Keygemin - Una the Infinite Archipelago
Alright so, it has been more than a year since posting my last edition of this map as "Finished". I have returned to it to make a "more complete edition". You can view the map below on World Anvil.
Una World Map
Might take a little while to load.
Work to Do
- Map legend.
- Finish renaming all of the skylands.
- Wind direction markers for windwalls.
- Skyland elevation markers.
- Location of smaller towns and cities inland to the skylands.
- Broader demarcation of hostile areas and hazards.
- Location of precious materials, important non-city settlements, businesses, and outposts.
- Ghost image of unexplored skylands on the edge of the map to indicate the world is not just this circle of archipelago.
- Find a reliable way to show that they skylands are in the sky and that the blue background is not ocean.
The Making Of
The skylands of this map were hand drawn individually using a XP-Pen tablet in Inkscape.
There are many layers here.
- The green skylands, which are nature preservations.
- The white skylands, which are all other skylands.
- The skyland border colors, which indicates the color of the skyland cores.
- Gold/Blue skyways which are buoyed.
- Blue skyways which are unbuoyed.
- Rings which indicate distance from the origin of the map. Because Una is a flat plane and not a planet, they position themselves relevant to a specific object.
- Labels for political locations.
- Labels for cities.
- Labels for interest areas.
- Labels for hazards.
- Labels for preservations and reserves.
- Labels for skyland names.
- Blue speckle blurred windwalls.
The image in its native is an SVG file, so I can export any resolution I please. I have been exporting in 8000 x 8000. Because I am using WorldAnvil now I no longer have to use TileMage to split the images up, and piece them together with the leaflet API. I can just use WorldAnvil to make the map zoomable.
About the Map
Wind Walls - Windwall labels are rotated to mark their wind direction.
Skyland Labels - Almost 1200, half, of the skylands have been named. Named skylands are primarily important locations and areas around cities. The number of labels has caused a problem in inkscape, which has lead me to discussion with inkscape's development team and optimizations in the 1.0 release of the product. Recently I have bought a new computer which has allowed me 6 times the amount of ram I was working with before, which so far looks like has solved my bottleneck there.
Skyways - The yellow lines all over the map represent skyways. These are trade and travel routes between skylands that are marked with buoys. Blue dotted skyways have no buoys. There are 5 kinds of skyway.
Skyways - Mostly straight line routes.
Windways - Curved, indirect, windy, or otherwise difficult routes.
Crossways - Merging shipping lanes with an extraordinarily high traffic.
Exchanges - Wide open areas that contain a high number of ships where open trade occurs outside of ports. No marking is needed as there must always be another ship in sight to qualify as an exchange.
Raceways - Skyways with a strong wind consistently favorable in one direction, and unfavorable in the other.
Cities - Every port city with a population greater than 250,000 is labeled. There are markers indicating cities with 500,000 or more and 1,000,000 or more residents. Port cities are on the edges of skylands. There are large cities not on the edges of skylands, but they are not important to the story Keygemin is trying to tell. They are referenced infrequently.
Parks - Green skylands have been repurposed to become nature reservations and preservations. Some park areas have been labeled as to their purpose with green text.
Interest - Dark teal labels many mark many areas of interest, natural geological, and meteorological structures such as windwalls, areas of high wind difficult to pass, and drifts which move both skylands and ships.
Hazards - Red labels indicate dangerous locations and places to avoid.
About Una (Expositional Onslaught)
The world of Una is an infinite expanse of floating skylands. This world is, of course, populated by airships and sky pirates. Una is not a spherical planet, it is a flat plane that expands endlessly in all directions. These skylands float overtop of a void of clouds and storms. What is below the clouds is an ever deepening mass of gasses that collect into heavier forms and is homogeneous. The physical laws of the plane of Una allows skylands to float above this void.
These skylands are grown from a gemstones, called Gemin, after they descend from the sky. These gemstones collect matter over time scales geological. As it collects dust and sand from its surroundings, it forms a platter of stone. Gemin have magical power indicated by their color. Some can expel water in gallons, radiate heat in excess, or add flora and fauna in droves. All of the natural processes these skylands undertake are set into motion by the Gemin in the cores of each skylands; and now, by the humans that have adapted to inhabit them.
The sky is covered in birds, the ground in birds, and the waters in fish with wings. The humans glide from skyland to skyland in wingsuits and ships. Around all of the ports of the cities of Una, nets hang to catch the gliders that inevitably fall short of the skyland docks.
Keygemin includes elements of a sky pirates genre, but is first and foremost a monster collecting world. Gemin can be transformed into sentient creatures, called Keygemin. Some Gemin are attracted, romantically, to each other. This causes skylands to clump into large "social" groups. Some skylands grouped near the center of the map are pushed away by the sourceways wind.
If you have any questions, I enjoy answering them.
Also, if you have any suggestions, hit me with them.
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