Mapping Project: Atlantis (100% DONE)

[Hotrod]

EDIT: I went back and upgraded the map with a technique that defines the various regions of Atlantis much better than before. Here is the upgraded version. Maybe I should call it Version 1.1?

EDIT: Here is the final, completed map. Be sure to click once or twice so you can see it in its full definition.

EDIT: Here is a bare-geography version.

It's been a few months since I made a map. My latest effort was my first Rifts map, which focused on Northern Gun. It's mostly finished, and I'm pleased with the overall look, but I've refrained from releasing it; I need to decide what to do on a few finishing details.

In the meantime, I've taken on my next mapping project: Rifts Atlantis

Although I like the aesthetics of the canon hand-drawn maps, and the degree to which they highlight one particular feature for the appropriate section of text, there are a number of books which don't really have a single map that ties all the important information together. Atlantis is one such example.

If you're Filbert the Sunaj tracking an escaped Flooper starting in Splynn, then going through Azlum, over the Great Stone Mountains, through the Haunted Valley, skirting The Refuge down through the Preserves to the Terror Coast, you'll have to cross-check your way through half a dozen maps and as many passages of text to figure out where everything is in relation. Establishing a common frame of reference between the players and the GM as you work your way through a region is a tricky affair which I intend to simplify.

My intent is to render the fabled continent betwixt Bermuda and the Azores in vibrant, full color. Climate, elevation, political boundaries, magic zones, ley lines, nexuses, cities, rivers, and anything else I can throw in will come together in one (or possibly more than one, depends on how crowded things get) map. The idea is to make a map that is both functional and nice to look at.

For tools, I'll be using GIMP mostly (open-source program analogous to photoshop), with some Inkscape (a vector drawing program) and WILBUR (a terrain program). See the link in my signature for other maps I've done.

For sources, I'm using three books: Atlantis, GMG, and Aftermath. I also have Splynn Dimensional Market, but I couldn't find anything of use for mapping in it. If you know of other books that have map-relevant information on Atlantis, please let me know. I'm also using Google Maps as a reference for positioning and Google Earth as a guide for climate color palettes.

"For Filbert!"

[taalismn]

Ambitious.
I look forward to seeing the results.

[Hotrod]

I'm working through the first stage of the map-making, where I research the source material, decide the scale I want to have, and define the scope of the map.

Research: I read the geography section of Atlantis in great detail and looked up the appropriate sections of Aftermath, the GMG, and RUE. I have scans of every published map of Atlantis scaled, oriented, and matched up so they're superimposed over each other, and I've taken stock of some discrepancies.

Scope: This map will focus on the continent of Atlantis as much as possible. It will not include North America or Spain/Africa in any significant detail (though there may be slivers of North/South America). While it will mark the Demon Sea and the Bermuda Triangle, it will not show their entirety; those regions are too featureless/chaotic to do much with, and including their vast area would diminish the scale of the continent.

Scale: This will be a big map, 3375 x 2625 pixels. That allows for a standard-sized print with very good definition (300dpi for an 8.5x11 sheet), and it's about the limit of what GIMP and my computer can handle.


Status: I'm using 10 source maps now. 8 maps I'm using as my primary sources for the continent: 7 are from Atlantis, and 1 is from GMG. The other two maps are for Nova Scotia, part of which shows up on the northwest corner of the map. All of these maps are scaled, rotated, and superimposed on top of each other for reference, and I'm ready to start drawing in the coasts. Although there are a few minor discrepancies between canon maps of Atlantis, there are far fewer than in the source material for Northern Gun and PFRPG's Northern Hinterlands.

The hardest part so far was figuring out which part of North America was showing up in the corner, since the Western Hemisphere maps from GMG have a very different East Canadian coastline than the detail maps of Canada. Google Maps helped me sort this out (Google Earth gets too warpy this far out for terrain association, since the canon maps are done as flat maps, not globes).

