Atlas Elyden

[vorropohaiah]

What does the 'pg 8x' 'pg 4x' refer to? Is it the number of pages it appears or the number of the page?

-Dan

its a temporary page number. I've only made 4 maps out of an indeterminate amount and they haven't really been edited into the atlas so i dont really know he page numbers, so i used an X so i can easily find/replace once i know the real page number

[Lingon]

Stunning work on the Almagest topography! There's so much cool stuff going on in your world, every region has loads of interesting shapes and features.

[pjrush]

So amazing. Your work is the high-water-mark for the kind of fantasy mapping I most love. Just... thank you for sharing.

[vorropohaiah]

Ok, the Almagest map is finished. To those who remember, no I haven't added the city map, but for you keen-eyed cartographers, the pale sqaure in the top right is the space that that very map will occupy once it's finished, as it's taking a bit longer than I thought it would, mostly because I'm designing it as a full-size map and will then be shrinking it to more adequately fit the space. The finished full-size map will be included in the Atlas as one of a handful of city maps describing important or strategic cities. I havent forgotten my promise!

Almagest - small.jpg

The Republic of Almagest has a long history: as an independent land of astronomers and scholars based around the coast of what is now known as the Strait of Almagest; as a territory of the Korachani Empire (under the control of which it spent most of its history, prospering as an industrial centre); and as an independent region freed of its imperial shackles since 3014 RM, after a long period of civil strife with the Motherland. Almagest remains a powerhouse of industry, though waning lands have left its many large cities without food. The capital, Almagest, was once the largest urban area in Elyden, with no less than 6-million bodies calling it home. What remains of that is now a greatly diminished city where starvation and disease run rife. Press-gangers recruit desperate people with promises of glory in the army. The reality is quite different, and most who join up trade one form of hunger and uncertainty for another

Please let me know what you think in the comments, as I'm always open to input.

Remember you can follow me on my blog at www.vorropohaiah.blogspot.com and become a patron at www.patreon.com/elyden for high res files, as well as textless versions, .psd's, stories, and more.

[vorropohaiah]

Ok, so now that Almagest is ready, I’m thinking about what to do next. The next logical step is to continue with that general region. Now that Almagest, Azazem, Korachan and Pelasgos are done, All that’s left to complete the N-E part of the Inner Sea coast are Skaros (S of Almagest) and Laaskha (S of Skaros and W of Azazem), and I’ll have a continuous string of nations stretching from almagest in the N to Pelasgos in the E.

mosaic.jpg

If I also complete the nation of Vaalk (S of Laaskha, across the Inner Sea) that will complete what’s known as the ‘Seven Tribes of Korachan’ - basically the first 7 nations (Pelasgos, Azazem, Laaskha, Skaros, Vaalk, almagest + Korachan) that were taken over by the Archpotentate Malichar in the first decades of the Korachani empire’s rule, 4 millennia past (of course the Seven Tribes are no longer recognised in the present day – Vaalk is part of The Sarastroan empire, and Almagest gained independence 1,000 years ago, for instance).

There’s a few other regions I’m itching to map.

The first is Khamid, which is probably the oldest region in terms of my writing – Khamid was a campaign setting a I had devised for D&D about 12 years ago – an Egyptian-themed setting, heavily influenced by Stephen Sommers’ the Mummy and the Mummy returns, amongst others. Even in that old iteration it was a region shaped by a massive magical calamity that sundered thousands of square miles, reducing the landmass of Khamid, leaving the entire region flooded and peppered with cliff-sided archipelagos – the remnants of the land. Only a small hooked peninsula remained in the west, enough for the region to not go entirely extinct and to remain, embittered by the glories and hubris of the past. (the setting was basically transported into Elyden as I started fleshing it out many years ago and remained one of my favourite regions since. I have mapped this area before, as part of the Venthir and Tzallrach map, though it’s never been the focus of a single map before.

Another region I’m interested in fleshing out more is Saviud, or the Surrach as it is known in the Korachani empire. It’s a vast dry region of independent city-states, each ruled by charismatic individuals – tyrants, otherworlders, sorcerer-kings, theocracies, mystery cults, etc. Each city is unique and tends to control a particular resource, making trade an important aspect of life, with merchant caravans and caravanserais a common sight. It’s the setting of the serialised novel I’m working on at the moment and deserves to be fleshed out more. The problem is its an even larger area than Almagest was and the the A3 format I’m working with seem a bit too constraining. I might work on a larger map and then divide it map in two – Surrach north and Surrach south – for more detail, with the larger one featuring in a generic overview of the region that concentrates more on territories and resources.

Any feedback?

[tilt]

That's just beautiful work.. and seeing that "white" map I'm amazed at the project ahead of you - and by your patience and persistence

[Lingon]

That collage looks so cool, I love that they are all in the same projection so they can be displayed like that!
As for the next one, you once again present a bunch of options that all seem exciting There's something very appealing to the sound of the first seven nations, but Khamid's geography looks really cool, and Surrach sounds like it would be very interesting (with a crisscrossing network of trade routes, I'm imagining?). I'll cast my vote on Surrach, I think!

[vorropohaiah]

That's just beautiful work.. and seeing that "white" map I'm amazed at the project ahead of you - and by your patience and persistence

thanks i made specifically to post, to show the scope of what I'm aiming for.

That collage looks so cool, I love that they are all in the same projection so they can be displayed like that!
As for the next one, you once again present a bunch of options that all seem exciting There's something very appealing to the sound of the first seven nations, but Khamid's geography looks really cool, and Surrach sounds like it would be very interesting (with a crisscrossing network of trade routes, I'm imagining?). I'll cast my vote on Surrach, I think!

Yeah I was thinking about that, though i need a break from big maps (the almagest map was the largest so far by far and i dont want to follow it up with an even bigger one so soon. So i'll be doing a quicker small map of Skaros and possibly Khamid before tackling the Surrach. They shouldnt take too long as I;ve explored both in maps before so i wont need to come up with too much labels for them

[vorropohaiah]

I'd like some feedback on the next map in the series – Laaskha. It’s mostly done, though still requires lots of labels (though not as many as some other maps as its quite zoomed in, as you can see by the graticule scales).

Laaskha - small.jpg

I’m posting it to get some feedback as there was a lot of dead space in the lower right and I decided to include an inset map (my go-to thing for dead space!) of the western coastline, showing the coastline around 500-years ago. In a nutshell, sea levels have been steadily dwindling over the past centuries, leaving many coastal cities land-locked and coastal salty lakes where once bays were located. I intend on adding a dotted line to the inset to show the present coastline and cities as they were 500-years ago as they are quite different.

My question is the elevation map in the inset map – of course as the sea level is higher in the inset map, the other topographical elevations should not match up with the other map, but should be higher up, if that makes any sense. I can do this (though it may take some time to go over all the elevations to make them appear higher. But is it worth it, or does it even make sense?

[Josiah VE]

Very nice!

How long does it take you to make one of these maps? You don't hand draw the elevation right?

I don't really have anything to say about the elevation, I'm not exactly sure what you mean and I didn't notice anything wrong.. So.. I dunno.