Some consultation for a new member

[Alshir]

Greetings, fellow cartographers (if I have the honour of calling myself equal to yourselves)! Though I'm just a fresh member, I've been frequenting this site for some time now, and I must first thank you all for your (until now) indirect assistance to my undertakings. Truly, without this site and its many tutorials, I don't think I'd ever move from the starting point regarding cartography. While I'm still green, so to speak, I believe I've learned a lot here. And I intend to learn even more, hah!

But, to the point why was this posted here and not in the "New Members" section. My main interest in cartography sprouted from my interest in writing, which I personally found a great way to creatively lay off stress and improve myself as a human being. Namely, fantasy in all its forms being my favourite genre in everything, drawing maps in order to better imagine my fictional world came relatively quickly. First on paper, then in primitive form in Photoshop, though I found myself constantly being unsatisfied with the results. Hence, before trying anew, I wanted to take some time to ask you some questions.

I've already drawn the basis for an old, medieval-ish style map - as such, it's slightly inaccurate. However, my main concern, as the next stage, is filling it with symbols. What do you think - save for the symbol for a mountain, river, forest and hill, which I already have, what should I also add as a main landscape feature?

Thank you all in advance, and I apologize if my grammar may be incorrect at times; English is not my main language and it's pretty late here
I wish you all luck and ingenuity in your maps, and may we all cooperate for many years to come

[Hai-Etlik]

Welcome to the guild.

One thing to be aware of is that if you really want a "medieval-ish" map, that really amounts to no map. Medieval Europe didn't use maps. They didn't think in terms of maps. Navigation was done using lists of way points along known routes and even that was rare.

The closest thing to maps for most of the medieval period were little more than schematic diagrams based more on religion than geography. A few such T and O maps were augmented with some larger scale detail, but is was squashed in to fit the T and O form.

Late medieval marine navigation began to produce early navigational charts called Portolans. These were intended for dead reckoning navigation where you pick a compass bearing, and measure your speed as well as you can to figure out where you are. Dead reckoning was the only tool then available precise enough to make or need anything we might recognize as remotely like a modern map. If a portolan bothered with inland features at all, they were at best approximate, and meant as little more than decoration.

Which isn't to say that your fantasy world might not have the ability, resources, and need to make a precise overland map or that there not being an in setting capability to produce a map would preclude you making one. It is something to be aware of though.

[Alshir]

Welcome to the guild.

One thing to be aware of is that if you really want a "medieval-ish" map, that really amounts to no map. Medieval Europe didn't use maps. They didn't think in terms of maps. Navigation was done using lists of way points along known routes and even that was rare.

The closest thing to maps for most of the medieval period were little more than schematic diagrams based more on religion than geography. A few such T and O maps were augmented with some larger scale detail, but is was squashed in to fit the T and O form.

Late medieval marine navigation began to produce early navigational charts called Portolans. These were intended for dead reckoning navigation where you pick a compass bearing, and measure your speed as well as you can to figure out where you are. Dead reckoning was the only tool then available precise enough to make or need anything we might recognize as remotely like a modern map. If a portolan bothered with inland features at all, they were at best approximate, and meant as little more than decoration.

Which isn't to say that your fantasy world might not have the ability, resources, and need to make a precise overland map or that there not being an in setting capability to produce a map would preclude you making one. It is something to be aware of though.

Thank you, I'm quite enjoying it here. Also, thank you for the information, it's more than valuable. As such, I'd like to better explain - I meant "medieval-ish" rather in a way of stating map inaccuracy, rather than a style of a specific date in that time. I was interested in seeing what other symbols I could use in this style of a map, as I kind of lack the knowledge. I've only drawn maps with already determined height before that.

Thank you for your response.

[Falconius]

I'm not really sure I understand the question. Are you looking for symbol sets? Or symbols of a certain style? Or advice as to what is generally included in a medieval-ish map? For the last question I would say that things generally included in medieval'ish maps would not be regular map information as we think of it today (accurate geography, terrain features, topography and the like), rather it would focus more on places of significance and their relation in terms of common perception (like important cities begin bigger in relation to other cities, or a significant forest being marked instead of all forests) rather than specifically attainable information (like distance etc.). So it would be more like a subway map (which is only accurate in listing what stations follow one another on a given route and how they are linked) rather than a satellite derived street map.

No matter your question I think including an image would assist greatly in any help you might receive.