Next entry of my world atlas, honing in on style and content

[nAUTILUS]

This is supposed to end up as a page in my grand project, the atlas of an entire world. I reckon I have about 99% of the work before me.

Satshok is a nation rich in resources and people, gripped in a conflict between its neighbours Paradol and Asheloth. Is is a splinter of the formerly much more powerful Aurapal Empire in the Occident (west). Two inland seas dominate the lower half of the country which is much colder than the temperate heartland. The north transitions to a steppe.

I am looking for input on style, so typography, colours, labelling, linework and such.

Also, I'd love to hear your approaches to organizing huge worldbuilding projects. I am using obsidian for notes and links between individual countries and a huge google spreadsheet as a timeline. That way I can cross-reference what happened in one place while some event took place someplace else.

Hope you like the map!

rect13.png

[Turambar]

This looks fantastic! One suggestion: I assume the colors represent elevation, but it might be helpful to have a key.

[nAUTILUS]

Thank you, the Topo lines are labelled when you zoom in quite a bit. I used to have a label but I found it hard to fit it into the page layout.

[nAUTILUS]

rect13.png

Here's my current WIP, I'm pretty close to finishing this. Changelog:
- changed international border from purple heavy line to thinner black outline. The purple did stand out like a marker drawn on the map
- revised scale bar, was off by factor 2
- fixed some rivers on the border of the map
- fixed repeat place names

I've documented all the changes in my notes and will keep feeding back these improvements into the process.

[Peter Toth]

Hi Nautilus!

I absolutely love your map, for it represents exactly what I'm striving for in my current project: an authentic-looking world that belongs inside of an atlas.

I don't know what constructive criticism to offer (for you seem to have mastered this style), but I'd enhance the topo effect ever so slightly, just to show the drainage basins feeding your major rivers. Of course, with your highest point being about 500 metres, I wouldn't overexaggerate the topo. Just curious: Did you draw the topo all by yourself, or is it constructed from satellite DEMs?

As for worldbuilding tips, I always like to keep my mathematical calculations on an Excel spreadsheet, while using Word to log all the lore and descriptions I've accumulated. I've never heard of obsidian, although that's the first thing I'm going to search after I'm finished responding to your submission.

Fantastic work!

Peter

[- JO -]

Grat atlas-style map !

[Greason Wolfe]

Yep, this is pretty solid for an atlas style map. My only suggestion might be a very light touch of color for the areas outside the focus of the map. Maybe just a touch of green for land (rather than full topo coloring) and blue for water. The sudden break from full color to white might be a bit jarring for some folks.

[nAUTILUS]

Thanks for the kind reply! By Topo you are refering to the hill shade, not the contour lines, correct? I make my topography in VP Planet generator, a fractal tool. Then I erode it in Wilbur. The hillshade is made in gimp using the bump map function. This is a very rough outline of the process. I have played around with various setting of the hillshade, with more or less detail and stronger shadows. For my next interaction I will increase the effect as you suggested.
Hope this answers your question, the DEMs are basically generated/eroded by an algorithm. But there's a lot of manual control in the process.

[nAUTILUS]

Thanks, I'll try and play around with some colours in the defocus area. One reason I went for a minimal style there is that my maps don't tile perfectly. So details won't match up. That's why I want the external areas to kind of fall back and only focus on one country. But I'll play around with it.

[nAUTILUS]

export.png

Next entry.
Notes: I played around with making the non-focus topography less saturated but in the end decided against it and kept the white for 2 reasons: It's more aesthetically pleasing and it hides mismatched terrain in neighbouring countries which is something my method of terrain generation sometimes struggles with. I redid the topography at a higher resolution after completing the map which led to the rivers not matching up perfectly. This will be fixed in the next entry. I played around with marking an area of Illumination (the eclipse area shaded in black). Not sure about it, what do you think?
Also, here's some background stuff on the country:
History
Asheloth is a country on the luxal coast of the Agamh ocean. For hundreds of years (1 local year ~ 0.4 earth years) it has been a contested land between the occidental civilisations, and the seafarer peoples in the orient. After the fall of the occidental Aurapal Empire in 463, Asheloth was first formed from the oppressed seafarer minority. The conquest of the neighbouring country of Satshok in the occident followed quickly in 472, exploiting the crumbling state of the empire. It took Satshok until 529 to recover sufficiently to mount a war of independence, in the course of which they reconquered their homeland as well as the occidental part of Asheloth. Over the next 1000 years the country remained split along the internal highlands with the occident occupied by Satshok and the orient by the seafarers of Asheloth.
In 1520 Asheloth launched a devastating offensive and regained the occidental part of the country, pushing Satshok back to its current border. The occupation of the former Satshoki areas was organized as a set of small protectorates.

Physical geography, climate and illumination
Asheloth is bisected by a mountain range with peaks around 1500m running from lux to nox. These highlands are not well developed and scoured by high winds.
While the orient has good access to the Agamh ocean, the occident only borders the small inland Aneel sea. The climate is of the stable, temperate kind with temperatures ranging from 7° to 25° Celsius, there is little seasonality. Illumination is year round. Asheloth does experience regular eclipses. Worthy of special notice is the fact that the eclipse's path of totality crosses Asheloth at the subsistence (cold season) solstice before reversing its course. The mount of Baha sits right below this path and is of local religious importance.

Demographics and culture
The country is split in half along the central highlands with the orient dominated by the ruling class of seafaring peoples and the people of Satshoki descent in the occident being exploited for grain, animal husbandry and forestry. The country is organized to fuel the needs of the navy, which departs from the oriental shores. The political system is an oligarchy.