Brynehall and the Barony of Northcliffe

[aeshnidae]

I finished my map of Brynehall "and the north" (what my GM has called it). I decided "and the north" was too Game of Thrones-y, and I'm developing the politics and economics of the region anyway, so I've changed it to Brynehall and the Barony of Northcliffe. I wound up starting this with pencil and paper, scanning it in, then tracing the major details and adding minor details in Photoshop using a Wacom Intuous Pro tablet. I'm still a total newbie with the tablet but love the ability to start with paper and finish digitally.

This map is not intended to be to scale. It also does not include the small village scattered throughout the barony. This was my first attempt at a map in this style, both as a pencil sketch and a transfer to digital. It's not perfect but I'm pretty happy with it!

Brynhall & Barony Map_75.jpg

[ChickPea]

Very nice map and I like the hand-drawn look very much.

A couple of small things to consider for the future...

It's often a good idea to try to keep a consistent style with your elements. So, your mountains have an isometric style, but your forest areas are drawn top-down. Another thing that stands out for me is the compass rose. It's so 'digital', whereas everything else is hand-drawn. I'm sure there must be hand-drawn compass roses out there that would fit better with the style.

One other little thing (that may just be personal taste on my part)... you have a white glow around your labels. I think that would look better if it were just a tiny bit yellow or orange-ish in tone. Something that blends better with parchment. I feel white doesn't quite fit with the faded parchment look.

Now, having got that out the way, I like your mountains and your rivers look believable, and I *love* the title font! The castle near the top, just under the Brynehall label, is fantastic!

[aeshnidae]

Very nice map and I like the hand-drawn look very much.

A couple of small things to consider for the future...

It's often a good idea to try to keep a consistent style with your elements. So, your mountains have an isometric style, but your forest areas are drawn top-down. Another thing that stands out for me is the compass rose. It's so 'digital', whereas everything else is hand-drawn. I'm sure there must be hand-drawn compass roses out there that would fit better with the style.

One other little thing (that may just be personal taste on my part)... you have a white glow around your labels. I think that would look better if it were just a tiny bit yellow or orange-ish in tone. Something that blends better with parchment. I feel white doesn't quite fit with the faded parchment look.

Now, having got that out the way, I like your mountains and your rivers look believable, and I *love* the title font! The castle near the top, just under the Brynehall label, is fantastic!

Thanks for the input! I am working on adjusting the white glow. I tried to make it more yellow in tone but Photoshop was not cooperating (likely as a result of an impending Windows update). I'm going to tackle that again. I was torn on the top-down trees; I generally want to keep the style consistent but decided this was more like a traveler's hand-drawn map, not to scale, so it would be okay. I'll rethink that, along with the compass rose. I may just draw my own compass rose. Also, see below, I'm posting a slight update because the river near Alexia was driving me nuts. I didn't have it continue naturally from the waterfall and I thought I'd be okay with it...but no. =)

[The_Sleeping_Dragon]

Can I echo that this is a superb map which needs slight touches to be finished. I can add nothing on that to the previous post but have some queries regarding the social structure that may affect map title

Am I right in assuming Alexis, ThrackMorton, Beauleau, Cheapside, Hillside and Brynehall are all in the same Barony or is Alexis independent and are some of the other towns or villages part of a wider Barony?

What is behind my question is that NorthCliffe introduces a new name, one that relates presumably to the cliffs to the far North and so has little connection with over 3/4s of the map

It assumes a single Barony yet the name of Alexis already throws up that there is more than one power in these parts

Brynehall and Northern Baronies
... Northern City States
... Northern Free States etc all might evoke the wider geography of the map else everything heads just to the very top of the page

Finally, the map needs a tad more balance perhaps to explain the settlements in land eg road river and bridge structures suggestive of trade with the southern Baronies etc but there needs to be a reason for Alexis and for ThrckNorton surviving so close to Alexis - canal system perhaps? a but like the Netherlands and west Germany along the Rhine at the time of the Eighty Years War? A Free State needs a reason to stay free eg trade and natural resources plus allies and these need road or canal or river infrastructure or even all three plus some natural defences

Which genuinely does bring me to the final point - what is the socio political structure of this world ie is there war between Free Cities and Baronies, are there allied Cities and or client Cities as per Athens, is there war, peace, a treaty, tension, trade? Is there a difference in technology, culture and religion between those by the coast and those inland? So many questions posed by the map so far

Great job, just needs odd tweak to make sense including rethought of the title perhaps?

[aeshnidae]

Can I echo that this is a superb map which needs slight touches to be finished. I can add nothing on that to the previous post but have some queries regarding the social structure that may affect map title

Am I right in assuming Alexis, ThrackMorton, Beauleau, Cheapside, Hillside and Brynehall are all in the same Barony or is Alexis independent and are some of the other towns or villages part of a wider Barony?

What is behind my question is that NorthCliffe introduces a new name, one that relates presumably to the cliffs to the far North and so has little connection with over 3/4s of the map

It assumes a single Barony yet the name of Alexis already throws up that there is more than one power in these parts

Brynehall and Northern Baronies
... Northern City States
... Northern Free States etc all might evoke the wider geography of the map else everything heads just to the very top of the page

Finally, the map needs a tad more balance perhaps to explain the settlements in land eg road river and bridge structures suggestive of trade with the southern Baronies etc but there needs to be a reason for Alexis and for ThrckNorton surviving so close to Alexis - canal system perhaps? a but like the Netherlands and west Germany along the Rhine at the time of the Eighty Years War? A Free State needs a reason to stay free eg trade and natural resources plus allies and these need road or canal or river infrastructure or even all three plus some natural defences

Which genuinely does bring me to the final point - what is the socio political structure of this world ie is there war between Free Cities and Baronies, are there allied Cities and or client Cities as per Athens, is there war, peace, a treaty, tension, trade? Is there a difference in technology, culture and religion between those by the coast and those inland? So many questions posed by the map so far

Great job, just needs odd tweak to make sense including rethought of the title perhaps?