Here is a screenshot of all 10 source maps superimposed over each other.

Now it's time to draw in the coastlines and define my land masses.

[Akashic Soldier]

Your cartography work is absolutely fantastic!

[Shorty Lickens]

Looks darn good.

Do want.

[Hotrod]

Thanks for the kind words!

The second stage of making the map is time-consuming, but pretty simple. I zoom way in (400-800%) and do a 2-pixel-wide trace of the coast, being sure to throw in some wiggles here and there to give it an uneven, natural look, as well as some small harbors and river mouths. I only had to use two non-overlapping source maps for this one: a large map from Atlantis, and a GMG detail map of Nova Scotia. Usually, this part is a bit of a pain, as often have to combine multiple canon maps that do not match up. Fortunately, Atlantis' coastline maps are far more consistent with each other than the canon maps for the other two Palladium-based regional maps I've done.

Status: It took me a couple of hours, but here is the coast outline. This shows the coasts and interior lakes. While you can see some of the river mouths, I'm not doing the rivers themselves yet; that happens after I generate and sculpt the terrain, which the next stage.

[Hotrod]

After working on this project on and off in my free time for the last few days, I'm about halfway through the land sculpt. The mountains are placed and shaped to match the canon maps, and I've done some rough shaping of the lower country. There's still some blending work to be done, as well as defining the river valleys and rivers.

Here's the present state of the map.

[Alrik Vas]

Love the work on the mountains, creates a real map look. Your dedication is appreciated, Hotrod. Always like to see this sort of player support.

[Akashic Soldier]

Absolutely fantastic, I am in awe of your mapping skills. I tried messing around with a few cartography programs a few months back but I just didn't have the time to learn all the finer points. When (if?) Kevin finally approves my dimension book I might see if I can talk him into getting you to do the maps for it.

[Glistam]

This is looking really awesome! I can't wait to see the final result.

[Hotrod]

Thanks to all! The land sculpt is nearly complete. All that's left now is a little fine-tuning of the rivers to get them to go exactly where I want them. I use WILBUR to generate realistic rivers based on the topography, and it can be a little fickle teasing the rivers to go into and through a lake, rather than skirting the edge. I'm on revision #4 right now.

The only significant deviation from the canon map right now has to do with The Valley. The big space in the middle of Atlantis has no rivers running through it, even though it's described as grasslands and forests, climate-wise. I've shaped the terrain to make two separate river basins in The Valley, one running north to the Atlantic coast, and the other running south to the pair of lakes in the southern part of The Valley.

I'll put up the current version as soon as I finish this latest revision attempt.

Question for the group: Are there any maps of Atlantis that depict (or text passages that describe) ley line locations in Atlantis? Is there any text on this? I can find the locations of some nexuses from the text, but I can't find anything on ley lines in the text or maps of Atlantis or the GMG.

[Akashic Soldier]

Question for the group: Are there any maps of Atlantis that depict (or text passages that describe) ley line locations in Atlantis? Is there any text on this? I can find the locations of some nexuses from the text, but I can't find anything on ley lines in the text or maps of Atlantis or the GMG.

Well, we know a nexus point is where two ley lines cross. So each nexus you have means at least two ley lines. However, I don't think there is anything like in Rifts: Japan where it shows you the many Ley Lines of Atlantis.

My question for you -- have you presented your work to Palladium Books yet?

The Map you produced for Northern Gun is excellent and I will be using it in my game.

P.S. Technically, I should be working but I am going to crack open Atlantis, Splynn Dimensional Market and both the South America Books and see what I can find for you.
That said, since we know Atlantis is mostly surrounded by perpetual Ley Line Storms that would also imply that the entire ocean surrounding it is rife with ley lines and "sparkling water" or whatever that special liquid ley line stuff from underseas was called.

