Quadruple thematic map of Asheloth

[nAUTILUS]

Hello everyone,

I am very pleased to show a new format for me, a quadruple thematic map on an A3 layout for the atlas I'm working on. I hope you like it. As this is my first creation in this format, I am looking for feedback on style, layout, colours and stuff like that. Also, is the information of relevance or is anything obvious missing?
Here's a bit of background on my world and this country, Asheloth, in particular:

The Strand
The Strand is a tidally locked planet, meaning the same side always faces the sun and is baked in constant heat while the opposite side is a frozen wasteland. In-between is a habitable band of where life can flourish.
The planet was colonised by humans on a generation ship thousands of years ago. Shortly after settling all over the surface of the planet, calamity struck and devastated this young colony, throwing it back into the stone age. The ship they came on left the planet’s orbit, and the structures they built on the surface soon became uninhabitable. At the time the story takes place, the people have all but forgotten that they once sailed the stars to get to the Strand.
The tidal locking presents some unique problems: Illumination is perpetual, no days and nights. Due to the temperature difference between the lit side (Lux) and the dark (Nox) constant strong winds blow sunward. The tidal locking is not complete, however. There remains some axial tilt, so some regions of the planet experience changing illumination, sometimes even with a period of complete darkness.
The people of the Strand live at a technological level somewhere between the age of discovery and very early industrialisation.

Asheloth
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.


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[Turambar]

Hello everyone,

I am very pleased to show a new format for me, a quadruple thematic map on an A3 layout for the atlas I'm working on. I hope you like it. As this is my first creation in this format, I am looking for feedback on style, layout, colours and stuff like that. Also, is the information of relevance or is anything obvious missing?
Here's a bit of background on my world and this country, Asheloth, in particular:

The Strand
The Strand is a tidally locked planet, meaning the same side always faces the sun and is baked in constant heat while the opposite side is a frozen wasteland. In-between is a habitable band of where life can flourish.
The planet was colonised by humans on a generation ship thousands of years ago. Shortly after settling all over the surface of the planet, calamity struck and devastated this young colony, throwing it back into the stone age. The ship they came on left the planet’s orbit, and the structures they built on the surface soon became uninhabitable. At the time the story takes place, the people have all but forgotten that they once sailed the stars to get to the Strand.
The tidal locking presents some unique problems: Illumination is perpetual, no days and nights. Due to the temperature difference between the lit side (Lux) and the dark (Nox) constant strong winds blow sunward. The tidal locking is not complete, however. There remains some axial tilt, so some regions of the planet experience changing illumination, sometimes even with a period of complete darkness.
The people of the Strand live at a technological level somewhere between the age of discovery and very early industrialisation.

Asheloth
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.


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Love this, especially the Demographics and Trade maps. Glad to see you kept the population sizes reasonable. One of my pet peeves is when non-modern worlds have city populations in the hundreds of thousands or millions, despite not having the technology or food production to support it.

[nAUTILUS]

Thanks for he feedback, I felt really unsure about the population sizes. Same as you, I often feel like huge megalopolises in a historic fantasy setting unrealistic.
One thing I struggled with is landcover. I thought about adding landcover as a pattern on top of the climate map. Little repeating icons of trees, grasslands, etc. But it always ended up looking cluttered. I will continue to experiment with it. Does anyone have any tips or experience with patterns on top of maps for such a purpose?

[Tiluchi]

Very cool! This is the level of detail I aspire to in worldbuilding projects, and I love the details about the unique climate due to tidal locking and axial tilt. If I have one very minor recommendation it's that the color scheme for the demographic groups and the population density is fairly similar, which was a little confusing when trying to interpret the different colors in the map. It might be a little more readable with two different color schemes.

Regarding land cover, I agree that doing a pattern fill would probably make it too cluttered especially if it was overlaid on one of the other maps. I think the climate map is mostly fine as is, perhaps if you want to make it look fancier you could add a little more detail to the isoclime lines, or perhaps a more granular breakdown of climates (not entirely clear what "stable temperate" means in terms of land cover, though I assume temperate forest). Alternatively you could add a smaller inset with land cover (including agricultural land), or add other colors to your trade and industry map to indicate natural land cover. Just some random thoughts- feel free to ignore!

[nAUTILUS]

Thanks, these are all very valid points, especially the lcolor choice for the population density! I'll play around with it some more

[dpitchtheauthor]

Wow I love this!

[nAUTILUS]

New version with added landcover and winds, making all four maps more even in level of detail. What do you think?
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[Tiluchi]

New color scheme is definitely an improvement! Cool to see the land cover as well–although I can't decide if it does in fact make the inset look a little too busy (perhaps simpler patterns?). As a matter of curiosity, what's the difference between green and black forests?

[nAUTILUS]

Thanks for the feedback, the patterns are just a first pass on the design. Green forests are like ours, photosynthesisers. Black forests are indigenous flora which do something I call anemosynthesis. They generate chemical energy not by absorbing light but by mechanical means. They developed in the perpetually dark part of the planet to utilise the strong, constant winds as an energy source. Instead of leafs they have flappy sort of membranes or wings which are moved by the wind and in that way generate chemical energy which is used to make oxygen and simple sugars. Their trunks are dark brown or black, that's why theyre called black forests. Now these planets are most often present on the colder, more nocturnally facing terrains. Mixed forests exist as well, of course.