The Sylweald Companion - Extract

[patamei]

Hello Friends,

I recently returned from a holiday along England's inland waterways and fell in love with the maps they provide in a small booklet. Well-labelled and amusingly written with plenty of helpful tips and history, it was the perfect companion for my journey along the canals, and I thought it would be perfect for adaptation into a map for my setting.

Sylweald is a nation built of loose alliances and small clusters of population huddling together against a hostile forest. Sylweald is built a bit like a crater, with the outer edges and rise being of relatively normal character and habitability, but where the forest begins all bets are off. Intensely magical, the forest is more akin to an ocean of trees than a common wood. As the basin of Sylweald deepens, the tree stretch to roughly the same height. This means some can be thousands of feet tall and hundreds of feet across, and whole villages can be built within their trunks. Pockets of the forest experience time in different ways, and areas of the forest are fiercely guarded by magical nations not keen to let mortals peer at their cities in the trees. As a result, mortal beings constructed their cities on the sides of trees and linked them where they could with roads, ropes, and lifts between the massive trunks. The Sylweald Companion comes in several volumes, each dealing with a different major highway or route through the treacherous forest, broken down into manageable chunks to allow travellers to plan their journey accordingly. Over time it has become the essential visitor's guide with information on where to eat and stay for anyone brave enough to walk the skyways of Sylweald.

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The key is here for reference and is very much a WIP.

[patamei]

As is always the way, I noticed a few typos after I posted it...updated map attached.
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[Diamond]

That's a really cool idea! Makes me want to try something similar.

Are you going to post more 'pages'?

[patamei]

I hope so! I had a blast doing it and it's a nice exercise in forcing me to consider smaller scale stuff, where my usual focus is country/continent mapping. It was also a lot of fun to figure out some of the lore!

[rdanhenry]

Still at least one typo, "owner's lack of repsonibility".

This is one of the more unusual map projects going on. More would certainly be welcome.

[Levtrona]

Are you going to post more 'pages'?

i would love to see some more.

safed file for inspiration.

[patamei]

Ah bugger! Well spotted and thanks for letting me know. Thanks as well for your encouragement!

My usual maps can take months, so this taking a few days at a couple hours a day makes it a very nice diversion. Hope to post more soon!