[Hotrod]

It's a shame; Japan, England, Russia, Lone Star, Mexico, South America, Eastern Canada, Tolkeen, central Europe, and Australia all have ley lines mapped out, but not Atlantis. The descriptions in Atlantis seem to generalize on settlements and ley line geography, detailing only the most-important or most-interesting locations. I may not be able to do both nexus and cities on the same render of the map, since they tend to overlap.

Is the Bermuda Triangle bordered by ley lines? I know it has a bunch of them inside.

I showed Kevin a few of my maps back in October, and he seemed to like them, but I haven't heard anything from him since. I'd certainly like to make maps for Palladium, but their "unsolicited artwork" guidelines require a dozen original works, and I haven't done that many maps yet. These maps take quite a bit of time to make. Until I have a big enough body of work, these map projects will be for fun only.

I'm glad you like the NG map, though my most-recent upload isn't intended to be a finished product (the resolution isn't great on Photobucket, some of the islands look too blobby, and there are some unresolved design issues; see the other mapping project thread on this forum).

[Akashic Soldier]

Is the Bermuda Triangle bordered by ley lines? I know it has a bunch of them inside.

It is defined by Ley Lines, essentially a "Dimensional Triangle" is a super rare thing and one of the reasons Earth is so special. You can find a little more information on Dimensional Triangles (Essentially three ley lines crossed in the shape of a triangle) in Dimension Book 7 in the Dimension Building Rules.

I showed Kevin a few of my maps back in October, and he seemed to like them, but I haven't heard anything from him since. I'd certainly like to make maps for Palladium, but their "unsolicited artwork" guidelines require a dozen original works, and I haven't done that many maps yet. These maps take quite a bit of time to make. Until I have a big enough body of work, these map projects will be for fun only.

Good Luck. I am genuinely impressed with your work.

I'm glad you like the NG map, though my most-recent upload isn't intended to be a finished product (the resolution isn't great on Photobucket, some of the islands look too blobby, and there are some unresolved design issues; see the other mapping project thread on this forum).

No problem. I trust you will get everything right eventually.

[Hotrod]

The land sculpt is done.

Here is the current state of the map. Elevation, rivers, and lakes are set now. I also used a color gradient to establish a simple temperate climate for all the land on the island (I'll likely refine the climate later).

Here is the current map with a source map superimposed (pg 38, Atlantis). It's not a perfect match, and here are the known discrepancies:
1. There's a few extra rivers, most-notably in the central valley. This is deliberate. Atlantis specifies that this region has plenty of rain every year, so it needs some way of draining. I adjusted the topography to have much of The Valley's watersheds feed into the lake and river system in the south.
2. I put Nova Scotia on the map. This is deliberate, as it showed up when I scaled Google Maps to match the relative positions of Bermuda and the Azores.
3. Four of the marked mountains and hills seem somewhat taller or shorter than the source map would indicate. This is not deliberate; they just turned out that way. I could do a fifth land sculpt revision and raise/lower them accordingly, but since the source map mountains consist of little chevrons and humps, I'm giving myself some latitude. In any case, definitions differ from place to place as to what constitutes a hill or a mountain.

My next step is to refine the climate and experiment with textures to try to show forests and developed areas.

[Akashic Soldier]

Keep up the great work man!

[Braden Campbell]

It's actually amazing how many of Atlantis' geographic features are apparently unnamed. Also, how there are zero ancient Atlantean ruins mentioned...

[Hotrod]

It's actually amazing how many of Atlantis' geographic features are apparently unnamed. Also, how there are zero ancient Atlantean ruins mentioned...

Ancient Atlantean ruins would be an interesting hook.

That's one thing that's struck me as I've been reading through the text of Atlantis. I know the average annual rain and snowfall for each region and city mentioned, but there are lots of vague details, such as:
-None of the rivers are named.
-None of the lakes are named.
-There are 7 major cities in The Valley, but only 3 are named and located. There are 20 minor cities, and less than half are named/located.
-Several major mountains are named, and their exact heights are provided to the nearest foot, but their locations are not given (other than Mount Doom)
-The eastern and southeastern mountain ranges are un-named.
-None of the islands around it are described, and the only one named is Bermuda (I'll cross-reference actual names of the Azores Islands when the time comes, probably)
-I've only found a few scattered scraps of ley line/nexus locations scattered in city and regional descriptive text.