Love the questions, because I've actually thought a ton about the political and economic aspects. The Brynehall area is a small northern portion of a larger country, Westlund (I'm working on that map now). The Lord of Brynehall (actually currently a Lady) is the Baron of Northcliffe, and Brynehall is the barony's main seat, controlled by House Legion. The barony includes Oakside, Hillside, Cheapside, Throckmorton, Beaulieu, and some smaller villages not included on the map. In terms of history, 400 years ago Sir Arthur Bryne made a daring charge over the mountains to rescue the king's second son. On his way back, he stopped at what is now the Brynehall Abbey (up in the mountains just north of the town; you can see it peeking through on the map) to give thanks to the mountain gods for his safe passage. The mountain gods blessed him and told him to establish a town and abbey, and protect the northern areas so that pilgrims could visit the abbey. The king, grateful for the safe return of his son, granted Sir Bryne the land where Brynehall sits. Eventually Sir Bryne was elevated to Baron and granted the income of Brynehall and its surrounding towns. I reviewed a lot of British barony names and sometimes they're the same as the name of the baron and sometimes they're more expansive, so I decided to go with Northcliffe.

The Free City of Alexia is an elven city in human lands (this is a result of my DM's confusion...he's an awesome guy but not great on details; I'm taking over DM duties for our next campaign but trying to keep the world as consistent as possible with what he's already created). The whole of Westlund used to be elven; it's actually part of what I'm calling the Elven Crescent. But as time passed, humans from neighboring Bëkslund encroached and eventually pushed the elves out and established a new country. Alexia is technically sovereign but its sovereignty is very dependent on Westlund. I think of it as being similar to Vatican City, which is sovereign and not part of Italy, but if Italy changed its mind, Vatican City would be SOL. Alexia as a city is fairly dependent on Brynehall; at this point it's more of a diplomatic outpost of Elvesham (the elven country further west). It does have a kick-ass library.

Throckmorton is a guild town with a charter from Brynehall. So it doesn't owe military service but it does pay taxes and fees in lieu of military service. Oakside started as a lumber town, and it still does export lumber. Hillside and Beaulieu provide a lot of the farming and Cheapside is a mining town. Brynehall itself exports wool and whiskey, plus reaps the benefits of the lumber and minerals from Oakside and Cheapside.

Here's the larger world, still very much a WIP (this is a rough draft). Brynehall is the larger dot just south of Fey territory.

Aerd nations (high quality scan).jpg

[Mouse]

Oh! What a lovely individual style you have!

Further to ChickPea's suggestion about the halo around your text, here is just one of any number of different techniques you might try to make a slither of clear space around each letter and lift the labels out of the line work, without using a coloured halo at all - in other words an invisible halo that simply fades the line work around each letter to reveal the parchment instead:

1. Add a layer mask to all your line work layers (mountains, trees, coastline etc) - that's a mask that lets you paint the visibility on or of in black and white for that layer
2. Make an alpha mask of your text layer
3. Expand the alpha mask by a few pixels and feather it the same amount
4. Select the line work layers one by one and paint the layer mask (not the layer!) to make the line work invisible in a small halo around each letter of the text on that layer.

[aeshnidae]

Oh! What a lovely individual style you have!

Further to ChickPea's suggestion about the halo around your text, here is just one of any number of different techniques you might try to make a slither of clear space around each letter and lift the labels out of the line work, without using a coloured halo at all - in other words an invisible halo that simply fades the line work around each letter to reveal the parchment instead:

1. Add a layer mask to all your line work layers (mountains, trees, coastline etc) - that's a mask that lets you paint the visibility on or of in black and white for that layer
2. Make an alpha mask of your text layer
3. Expand the alpha mask by a few pixels and feather it the same amount
4. Select the line work layers one by one and paint the layer mask (not the layer!) to make the line work invisible in a small halo around each letter of the text on that layer.

Thanks, Mouse! I am still a newbie in Photoshop (my wife is an amazing Photoshop expert, but for fine art portraiture so she doesn't always know how to help out with fantasy cartography). Thanks to everyone here, I've got a couple different options to fix that outer glow.

[XCali]

I'm really digging this map! The map just like that would already do an RP session proud. Nice on you. And high-five for drawing and finishing in digital! It's fun, ain't it?

[aeshnidae]

I'm really digging this map! The map just like that would already do an RP session proud. Nice on you. And high-five for drawing and finishing in digital! It's fun, ain't it?

Thank you! It's been a ton of fun! I am really happy with this map as my first overall attempt in this style (all of it, from the initial hand-drawn sketch to the digital finishing). As it turns out, we're going to use this and other maps in our next D&D campaign. Our current DM told me I could create the northern part of the realm, although it would just be background. After he saw the rough draft of this map, he asked me to flesh out the whole realm and DM the next campaign so that he can have a go as a player.

[XCali]

Thank you! It's been a ton of fun! I am really happy with this map as my first overall attempt in this style (all of it, from the initial hand-drawn sketch to the digital finishing). As it turns out, we're going to use this and other maps in our next D&D campaign. Our current DM told me I could create the northern part of the realm, although it would just be background. After he saw the rough draft of this map, he asked me to flesh out the whole realm and DM the next campaign so that he can have a go as a player.

Wow, that's awesome!! Well done. Now it's on to world building, which is an interesting but fulfilling challenge.