Finished - The Great Northern Wilderness

[landorl]

Ok, I am tired of working on this map, so for now I will call it finished. I will probably revisit it at some time, but I have other regions to map.

The Northern Wilderness is a wild and mysterious land. The wolfman race calls this land their home, but there are parts that even they have not explored. The greatest part of the wolfmen civilization is on the eastern part of the wilderness, where they have formed the heart of their great empire.

The wildest part of the woods is at the center in a region of hills known as the Heart of the Woods. No wolfman has ever entered that realm, or at least, has never returned. It is believed that ancient powers from beyond the beginning of time still dwell there.

In the ancient days there was a vast, inland sea that occupied the center of this land, but in time of the God Wars, the great Frostrim Mountains were broken when a star was called from the sky. When that happened, it opened a path for the sea to reach the northern ocean. Now the area that was once that inland sea is a vast area of woodlands.

At one time a great civilization of the Light Elves occupied the southern slopes of the Frostrim Mountains, but that civilization was destroyed long ago, and now there are some ruins in the area that the Wolfmen deem as sacred.

The land is fairly cool with long, and often harsh winters, and so few men from the south venture here, but those who are brave enough to come, and can survive their encounters with the wolfmen, have the opportunity to find wealth in the ancient ruins scattered throughout the land.

[Scott Livingston]

Great job...very realistic. No suspension of disbelief required, as far as the geography goes! Only a few things I don't like:

1. The mountains are a bit blurry for my taste. When the image is scaled down, they look outstanding, though.
2. The lava (I think that's what those red spots on the mountains are) looks a bit fake.
3. Why does the legend box say "Regional Map?" Just seems like a strange thing to put there...it's pretty obvious that what I'm looking at is a regional map.

These are pretty small nitpicks, though. Everything else is beautiful.

What software and techniques did you use?

[landorl]

It's all in Photoshop. I like the layout of my mountains, but I have had a hard time keeping them from being blurry. When I work on my next region, I will try some different techniques, and if I can get them down, I will come back and revisit these mountains.

I just used the red spots to mark volcanoes. I might try something else later on.

[Steel General]

I just used the red spots to mark volcanoes. I might try something else later on.

Maybe use small red triangles instead?

[rdanhenry]

Lava? I thought those were exotic bleeding mountains! :-)

Is "Bay of Falen Stars" supposed to be "Bay of Fallen Stars" (which would fit the background given)?

Note that "Melkor" was the original name of Morgoth, the Dark Lord of Tolkien's Silmarillion. I don't have a problem with name duplications, but you ought to be aware you're doing one with a pretty high-profile name. That was one of the first things I saw when I looked at this map and since I looked at it before reading anything in the thread, my first thought was wondering if this was a speculative Middle-Earth map. It didn't take much more looking around to conclude that it wasn't, but you might consider just writing it as "Melkorr" if you want to avoid duplication.

I like the colors and the mountains create a well-defined region that gives this map a sense of unity that a lot of regional maps lack because they just seem to be a randomly assigned rectangular area of the world. I look forward to seeing more of this world.

[Eilathen]

As always, i just like your map-style. Awesome!

Have some rep.!

[landorl]

Thanks for pointing that out. I remembered Morgoth, but I did not remember that he was called Melkor. The original version of this map was done more than 15 years ago. I had read the Hobbit, but had not yet read the Lord of The Rings.

I will rename the area.

The thing that gave me the most problems on this map was the woodlands. I tried a lot of different textured fills, but they kept obstructing the terrain, so eventually I settled on just making the color different.

[Ruedy]

I like your rivers. The erosion is almost perfect...