World of Azuyra: The Kingdom of Avencia

[Ahriman]

Greetings. I've been lurking around these forums for a pretty long time, while working sporadically on my campaign map over the course of a few months. This is done mostly for enjoyment, despite having been used in numerous D&D and MMO games.

Azuyra is a world I've been developing for years, ever since I learned how to customize the map of a very old MMORPG. I've written, rethought, and rewritten countless pieces of information about this world, and these days I'm trying to put it all down to virtual paper in one, finalized format. My first step was to develope the broader scope, concerning the origins of the universe, the making of the world, and the nature of all things divine and arcane. My second step is this map... I find that I'd rather view the relationships of nearby areas on the map, and write about them, than try to make a map from scattered references Ive already written.

Avencia is the largest kingdom, as well as the youngest, settled by the remains of two naval fleets who pursued a pirate fleet across the oceans on a mission of vengeance... it's a long story, but the pirate fleet had sacked and unintentionally razed the ancient city of Genova, the center of art and reason on the southern continent. Genovan architecture and the militaristic influences of Atheron (a nearby country which dispatched the second fleet) have led to a colorful fusion of cultures, cemented over time in the city of Valcora. It's a place where the ingenuity of da vinci meets martial law and modern politics.

Eventually, the Avencians gained further footholds into this sparsely populated land and established settlements further inland. Chief among these settlements is Ironoak, a fortress-turned-city. It was built to control the Firewine River, the longest and widest, and therefore most profitable river on the continent.

In all this represents about 20% of the landmass on the map, which I will hopefully finish by the time I'm 90.

One note for the "river police"; I know there are a number of inaccurate or unlikely representations here. Some of them Im sure Im unaware of. Most, though, I've either got a fantasy reason for, or simply decided not to represent in this limited space. If anything really pops out at you though, feel free to mention it.

[Steel General]

Very nice... the color scheme works well. The only thing I didn't really care for was some of the fonts you used, but that is a preference thing not a 'ding' against your work.

As a member of the River Police I didn't see any obvious infractions (though I only gave it a quick scan).

Welcome aboard and since you uploaded a map in your first post I dub thee newly repped *bonk*

[Bohunk]

Love the map, good work.

[woekan]

I like it. Nice style!

[Eilathen]

Nice. I really like this style. I hope you'll show us the world map?

[Ascension]

This is great. I'm not wild about the A Charming Font font but like the other fonts used. Really nice, reminds me a bit of the maps used in "The Barbarians" shows on History Channel.

[torstan]

This is a lovely map. It's great to have another lurker come out from the dark.

[Ahriman]

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. It really inspires a person to keep going, you know? Im exploring alternatives to A Charming Font... Ive heard a few people now mention that as their only gripe. I admit it's prettiness could be a little outshined by its readability issues.

Someone was interested in seeing the full map. I'm not doing the entire world (so far), simply because I feel a continent is about all I can manage with the level of detail I want to achieve. However, here is a 1/4 sized image of the entire thing, with a lot of the names and clutter removed.

[Ascension]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news cuz this looks so damn nice but...there's a river problem. I highlighted it in red. The area in yellow is an area where I would erase some in order to get two rivers rather than one that connects two coastlines. Again, I'm really sorry...hope your not too mad.

[Ahriman]

Ahah, yessir, if that's all you found Im actually very pleased. That particular superlong river is intended to defy the normal laws of rivers... See, when I first created this world, I started with the city of Ironoak, which as described in my first post was built to control the most profitable river on the continent, the Firewine; this one.

As for WHY it defies the normal river laws; it is actually the artificial seam where Taudoc, god of creation, repaired Azuyra (the world). She used to be a living goddess, at a time in the ancient past when a now-dead pantheon orbited Chaos, the Bright One... there was no sun or stars at this time, but Chaos and the Gods looked a lot like a normal universe then. Anyway, Azuyra was the last of her pantheon, who were all slain one by one by Chaos when he decided it was time for life to End. He hurled a... lance of sorts (its a very long story, but in modern minds would sound almost like a comet.) into Azuyra, which ended her life and dislodged two massive chunks of her body, aka the planet, which became the moons.

After all that, the current set of gods came into power. Mortals had never existed before, and were only created as a result of the accidental effects of Azuyra's death. So, amused after an eternity of empty universe, the gods eventually repaired Azuyra, to restore its... structural integrity. Thus, the river is outside of normal physics and has no gravitational flow to speak of. I havent yet researched it yet, but I would expect there could be a seasonal flow that would change throughout the year. If scientifically plausible, this would be the ideal situation. It could also be that being located in the Northern hemisphere would influence its flow... again, havent researched that yet.

Long story short, the Firewine River is in fact the seam where Taudoc 'welded' the world back into a sphere, rather than a deflated basketball.

Sorry for the wordy and probably confusing story. I have it all written in a presentable, explanatory form, but I didnt think this was the correct place for the full version.

Thank you for giving it a look over, Ascension! If that's the only infraction, I'm more than happy.