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edenfallingDecember 19: mapping worlds and fandoms, cont'd (for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
joyeuce01) [Tumblr crosspost]
I talked about mapping fandoms (or, more accurately, NOT mapping them) yesterday. Today I am going to talk about mapping original secondary worlds.
The short answer is, I do this a lot. Not always! I have written stories which, as with my fanfiction, have only verbal geographies. I have a bunch of projects I started to map but never got further than a preliminary sketch. And I have a bunch of maps that don't have proper stories attached to them. (Yet, anyway.) But I love maps, so I am going to show you every map I currently have at hand, and explain them at such length you will probably give up and click away from this post in despair before I am halfway through.
*ominous smile*
Let's start with Kerr!
I've mentioned Kerr once or twice before -- this post contains most of the pertinent information -- but the main thing to know here is that I created this world when I was thirteen. It has all the resulting flaws you are probably expecting. But hey, the map is very colorful!
As you can see, we have three continents. Renkar, the one in the northern hemisphere, is pretty obviously a funhouse mirror version of Eurasia. You can spot the Scandinavian and Iberian peninsula equivalents without too much trouble, not to mention the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka, and the Caspian Sea. I created this world specifically around that inland sea, actually. Originally it was called the Bottomless Mists, and the impetus behind the creation was a story that involved a knight trying to help a magician on her quest to rescue her brother from some terrible doom. (This eventually turned into Ashes.) However, Kerr was the first time I tried to create a full-fledged secondary world, and once I'd drawn the rest of the map, I wanted to fill it in and explore everything. My seed story and the particular rules of magic necessary to make it work quickly fell out of the picture.
I have files of quick-sketch world-building for all the colored portions of the map, and for the continent of Sarala as well, though it's currently completely unshaded. I am not going to inflict any excerpts on you, because they're pretty consistently terrible -- my understanding of sociology and anthropology was rudimentary at best, and as for geology and climatology... oy. For example, given the cultures I created to inhabit them, the two southern hemisphere continents need to be flipped vertically, such that the currently tropical parts of Anyuta/Elterco (the large one with the two big peninsular 'arms') are up around the Antarctic circle, and Sarala (the small one) is entirely tropical/subtropical. (This map only goes up to about 70-75 degrees latitude, just FYI. Both poles are entirely missing.) You can also note the lovely originality of the Jibralter Sea, and a city called Corazon, which was in a country whose fantasy language was... wait for it... Spanish. Yes. That was my great burst of creative genius. *headdesk*
Like I said, I was thirteen. (And if you think that's bad, let's not even get into the culture where I tried to jam together faux-Arabic names/words, stereotypical Highland Scottish clans and plaids, and a habit of Viking-style sea raids. Because no. Just... no.)
I have gone back and done revisions on Kerr at various points over the years, though I've never managed to draw a complete revised map. The closest I got was tracing the three continents and doing some preliminary sketches of what they might look like in a vaguely more geographically plausible universe. As part of that project, I was also trying to draw a map of a more standard high fantasy/myth-heavy world for my sister, which I called Rell, using Kerr as a base. That never got much of anywhere on my end, and Vicky never pressed me, so presumably she has long since forgotten about the whole business.
(Vicky asking me to make maps will come up again, by the way.)
These are the revised sketches, for historical reference:
Renkar
Anyuta (and a terrible version of Sarala)
Elterco
I'd originally named the continent Elterco, but I decided I didn't like that name so I shoved it off into Vicky's hypothetical world and invented the name Anyuta instead. In retrospect I think the sketch labeled Elterco is more visually appealing, and also makes more sense with the cultural setup of Imbaca (a geographic region also known as the Hundred Kingdoms -- it's the big peninsula that looks like a patchwork quilt on the colored map), and am stealing it back for Kerr.
They're my maps. I can do that if I want to. *grin*
(I think I am just going to continue this topic for any day I don't have an assigned topic. Like I said, I have a lot of maps and a lot of words to say about them!)