As I stated in the initial post, I'll depict as much as I can, including features that come only from text interpretation. It's funny; the NG map had an over-abundance of features to label, so many that I had to make some cuts (there's an alternate version that only shows the natural geography features and labels, many of which got cut for the master version). With this map, I may have to hunt harder for things to include.

[Hotrod]

World Book 2 puts a lot of emphasis on the forests of Atlantis, especially in the western part. In previous maps, I showed forests simply as a green, temperate color gradient zone, contrasted with yellow plains, mountains, and tundra. This time, I'd like to depict actual woods in a more physical way. To that end, I tried out another technique I found on the Cartographers Guild site.

Here are the results of my first try at making woods.

The technique looks okay from a distance, but I'm less impressed with it up close. The smaller "dot-like" woods are too uniformly round, they're encroaching a bit too much on the rivers and mountains in several places, and there's something about the bumpy tree texture that stands out too much. I'll think on it and take another stab at it later.

[plata_knight]

Just.....plain.....awesome.

[Dr Megaverse]

Wow. This is astounding work Hotrod! Keep it up! I have an insatiable desire for Rifts maps and you're my new fix. Lol.

[Akashic Soldier]

KA bump.

[Hotrod]

I made some more progress over the weekend, but I'm still working on refining the natural geography.

I have a better look for the woods now, but revising their shape is very tedious (working with a 2-pixel brush across what amounts to a picture with 2-3 million pixels takes time). I've also done some work with the water, giving it some texture. I'm also verifying the lay of the land (and woods) against the text descriptions of each region and city's climate.

This is a slow part of the map-making process, and I've been breaking it up with a little more background reading, which has yielded some promising results. I found a detailed description of the ley lines in Splynn in the Dimensional Market book (p50), and that description, combined with some text references in WB2, should give me enough information that I can make a reasonably canon-accurate ley line overlay for the continent.

The ley line work will come later, though. I'll post an updated version as soon as I finish grinding out the natural geography.

[Akashic Soldier]

Great work man, honestly this is awesome.

[Carl Gleba]

Wow! Awesome maps.

[taalismn]

That central Splynn Valley shows up VERY nicely.

[Hotrod]

Status: The Natural Geography is done. Here's the current state of the map. Highlights for this version:
+I revised the woods to look less bumpy and avoid overlapping with key terrain features like rivers and mountains.
+I added in water effects to highlight the coast and show shallower areas. The shallower areas are based on bathymetry (underwater topography) from Google Earth, particularly the Atlantic Shelf and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
+I applied some fine touches with climate color gradients.I airbrushed in some yellow prairie to the central valley's grasslands, and airbrushed in some grayscale around Mount Doom, since this is described as a dead zone (except for the haunted valley).
+I removed the forests in the immediate area of Splynn, since it's described as being surrounded by low, rolling hills and grasslands. This may conflict with the climate map from WB2 (it's hard to tell), but I decided to err on the side of the local description.
+I added in some woods around Xym, since it's described as surrounded by both rocky hills and jungle. This also conflicts with the climate map from WB2.

Though I may do some tweaking, this wraps up the natural geography for Atlantis. The next step will be adding ley lines.

[Glistam]

This is absolutely amazing!

[Hotrod]

Thanks, Glistan!

Status: I've drafted the supernatural geography. The ley line and nexus overlays were pretty simple to execute. Here's a draft, and here's a draft with a source map superimposed. If you have the time, I'd welcome some critiques on the look and placement of the ley lines and nexuses. Of particular concern is the ley lines themselves, which don't stand out as much as they do at 100% zoom (Photobucket won't show the map in full 3350x2700 definition). Ley lines are a balancing act; I don't want them to obscure the terrain, but they need to stand out enough so that they're clearly visible.

