Ourrhaia

[Eowyn Cwper]

It's been a while since I posted a WIP here – let me present to you the world of Ourrhaia, from the Ancient Greek οὐ and ῥεῖ, meaning “it doesn't flow” (or at least from a conlanger's point of view because I don't guarantee this is grammatically correct – I also altered the ending so it doesn't look like another unpleasant -rrhea ending word :D).

Indeed, this world is highly endorrheic for reasons which I will leave to your imagination to figure out – or better-versed people who can actually find good reasons for this to be possible.

That sounds like a lot of “I don't care why it looks like that, I just like it that way”, right? You're not wrong, but that doesn't mean I don't take advice – on the contrary: all critiques welcome as usual. :) This is the first time I actually go for a label-heavy atlas-looking kind of map.

I made the altitude layers by transforming someone's painting into a bitmap – it's posted and derived with permission. I didn't change the shape of the outcome, whence the idea for endorrheic basins.

IMG_20200605_195312.jpg

paintmap2.png

[kacey]

This is really neat!

I wonder though, how did you go about transforming it into a bitmap, did you trace it all out by hand or use some other technique to make it look this way?

The result is very nice, I always enjoy the atlas style but have never managed to recreate it myself.

[Eowyn Cwper]

It's a vector functionality. ^^ Here is how it looks in my Inkscape.

inkscape bitmap.PNG

Here's an earlier WIP, just freshly bitmapped.

original paintmap.png

Thanks for your feedback. <3

[Elsunny]

The result looks awesome! I love how the shape of the coastlines alone just ooze character, and the altitude layers give it added texture. Confession: I love maps with this sort of wildness to them, that make it look like it's just a smaller part of a much larger world, while huge and interesting in its own right (which is probably the case here as well, but still). I like that the general forms alone seem to tell a story.

Regarding the endorheic basins and such, I don't know what you had in mind for it within a larger world, if any. I, personally, try to use the little weirdness that creeps up on a map as a reason invent some strange new environmental effect, ecology or even the impact of sentient life, with it's own history. But that's firmly in world building territory.

An ancient cataclysm, perhaps? Maybe put a terrifyingly large but now dormant volcano somewhere within or near one (or more) of the inland seas? That could tell its own story by looking at the map alone (instead of having a separate backstory to explain it).

Great work!

[Eowyn Cwper]

I definitely spend way too much time just contemplating the shapes and letting them tell me their story. I'm glad you share that feeling with me – it feels like I'm not a mapmaker anymore, but a shape-giving writer rather. I would totally worldbuild this beyond mapmaking if I didn't feel so ignorant about geology and related sciences. I think I will just let Ourrhaia be a poem.

Thank you very much indeed for your kind feedback. ♥

[Eowyn Cwper]

3h to label all the rivers. :T Don't be etymology nerds guys.

paintmap2.png

[Bindusara]

I like the lands you made : it could be a nice land for adventure.

I found many rivers that start somewhere and go nowhere (not to a sea, or to a lake). New Amazon for example (North of loch Fada): the water can't go nowhere, the ground is higher all around the end. Maybe the end of this river is a huge swamp? the same for Genflay, Mullachrea (in the elven seas)
Just beyond the Bond : you've got 2 lakes, and a sea just next to the last one. Are there isthmus making the connection between the two lakes and the sea?

[Eowyn Cwper]

The rivers are explained with the lore in the main post. ^^ I haven't figured out all the lakes yet. Maybe I'll leave some of them to rivers too small to be be drawn on the map (I mean… I could, I'll see how I'm doing by the time I'm done labelling all of this ). Swamps are a good idea, I should add them when I get to the key.

By the way the two lakes do flow into the sea. ^^

loch odin.JPG

Thanks for your interest, it's really motivating.

[Adfor]

I'm totally on board with how this is progressing, the landmass is spiffy to the eye. The Old Sea is quite intriguing, definitely my favorite area so far. On the world building note, I rarely use terrain for flavor, it usually always boils down to lore and unique cultural traits, whether that be through allegory, fabrication, or a mixture of both. Events that stick in the mind of citizens, or something that changed the world enough to be widely recalled is always a good starting point, make it the beginning of an age and start sprinkling imagination from there. Also, I even more rarely acquiesce to an idea that isn't a pure "sold" in my mind, that goes for names too.

Anyhoo, sick map, keeping an eye out for updates on this one.

[Eowyn Cwper]

Thank youuuuu! I'll make sure I use your ideas at some point, because I know it's going to turn out different than what the current style suggests. This is just the labelling phase and I can't wait for it to be over. ^^'