-----
December Talking Meme: All Days
joyeuce01) [Tumblr crosspost]I talked about mapping fandoms (or, more accurately, NOT mapping them) yesterday. Today I am going to talk about mapping original secondary worlds.
The short answer is, I do this a lot. Not always! I have written stories which, as with my fanfiction, have only verbal geographies. I have a bunch of projects I started to map but never got further than a preliminary sketch. And I have a bunch of maps that don't have proper stories attached to them. (Yet, anyway.) But I love maps, so I am going to show you every map I currently have at hand, and explain them at such length you will probably give up and click away from this post in despair before I am halfway through.
*ominous smile*
Let's start with Kerr!
I've mentioned Kerr once or twice before -- this post contains most of the pertinent information -- but the main thing to know here is that I created this world when I was thirteen. It has all the resulting flaws you are probably expecting. But hey, the map is very colorful!
As you can see, we have three continents. Renkar, the one in the northern hemisphere, is pretty obviously a funhouse mirror version of Eurasia. You can spot the Scandinavian and Iberian peninsula equivalents without too much trouble, not to mention the Indian subcontinent, Sri Lanka, and the Caspian Sea. I created this world specifically around that inland sea, actually. Originally it was called the Bottomless Mists, and the impetus behind the creation was a story that involved a knight trying to help a magician on her quest to rescue her brother from some terrible doom. (This eventually turned into Ashes.) However, Kerr was the first time I tried to create a full-fledged secondary world, and once I'd drawn the rest of the map, I wanted to fill it in and explore everything. My seed story and the particular rules of magic necessary to make it work quickly fell out of the picture.
I have files of quick-sketch world-building for all the colored portions of the map, and for the continent of Sarala as well, though it's currently completely unshaded. I am not going to inflict any excerpts on you, because they're pretty consistently terrible -- my understanding of sociology and anthropology was rudimentary at best, and as for geology and climatology... oy. For example, given the cultures I created to inhabit them, the two southern hemisphere continents need to be flipped vertically, such that the currently tropical parts of Anyuta/Elterco (the large one with the two big peninsular 'arms') are up around the Antarctic circle, and Sarala (the small one) is entirely tropical/subtropical. (This map only goes up to about 70-75 degrees latitude, just FYI. Both poles are entirely missing.) You can also note the lovely originality of the Jibralter Sea, and a city called Corazon, which was in a country whose fantasy language was... wait for it... Spanish. Yes. That was my great burst of creative genius. *headdesk*
Like I said, I was thirteen. (And if you think that's bad, let's not even get into the culture where I tried to jam together faux-Arabic names/words, stereotypical Highland Scottish clans and plaids, and a habit of Viking-style sea raids. Because no. Just... no.)
I have gone back and done revisions on Kerr at various points over the years, though I've never managed to draw a complete revised map. The closest I got was tracing the three continents and doing some preliminary sketches of what they might look like in a vaguely more geographically plausible universe. As part of that project, I was also trying to draw a map of a more standard high fantasy/myth-heavy world for my sister, which I called Rell, using Kerr as a base. That never got much of anywhere on my end, and Vicky never pressed me, so presumably she has long since forgotten about the whole business.
(Vicky asking me to make maps will come up again, by the way.)
These are the revised sketches, for historical reference:
Renkar
Anyuta (and a terrible version of Sarala)
Elterco
I'd originally named the continent Elterco, but I decided I didn't like that name so I shoved it off into Vicky's hypothetical world and invented the name Anyuta instead. In retrospect I think the sketch labeled Elterco is more visually appealing, and also makes more sense with the cultural setup of Imbaca (a geographic region also known as the Hundred Kingdoms -- it's the big peninsula that looks like a patchwork quilt on the colored map), and am stealing it back for Kerr.
They're my maps. I can do that if I want to. *grin*
(I think I am just going to continue this topic for any day I don't have an assigned topic. Like I said, I have a lot of maps and a lot of words to say about them!)
-----
December Talking Meme: All Days