This stage involved a lot of interpretation and educated guesswork. Other than a low-definition map on page 22 of WB2, this is what I have to work with:

From WB21: Splynn has 11 ley lines running out of it. 3 of them intersect with other cities (Ki-Talan, Azlum, and Dragcona). 5 go out into the wilderness. The remaining three aren't well-described; all I know is that they do not intersect with the main pyramid.
From WB2: There are 3 pyramids in the Refuge, each 1200 feet from each other. One is on a nexus, the other two are on adjoining ley lines.
From WB2: Alvurron has a pyramid that sits on a ley line.
From GMG, I have ley lines plotted out on Nova Scotia.
And of course, the Bermuda Triangle has two ley lines that show up on this map, along with a nexus.

My interpretive speculation:
-The Splynn nexus is a super-nexus (hence the larger flash there).
-Dragcona sits on a ley line nexus. Dragons have a special status in Atlantis, plus that region is pretty active in ley lines according to the WB2 p22 map.
-Azlum sits on a nexus. There's no mention of this in WB2, but it makes sense, since it's the site of dimensional research.
-Ki-Talan does not sit on a nexus. The Kittani are tech-focused, and the ley line is used purely for logistical convenience.
-Xym does not sit on a nexus. The Metzla rely on their super-powers, not magic. Plus they're described as less-than-trustworthy.
-The magic-rich areas have numerous unconnected ley lines, but no nexuses. I added in ley lines to fill out these zones, but their placement is pure guesswork.

The only thing I haven't done anything with yet is the interior of the Bermuda Triangle/Demon Sea. I'm not sure how I'll fiddle with that (or if I should just leave it be).

[Akashic Soldier]

For the triangle, I think you should do something to indicate the danger of ley line storms there the way they used to put warning signs on old maps, but that might be a bit tacky. As it is, this thing is beautiful. I am almost tempted to kidnap you and tie you up in my basement until you finish doing the entire globe. Your work is phenomenal.

[Hotrod]

That's an interesting idea. Of course, "Here there be dragons" takes on all kinds of new meanings for Atlantis. I was thinking that I could either mark the area with an icon, airbrush chaotic texture into the area, or do both.

In any case, I appreciate the enthusiasm. It's funny; I picked up cartography as a little side-hobby last year so I could make maps for my Rifts novel manuscript. Based on Kevin's reactions to my work at Fanfare, I'd say I have a far better chance of getting a map published than my story ever seeing print.

In the meantime, my next objective is to find a good font to use for the map.

[Akashic Soldier]

I've got about 3,000 professional fonts from my time working in comics. I'll give 'em a look over in the morning and see if I can come up with some recommendations if you like?

And yeah man, it might just be a hobby for you but you are REALLY talented.

[Hotrod]

Thanks for the offer! I imagine you must have some pretty spiffy-looking fonts to wade through; I've never fiddled with professional publishing before. I generally get my fonts from FontSquirrel so I don't have to worry about licensing issues. Granted, using any font for my own fun art projects isn't any legal concern, but I ever want the option to get this map published, then using someone else's professional fonts seems like an invitation for trouble.

Of course, I could just pay for whatever I want to use, but one of my personal rules has been not to spend money on my creative hobbies. All the software I use cartography is open-source and free to use, and I'd prefer to stick to that guideline for the fonts. In any case, it's a tricky choice, since the font needs to be clearly legible at a variety of sizes while still suggestive of an alien society: different, but still easily recognizable.

In any case, each of these maps usually involve a few weeks' effort, and I do appreciate the feedback! If you or anyone else would like to try a hand at making maps this way,this is the baseline tutorial that I use. I wouldn't characterize it as a beginner's tutorial, but I was able to muddle through my first map without a lot of previous experience. I do some things differently, since the tutorial technique is based on randomized terrain, and I have to make topography, rivers, and lakes match up to canon maps and text descriptions, but the fundamentals are mostly the same.

