on regular paper (or vellum, or whatever).

I also duplicated the mountain layer and set it to pin light at 25% transparency, though I think I might need to remake them in order to get them "snappy". Too many lassoed bits dropped in there rather than simply deleted. I'll leave it be for now, though if it bugs me I might come back to it later.

Looks pretty good so far, the only thing I might suggest is changing the name Achaea - it is a region of Greece and also a game (MUD). Also, you might want to double up on the mountain layer for extra "oomph".

I've decided to keep Achaea, since it is already canon to the world from the original run. I tried a few alternate spellings, but none stuck. I did change Thul into Thule though since my flatmate read it as "thull".

Wow, man, nice map...I like the way the water looks. Never really seen that before.

Thanks. I can't take too much credit for the water, since I was following Ascension's tutorial.

That is a nice map Esker. I agree with Ascension that a some more "oomph" in the mountains would be better, they look kinda flat right now. About the names, I get a lot inspirations for names while fiddling around on Google Translate (translate.google.com).

Thanks.