The Inner Passages of the Western Territories Nautical Chart

[KMAlexander]

Finally got around to finishing and launching this. It's what the title says, really, a nautical chart of The Inner Passages of the Western Territories (the setting of my series of weird little cosmic horror urban fantasy novels.) Maps aren't necessary for my books. But I will always make an effort to expand the world of the Territories off the page.

This was all hand-drawn in Illustrator and then assembled in Photoshop for texture/layer/ink effects. Some of the symbols are lifted from nautical chart standards—mostly NOAA, but I deviated somewhat on some. The setting is post-post-apocalyptic—society is emerging from a near extinction-level event far in the past. What technology exists is distributed unevenly, so a chart like this would be assembled from volunteer sources and updated often.

nmott_2560c3971440.jpg

If you want, you can see the enormous 5k version over on my blog. (It was too big to post here.) I recently put together a new reader resource page where all of the series maps will live. You can check it all out here.

[tilt]

very neat - never read a nautical map, so I bow my head in respect for the work you've done

[KMAlexander]

They're super cool, and very different than a lot of the stuff here. I really like historical ones, and it's fun to compare modern charts to historic ones.

[jshoer]

I used to visit an ice cream shop in Maine where each of the tables had an acrylic surface with nautical maps underneath. It was lots of fun to pore over the coastlines while I ate! So a good nautical chart brings back good memories for me. Well done, and I love seeing all the allusions to details and appendices - even if they don't exist, they add to the sense of a world.

[-K2-]

Impressive work! I'm curious about the rotation of the inner portion of the compass. Is that due to declination or some other reason? A wonderful job overall.

K2

[KMAlexander]

Is that due to declination or some other reason?

Declination, yeah. Quite a bit more extreme than anything right now I left off the dates because I'm being cagey about them in the series.

[Tiana]

Wow, you really nailed a very challenging style with this map.

[KMAlexander]

Wow, you really nailed a very challenging style with this map.

Thanks for saying so! It took forever and went through endless iterations, but I am really happy with the outcome.

I love seeing all the allusions to details and appendices - even if they don't exist, they add to the sense of a world.

This is an old worldbuilding trick I learned. I also tend to keep track of them. Occasionally, I'll bring part or some to life should it serve a story. But, at the very least it's always nice to have in your back pocket for future references.

[Diamond]

Really cool work! The sheer amount of detail is impressive.

And I just realized I've had The Stars Were Right in my TBR pile for more than a year now - guess since I'm laid up for a while I might have to bump it to the top of the stack!

[KMAlexander]

Really cool work! The sheer amount of detail is impressive.

Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy your time with Stars!