October 2022 Challenge: Map an Underworld!

[Kellerica]

Greetings, fellow Guild members!

As we are now officially in October, the month of all things dark and spooky, this month's challenge theme is to map an underworld.

Underworld, Netherworld, Hell, it is known by many names - as a concept it can be found in almost every mythology known to us. A common feature of these myths and stories is often a living person needimaking a journey to the world below, for some heroic purpose or another. A number of mythologies also incorporate the concept of the souls making their journey to the underworld, needing to be taken across an obstacle or border, such as a lake or a river in order to make their way to their final destination.

Take inspiration from existing myths or stories, or take us on a journey to the lands of the dead of your own world! Perhaps map out a brave hero's journey there and back again, or simply lay out the landscape in which the souls of the deceased spend their eternity.


The challenge will end on All Hallows' Eve (a.k.a. the 31st of October).

As always, don't forget to title your threads thusly: October 2022 Challenge: *your title here*,
and please remember to use the ### Latest WIP ### tag when posting your images.

[Diamond]

Nice, we haven't done this one in years! Might have some good entries...

[XCali]

I'm hoping we can have the next challenge be something cool like Floating Lands/ Floating vehicles, or the canyons idea ect. Something broader that we can get some cool variety of ideas.

[Falconius]

Map an underworld is incredibly broad. Perhaps the opposite would be better?

[waldronate]

Contest topics are very hard to do. The pool of available contestants isn't particularly broad to start with and that group is broken into quite a few specialities (some folks will only do overland, some will only do battlemaps, some will only do cities). Striking a balance between overly-specific prompts and overly-broad one is really tough. One of the reasons that the "put this blob into your map" challenges tend to be relatively popular is that there is a specific and easy-to-visualize constraint that everyone works from. The broad conceptual ones (and to some extent the per-person random generator prompts) are much more difficult because the artist has to come up with the concept and then elaborate on it rather than just doing the elaborating parts. But (again) it's hard to come up with new things that don't just repeat every few years.

A concept like "put the Konami Code into your map" might work as "the Konami Code" has moderate appeal and it's specific enough to force a starting point (from outlines in paving stones on a battlemap to roome in a dungeon to interlocking counties on a map to islands in an archipelago). Maybe "two horses" to allow everything from a team of horses on a battlemap to a waterfall of questionable-grade beer emanating from an ancient titan. "Map a grave" might also work as it can go from a black hole to a regular hole to a person-shaped canyon. Pinning down that first image to work against is often the hardest part of most challenges and "ain't nobody got time for that" these days!

[XCali]

Map an underworld is incredibly broad. Perhaps the opposite would be better?

If it had included subterranean worlds, I would have jumped in. But it was more an afterworld vibe. So it severely limited the scope. And doing the opposite would have the same effect.
For instance, with a subterranean possibility for an underworld, I could have mapped Catacombs, underground cavern or the like. It still has spooky vibes, BUT it is broader in what we can map, than just having an AFTERworld.

Rather have stuff where you give the opportunity to either map a town/city/ village with the option to rather go for a region, or continent. It gives more types of cartographers a chance to join. Take the theme, and then give ideas for battle map cartographers to have a chance, add another idea that give town or city mappers to have a chance, ect.

So, having a tangible theme with the possibility of the vastly different cartographers to take a crack at it is definitely more fun than having a vague theme that's hard to conceptualize.

Okay, let's take an example.
MAP A TOWN

Fine, ON ITS OWN town mappers would have fun, but it excludes a lot of specialized mappers. But if in the challenge description you say, Map a town, or an alleyway battle in a town, or important building in a town, or the region around a certain important town. The theme is IN or AROUND A TOWN. But there are many different opportunities for a variety of different cartographers in there.

Hope that makes more sense.

[Ifrix]

The titles have always been open to interpretation. If a map challenge was "Map a Town" it is always open to interpretation what scale you map that town in unless specifically stated. For example for this challenge you could have done a battlemap of an area of the underworld, create your own underworld that is a subterranean canyon (many mythological underworlds were subterranean and there was at least 1 subterranean entry last time this was run), created an area of the overworld along with some clues and lore that says that such a place is the entrance to the underworld. You can always ask for clarification in these threads too.

Also if the particular topic doesn't grab your fancy - that is ok. The CLs have been running these for the last 15 years, there's bound to be themes that don't inspire you, for example I've not been interested in any of the more small scale or sci-fi themes that have cropped up.

I think waldronate hit the nail on the head with "the pool of available contestants isn't particularly broad to start with". There isn't a huge amount of people active on the forums right now and the Mapping challenge (as opposed to the Lite challenge) is usually entered by the members who do mapping more professionally (not as a hard rule, but from what I've observed) and so there will be many months where professional commissions take precedence over challenges like this.

[Kellerica]

If it had included subterranean worlds, I would have jumped in. But it was more an afterworld vibe. So it severely limited the scope. And doing the opposite would have the same effect.
For instance, with a subterranean possibility for an underworld, I could have mapped Catacombs, underground cavern or the like. It still has spooky vibes, BUT it is broader in what we can map, than just having an AFTERworld.

It is always okay to ask in the challenge prompt thread, if you have an idea and are wondering if that would meet the challenge criteria. In all my years on the Guild, I don't ever recall seeing somebody's entry discarded because it failed to match the original theme flawlessly. I would have been more than happy to accept a catacomb or cavern map had you wanted to create one!

The reason why I write the prompts in the way I do is not to limit anyone's creativity, but because that's the kind of writing I personally tend to find inspiring. Of course it goes without saying that myself, and everyone else who runs these challenges, have no choice but to use our own best judgement in what is a cool idea and what isn't. I came up with what I thought was a really interesting idea, and I'm sorry if I failed at that.

[waldronate]

It is always okay to ask in the challenge prompt thread, if you have an idea and are wondering if that would meet the challenge criteria.

And the voters will always let you know about how well the execution of your ideas met their expectations of the challenge! Usually a bit too late to make corrections, I admit, but they will let you know!

WIP early, WIP often. Don't just post the one final map if you can at all avoid it (says that fellow who rarely does more than one post).

[XCali]

It is always okay to ask in the challenge prompt thread, if you have an idea and are wondering if that would meet the challenge criteria. In all my years on the Guild, I don't ever recall seeing somebody's entry discarded because it failed to match the original theme flawlessly. I would have been more than happy to accept a catacomb or cavern map had you wanted to create one!

The reason why I write the prompts in the way I do is not to limit anyone's creativity, but because that's the kind of writing I personally tend to find inspiring. Of course it goes without saying that myself, and everyone else who runs these challenges, have no choice but to use our own best judgement in what is a cool idea and what isn't. I came up with what I thought was a really interesting idea, and I'm sorry if I failed at that.

Oh no, I wasn't taking a jab. I sincerely thought you were guiding the challenge towards an afterworld underworld theme.

But I have to admit, I never really considered asking. My bad.

And the voters will always let you know about how well the execution of your ideas met their expectations of the challenge! Usually a bit too late to make corrections, I admit, but they will let you know!

WIP early, WIP often. Don't just post the one final map if you can at all avoid it (says that fellow who rarely does more than one post).

Yeah, that is a given. I vote that way myself.
(Luckily I don't have a problem with not posting my WIP, hehehehe)