I am expanding the document to fit some more information and also to give me some room for embellishment!
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Howdy friends!
It's been... a long time. BUT, through the power of worldbuilding, friendship, and being a nerd I have gotten back into C A R T O G R A P H Y (not that I ever really left). Anyways, I wanted to get back into the community so I'm posting some progress on a map of my nation in a communal worldbuilding project!
It's certainly not DONE, but it's getting to a spot where it is beginning to serve its purpose: a one-stop reference to my nation! I'd also love any advice on arrangement, decoration, and weathering <3
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Anyways, I'm happy to be back! I look forward to talking to/meeting everyone and making more art. Also, happy to answer questions about the worldbuilding ofc.
I am expanding the document to fit some more information and also to give me some room for embellishment!
AG_Atlas_Expanded.png
I love this! So far seems like a very good balance of detail and readability. I'm curious to know a little more about the context of the map or these kingdoms, if you're able to share it.
New border, added a bunch of text, messing around with weathering a bit!
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Thanks so much! So, OOC as you might say the reason for this is that I've done a lot of worldbuilding on this nation (formally called Mu'Anseme-Ban Gha'Ghaban), but it's kind of scattered all over the place or stored in a long wiki article. Which is fine of course! but I wanted something that I could simply show people and point out x, y, or z *at a glance*--so basically, I'm trying to cram in as much information about my nation and culture lololol. So far we've got
1.) foreword by the scribes/cartographers for some lore,
2.) map of the various cultures and subcultures and species (which isnt as clear as it could be tbf),
3.) a very basic religion map,
4.) the land rights of nomadic peoples who don't necessarily fall under the sway of the kingdom specifically,
5.) progression of the historical borders of the kingdom,
6.) map of the royal palace (which I'll update with labels so that it can work as a tacit way to show which institutions are important to the administration of the nation)
7.) the currency of the nation
8.) the heraldry of the noble houses of the primary culture
also, I plan on adding
9.) a few notes by notable individuals at the bottom (again as a tacit way to show the most important people in the realm)
10.) possibly census information? As part of a collaborative project it's been a lengthy process in nailing down the exact size of our world.
11.) a bunch of marks, signatures, and literal seals of approval.
12.) If there's space left idk lol--happy to hear suggestions, maybe a geographical map of the river valley in which most of the population lives (obviously impossible to know that from the map, as is)
IC this map is one of several commissioned by the current royal dynasty as a tool for their warrior-judges, a common reference for senators and administrators, and a prestige piece for the King himself. It's a huge project given the byzantine political interests of the aristocracy and other notable actors, so generally speaking a new one is only commissioned once in a generation, or at the start of a new King's reign. This latest edition comes directly after a crushing defeat in a long and messy regional war, which basically enabled the King to call in a lot of favors and goodwill about rebuilding without the usual politicking.
About the nation itself, the short synopsis is that after our world's fall of rome analog, the massive slave population of the most fertile lands of the empire gained their independence as imperial administration collapsed, intermarried with the local gentry, and basically started from scratch--beginning a several hundred years long city states period. Eventually an extremely charismatic adventurer arose and united the country under the Banchoq dynasty after gaining both popular support as a regional hero and political allies in the form of most of the families known to descend from Imperial nobility. Most of the history I've worked through has been the nascent Kingdom reuniting the central territories of the Empire in the name of establishing suzerainty or lordship over all the established settlements of that culture (known as the Ghabanem peoples). There's quite a bit going on internally though and it's going to lead to problems very soon.
What about something showing natural resources or trade routes/trade goods?
Ah yes, thank you! Trade routes, or at least the few real roads are something I wanted to show, but forgot! Idk about natural resources--if I can figure out a way to represent them in an interesting way without making the main map too info-dense, certainly! I'll update in a bit.
oh yea... it's all comin together
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gosh dang double posts
Last edited by Scoopz; 06-05-2022 at 01:38 PM.