The Human and Tenaali Realms

[Syt]

Originally in this thread.

There's a fantasy setting that I've worked on and that has evolved for nearly ten years now that I've begung to work on in earnest again last year.

A main struggle for me was the distribution of lands.

A bit of the background. The human kingdoms stretch in the North. The easter ones were part of the Hygati Empire that crumbled when the Tenaali left their island and invaded their souther provinces. The five kingdoms remaining form a loose union, with Nyromia struggling to break free. The other human kingdoms are engaged in their usual power games and send tentative expeditions out onto the ocean where another continent is believed to be somewhere in the West.

The technology is ca. first half of 17th century - sailing ships, pike&musket, religious infighting, a slowly growing liberalism. The Tenaali race is mired by internal struggles between their realms and within the countries. Their ability for magic is fading away. As this was the power base for their aristocracy this poses a few problems.

The Kalok are a semi-reptilian race of tribes and clans. The Wasted Lands are plagued by monsters and are unsafe for exploration since a kataklysm from millennia ago.

My story will focus on the unlikely (and often unwilling) heroes who will be thrown into a conflict that is ages old and will threaten to lay waste to Tenaali and Human kingdoms alike - though I will keep the supernatural to a minimum. And what role the reclusive Haodrim play is anyone's guess.

About the map: the continents were created in FractalMaps, then imported into Campaign Cartographer's mercator template and the coastlines traced. Not that many special things were added - towns, mountains and woods (representing wild, untamed, rather impenetrable forests), rivers and so on were added bit by bit, starting with mountains, then rivers, the forests, then towns, the borders, and finally roads. In between I kept adding names and experimenting with fonts.

With the basic map done I went to PaintshopPro7 and I added coats of arms for the human kingdoms, plus added ornaments stolen from 17th century maps by suggestions of the posters. Add a simple border and a parchment bitmap and voilà.

[Sapiento]

Exzellent! Großartig!

From where did you get the ship and animal symbols on the map? CC3? Or taken from an original map?

[Ramah]

Lovely map, well done.

The only thing that niggles me is how some of your city icons stick out into the sea - those on the coast of Shin Tenaal for instance.

Also your bitmap parchment background is very blurred but that's no biggy.

Apart from those two things I think it's great.

[Syt]

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

The only thing that niggles me is how some of your city icons stick out into the sea - those on the coast of Shin Tenaal for instance.

Yes, that kind of bothered me, too. I reasoned that the town's actual location would be the circle with dot. Buildings stretching into the sea would represent harbors.

Also your bitmap parchment background is very blurred but that's no biggy.

Actually, I like it that way.

Sapiento, the ornament animals, and the cartouches come from various period maps. If you find a good scan online they're pretty easy to clean up and adjust their colours to match the map. The map itself and the coats of arms come from CC. Adding the map border, coats, ornaments and cartouches to the map as well as the parchment texture were done in PSP.

I have to admit I'm not a super artist but I can work the image editing software a bit.

[Rythal]

very well done! rep'd.