The Vacation Country of Huss

[Gus]

I think this is the second map I submit for considerations. A few words about the project:

Huss is the result of one idle afternoon at the office. After one hour of random browsing which included a lot of youtube, following tweeter trends and applying for the Google Wave closed tests (the video caught my attention, you see). I decided to focus on creating a quick project just because things like this make the time go faster. The result of unproductiveness is the Vacation Country of Huss, a light utopy where everybody smiles at you, without all the usual "Kitten of Nine Chaoses" secret cults, for a change.

Here you go:

Huss - Vanguard..jpg
Laughing at names is enabled, as soon as you admit that a) city naming is not the most pleasant stage of mapmaking or b) you already came up with something worse before.

If I ever planned to put some role-playing on this, I'd probably would make the players love and care the place and them assault it with some horrible but avoidable threat. Classic plot.

I put very little effort at the final touches (As you can see by the graphic symbols/fonts used/whatever). The thing i liked the most here was the colors. They express the feelings I had in mind. Yes, those mountains are tutorial-taught. A lot of things here are. But not everything. The seas and textures (which you only notice at full resolution) are homemade.

This is a brief description of what it would Huss be like. Forgive my offenses to language in use and enjoy:

"Huss is an Island Country located close to Europa Ultima's northeast coast. With around 250,000 km² of area, the kingdom comprises the whole archipelago, compounded of a large island (the Mother Land) and around 30 nearby islands of minor extension. Studies of the local Royal Academy of Sciences claim that the land could have been once the territory of the United Kingdom (refer to a Historypedia of Pre-Shock Civilizations for details), but the Global Science Guild refutes the theory, saying that it is much more likely that the land was once part of the Northeastern Asia or extremes of the North America. The land is mostly plain fields with a height close to the sea level. The exception for this are the scarce hills scattered around and the mountain ranges of the Mirimasset, the King's Throne.

Mirimasset actually are two mountain ranges, but the local tradition always considered it as a single one, divided by (what the citizens consider to be) a colossal vale. The mountains heights are averagely at 1000m, but a few mountains in the north part reach over 3000m of altitude. Most of the rest, however, have slightly flat peaks, as if they were oversized, rocky hills.

Talking about rocks, The Mother Island seems to be relatively new. The land is rich in igneous rocks - such as granite and basalt - and metamorphic - which include Marble and Slate - which are the most used materials for civil construction. The land is rich in metals, but poor in noble minerals (both metals and gemstones. The most common of those are silver and amethysts).

Three basic climates can be found: Mediterranean at south, with a smooth transition to tropical of monsoons at north. The exception for this transition is the Mirimasset, whose configurations, boosted by a heavy mana pool, keeps a temperate (and in some places arctic) environment. Those three settings behavior dictates temperatures, rain and wildlife, which often are mixed in key points, forming complex ecosystems. Speaking of which, the mostly organic soil support the development of a wide variety of life. In fact, natural life conditions show such a positive balance that its inhabitants sometimes refer to the land as "Eden".

Huss is populated by only two races: humans (the large majority) and the Aurst at about 30% of the population. Aurst-exclusive settlements are inexistent, but the town of Aurst Siberos is the largest to approach the concept - about the same size as a human medium city. In general, Huss has few settlements, but a high demography in the existing ones.

The country's capital and largest city is Merteri , on where the local Royal Family resides and rules. Fishing, farming and mining are the three most important economic activities of the country. The military capacity is poor, but the country has been taking a cordial attitude towards the international community for so long that the armed forces hardly have to do more than guaranteeing the local order.

Culturally, Huss emanates a feeling of calmness and carefree joy. Even at the most populated cities, with the fuss that any large city has, it is impossible to shake off that vacation feeling. Everybody is smiling, speaking loud and reacting to each other. The relations between humans and aursts tend to be as variable as between humans and humans, but the overall feel is that aursts take humans with a mix of esteem and possessiveness, as if they were worthy of their protection. Many outsiders mistake the aurst instinct of guardianship with servitude, and those usually end up facing embarrassing consequences."