Una the Infinite Archipelago

[SoaringMoon]

una_new_9_8k_100.jpg

This map is "The World of Una the Infinite Archipelago". Depicting a never ending sea of islands floating in the sky.

The Making Of

The islands of this map were hand drawn individually using a XP-Pen tablet in Inkscape.

An initial layer was made for these islands, and were exported as an image into GIMP.

They were over-layed with an image of the earth reversed transformed to polar coordinates. I used green areas on the polar coordinate map to create national park zones within the map. Colored green.

After this the islands were split into two layers. One for green islands, one for white. I used an Inkscape filter called "cracked glass" to create the terrain.

I carefully planned all of the routes I wanted for trace and pathed them using dotted lines.

For the windwalls (dark blue), I painted thick lines then speckle blurred them.

Finally, I added various labels.

Additionally, I cut the exported image into 4096, 250 x 250 images and stitched them together as a zoomable google maps like map.

The splitting of the images was done with a freeware tool called "Tile Mage".

I used another freeware tool called "Bulk Rename Utility" to rename the files.

I then used the Leaflet javascript library to make a the zoomable map.

The SVG source 32.0mb in size containing over 5300 objects. 2700 of which are island outlines, and 1500 text labels.

About the Map

Wind Walls - Windwall labels are rotated to mark their wind direction.

Island Labels - Almost 800, one-third, of the islands have been named. Named islands are primarily important locations and areas around cities. The number of labels has caused a problem in inkscape, which has lead me to discussion with inkscape's development team and optimizations in the 1.0 release of the product.

Skyways - The yellow lines all over the map represent skyways. These are trade and travel routes between islands that are marked with buoys. There are 5 kinds of skyway.

Skyways - Mostly straight line routes.

Windways - Curved, indirect, windy, or otherwise difficult routes.

Crossways - Merging shipping lanes with an extraordinarily high traffic.

Exchanges - Wide open areas that contain a high number of ships where open trade occurs outside of ports. No marking is needed as there must always be another ship in sight to qualify as an exchange.

Raceways - Skyways with a strong wind consistently favorable in one direction, and unfavorable in the other.

Cities - Every port city with a population greater than 250,000 is labeled. There are markers indicating cities with 500,000 or more and 1,000,000 or more residents.

Parks - Green islands are biomes that grow many trees. Some park areas have been labeled as to their purpose with green text. Islands that contain more than 50% forest have also been colored green.

Interest - Dark teal labels many mark many areas of interest, natural geological, and meteorological structures such as windwalls, areas of high wind difficult to pass, and drifts which move both islands and ships.

Hazards - Red labels indicate dangerous locations and places to avoid.

About Una (Expositional Onslaught)

The map depicts my would of Una, the infinite archipelago. It is made up of approximately 2,700 islands floating above a sea of clouds, and torrent of wind. Una is an infinite flat plane of islands that is limitless. These islands float overtop of a void of clouds and storms. What is below the clouds is an ever deepening mass of gases that collect into heavier forms and is homogeneous. This expanse is populated by airships and sky pirates.

The sky is covered in birds, the ground in birds, and the waters in fish with wings. The humans glide from island to island in wingsuits and ships. Around all of the ports of the cities of Una, nets hang to catch the gliders that inevitably fall short of the island docks. The only thing that can be seen when you look above is the source. The Source is a large sphere in the sky that pulses dark and light every 28 hours and 48 minutes. It is theorized to be made of gemin.

Gemin are gemstones that are a crystallization of pure magical energy that is assumed to radiates from the source. The quality of this magical force is determined by the purity of the stone. Gemin have magical properties indicated by their color. Blue can expel water in gallons, red radiate heat in excess, or lime gives a spring board to flora and fauna. These stones are semi-sentient beings with their own thoughts, preferences, and emotions. A person holding a willing Gemin may press it against any material transmuting that material into a golem powered by the Gemin stone. This stone becomes a key unlocking the power of this new creature, called a Keygemin. Keygemin are vain creatures that prefer their stones to be vibrant and pleasing to both themselves and to others.

Islands on Una are grown from Gemin, and have at their center a gemin core. These, like all Gemin, descend from the Source and the sky. Material collects around the larger stones, and through time scales geological begin to for a platter of stone. Islands can sink, lift, split, drift, and plummet. The wind eventually pushes islands around and away from each other. Island gemin cores pass the traits of their color to their island's, causing some to become deserts, or others oases. All of the natural processes these islands undertake are set into motion by the Gemin in the cores of each island; and now, by the humans that have adapted to inhabit their surfaces.

If you have any questions, I enjoy answering them.