Reply With QuoteThats a very interesting history actually. Thanks for sharing.
Another question though. How will the "modern" kind of history look like? I mean for the current nations in your world.
Yes I do have a story to the world so I’m not just mapping. I also have names and some history for some of the central states, but after creating this map the whole world has materialized so I’m missing some pieces now that I have to make up. It’s a bit tricky.Originally Posted by Mulliman
For you who are interested the world story is something like this in a very short version…..
In the beginning the creator god, usually only called “The First” by the few who still know he once existed, created the original world Elimo. He also created seven lesser gods, called Archonths to help him with his creation.
Well the Archonths got jealous with “The First” and killed him, some say. Some still claim that “The First" just got bored of the whole thing and left. No one knows for sure, but the end of the line here is that the Archonths now where the ones setting the rules.
They all decided to create their own worlds, because they all wanted to do it their way. The problem though was that they couldn’t create anything from scratch, they couldn’t create life. To solve this problem they pillaged the original world, Elimo, to fulfill their dreams in their newly created worlds. But everything they created where just lesser copies in one way or another from the original idea/creation. The second problem was that the whole universe/creation got destabilized by the creation of these new worlds. This led to the opening of corridors between the worlds via the borderlands. An area not in the physical world and not in the ethereal (dream)world, but a place in between them.
The humanoids that the Archonths had created learned to travel these areas and empires stretching between worlds emerged. These empires grew stronger and stronger and in the end the whole creation and the Archonths themselves where threatened.
The Archonts decided to crush the threat and threw water , wind and fire against their cities and people. But the Humanoids struck back and a war that no one ever could have imagined broke out. In the end the Archonths managed to crush the humanoids empires but only to the price of giving up their own powers. Some of them died, some of them just vanished and some of them went in to hiding, powerless and weak.
After this the paths between the world has since long been forgotten, but they are still there. The universe has stabilized and the world that is today has emerged with its new Gods, Kingdoms and Empires. Still you can find ruins after great cities that no one knew who build. Walls that no one can break and weapons of metal that no one knows how to make or where to mine.
The biggest city in the world of Etrakien Ankh-bathor is situated on one of the old cities from the distant past. Here the old ruins have been restored and are now part of the daily life in the city. Underneath the city you can find vast catacombs that are older then ayone remembers, and far far down in the lower parts of the catacombs there is a closed gate that hopefully no one will open again. A gate that leads to other worlds.
:-)
Thats a very interesting history actually
Another question though. How will the "modern" kind of history look like? I mean for the current nations in your world.
Hmmm… the history of the present time is a bit more complicated. Everything isn’t set in stone yet and some things have to change after having created the map. The actual world is now much larger than originally and that has to be taken in to account. But I can give you a short introduction to the basic ideas that probably won’t change much.
The whole idea was to create a quite dark, hard and dirty world. No fancy high fantasy, no races except humans and no mercy for the weak. What I got in the end was the world of Etrakien. You can say that there are three main races (ok I didn’t stick to only humans, but for a reason).
First of all you have humans, just like you and me. It’s the humans that are the top race in the world. All countries, kingdoms and Empires are human settlements. Of course I had to make an exception to this simple little rule.
There is an island called Arnor where the ruling race is called “The Faceless ones”. They are humanoid but they don’t have any eyes and their noses are just two holes. When they move around they always have a mask, painted like a normal human face, in front of their face to avoid scaring the normal humans. There aren’t many “Faceless ones” around anymore and among humans they are sometimes called the “dying ones”. But they live for a long time and are very powerful when it comes to dream walking (which is a very powerful thing to do).
Originally they come from another world but got stuck in this world after the war against the Archonths. Since then they’ve been searching for a way back, even though they now have forgot exactly what they are searching for.
The third race is the Traals (Traaler). They are big, strong and fearsome warriors in hand to hand combat. But their technology is very basic, which is the reason they’ve been dominated by the humans. The word Traal comes from a human word that means slave. I think you get the point from that.
After the big war that crushed the humanoids empires it all had to start from the beginning again. Slowly civilizations started to rise once more, in some places quicker than in others. After a while small city states emerged around the world. The city states expanded and small kingdoms saw its first light of day.
Some of the kingdoms started to cooperate and the Etrakien Empire was created. The Empire stretched out and put more and more small kingdoms under its ruling. Finally it clashed with the kingdom of Arnor (The Faceless ones) and the Etrakien Empires expansion came to a halt.
After some time the Etrakien Empire falls apart and the world as it is today is created. The Etrakien Empire still exist but isn’t as strong and important as it once was. It’s more of a decadent former superpower that has seen its best days.
I try to describe the world as it is today a bit more when I put up a map with all the countries in it. It’s easier to have a map to refer to when you do it.
But hopefully this gives you some idea what my world is like.
Hey Clercon, I'm new to this site, and just wanted to say that this is a high quality map. I'm looking forward to seeing the finished copy, I like the complicated backstory that you have to it!
This is a fantastic piece of work you've got going so far, Clercon. The map's looking good, and I'm always stoked to see thought going into the world it represents! Nicely done!
Have you considered making the mountains a dark shade of brown instead of straight black? Being the only black on the map, it stands out a whole lot.
Great work so far man - I'm looking forward to how this progresses.
Current Project: The Low Countries & Their Periphery, c. 1584
Do you like Renaissance and early modern history? Check out my Facebook page, Renaissance Netherlands with Will Phillips.
Not many updates lately, but you don't get that much time in front of the computer during summer. Anyway here's a small update. I decided to expand the map a bit in the south. No countries or towns yet. I'm coming to that.
:-)
Really nice. Mountain seem too thin to me but it might be my imagination.
Ho, and your west island, there in the middle part, it have strange line in the inlet... starting a water level?
Hinaloth F. Lester, at your service.
Back, with even more mapping!
Well the lines in the water was originally around all the land. But I decided to remove it, but obviously forgot it at one place. Still don't know though if I keep it this way or put it back. We'll see.
About the mountains, well I think they look good :-) What do you mean with too thin? Are they too small in size or should they take up more space on the map?
This is one of my favorites. I'm a long way off from anything like this, but I'll be emulating some of the styles from this map someday.
It has been a very long time since my last update. But I haven’t given up my little world map.
I’ve taken a Photoshop course this Autumn so it hasn’t been much time to work on the map. Anyway now I have added some new features so I thought I should put them up for display. To see what you all think of them. Am I in the right direction here? The borders of the countries have really been a big problem to me. I think I’ve tried over 10 different ways of doing them. Now I finally have something that I feel satisfied with. Well enough babbling, have a look and see what you think.
All the names are in Swedish……but hey I’m Swedish so I prefer it that way :-) If you wonder what the names mean just give me a shout.
Last edited by Clercon; 12-12-2008 at 08:43 PM. Reason: Edited a typo.
