New Haven

[Keedo]

OK, I am reinventing my old D&D campaign world, starting with the main city the campaign revolved around. I will be using some of the same elements, such as the deities, but I am not actually revisiting or extending the old campaign, just rebuilding the world. Currently I am using Inkscape, though I hope to get Illustrator eventually. This city is called New Haven (read my "Unofficial Map Challenge" thread in "Map Requests" for a brief history of the city) and is a great walled city built and controlled by humans, but home to humanoids of all kinds from the garden-variety demi-humans (such as dwarves and elves) to the exotic (such as faeries, ogres, and centaurs).

Here's a brief history of this "new" world...
In ancient times, the gods walked the mortal world. Mortals lived sheltered lives - protected and controlled by the gods. For ages, they worshiped the gods with awe, respect, and fear. Eventually, their understanding of the world around them grew to such a degree that their power rivaled that of the gods themselves. Though they never attained true immortality, they learned to rebuild their bodies after death. Many rebelled against the gods. Naturally the gods were angry and waged war against the mortals. The mortals learned to kill the gods, which shocked the gods. Out of fear, the gods released all of their power against the mortal world and it would have been destroyed if not for the birth of a new god. This new god, named Torsalis, was said not to have been born of mortals or other gods, but from the universe itself. His power was so great that not even the combined might of an entire pantheon of gods could match his. Torsalis sympathized with mortals and was apalled by the actions of the gods, so Torsalis banished all gods from the mortal world. As a result, gods could no longer directly affect the mortal world. However, some of their power could still leak into the world if the faith of their followers was strong enough. The mortal world had been devastated, though, and most of the knowledge of the ancients had been lost. Many ages passed. Civilization began to recover. Now, the ancients are little more than legend and mortals are emerging into a new Dark Age.

So here is the start of my city map of New Haven. I haven't done much yet. This is just a basic coastline and the river. It is three layers. The coastline itself, a "deep water" layer, and a "shallow water" layer (a simple gradient) for the river and what will eventually be the two harbors. I plan to make it more detailed of course, with a more pleasing water texture and more natural coastline, but wanted to get something posted so I could get some comments. I am attaching both the current WIP and the original simple layout I made for comparison.