[Carl Gleba]

That's an interesting idea. Of course, "Here there be dragons" takes on all kinds of new meanings for Atlantis. I was thinking that I could either mark the area with an icon, airbrush chaotic texture into the area, or do both.

In any case, I appreciate the enthusiasm. It's funny; I picked up cartography as a little side-hobby last year so I could make maps for my Rifts novel manuscript. Based on Kevin's reactions to my work at Fanfare, I'd say I have a far better chance of getting a map published than my story ever seeing print.

In the meantime, my next objective is to find a good font to use for the map.

Let the maps be the key to get you in the door. Then when you're in you present the novel.

Great job, best maps for Palladium I've ever seen.

[Shorty Lickens]

Actually, I think in the year 2014 we could probably do better.

I'd like a digital, interactive atlas of Rifts Earth. I'd pay for one if I could download it and access it any time.

[Hotrod]

Actually, I think in the year 2014 we could probably do better.

I'd like a digital, interactive atlas of Rifts Earth. I'd pay for one if I could download it and access it any time.

Like Google Rifts Earth? As awesome as that would be, it isn't practical for me. I'm one guy with a laptop and a hobby, and the prospect of dynamically scaling up and down from a world view to a small region like Michigan's Upper Peninsula would involve several orders of magnitude more knowledge, work, time, and computing power than I have. If you want that kind of capability, your best bet is the Rifts NA map that's stickied on this forum. I hear Mobuttu is working on a global version.

Although the actual map I'm making is in far higher definition (Photobucket is showing it at 1/3 to 1/2 scale), and you could zoom in to a point, it doesn't take long before it gets grainy, since it's a bitmap. My computer and GIMP struggle at the current size (about 3300x2600 pixels). On my computer, 100% zoom yields a map that's about 3 feet by 2 feet of screen space (I'm working with an 11-inch screen, so I only see a piece at a time). Of course, I could do the maps in a vector program like Inkscape, but it wouldn't look nearly as good, and most people don't have vector software.

The best I could offer with this technique would be a baseline map with a variety of overlays. I haven't played with Adobe much, but I hear there are ways to do that in a single file.

[CyCo]

Amazing work dude!!

8]

[Shorty Lickens]

WHOOPS WRONG THREAD!


I meant to post that in the Whats Next for Rifts thread.

You are doing fine. I want PALLADIUM to make a digital atlas.

[Hotrod]

No worries. I'd love to see an Atlas out of Palladium, digital or otherwise, even if I have nothing to do with it. The simple hand-drawn maps they have complement individual sections in a book, but they're often spread out through the book and lack consistency. A single good-quality map can condense loads of different information into a single page, allowing the GM and players to establish a common frame of reference.

I wouldn't hold your breath on digital downloads from Palladium, though, especially ones involving anything more than a PDF version of a book. Palladium Books hasn't dabbled much in software since Promise of Power.

[Hotrod]

Status: I've made the city icons and placed them according to the canon maps. Here's a map with an initial placement of icons. I'm mildly irked that the definition on Photobucket is only 1/3 of the actual image size, you lose a lot of detail on these icons. Here's what they look like at 100% zoom.

The icons themselves are modeled after the body parts of the Splugorth themselves. Their huge, central, double-lidded, cat-pupil eye-in-claws and five major tentacles form a wriggly star for the capital city, Splynn. The eye without tentacles is used to mark other major cities, while the tentacle-tip mouth with tongue and teeth is for minor cities. The refuge retreat uses the same icon as Splynn's, but I shrank it down to avoid confusion, since this is a Splugorth-only kind of place.

I went for a physical object look for these icons, and I made them pretty big, to allow enough pixels to work in the eye, claws, teeth, and tongue. I'm not trying to make them look like a real Splugorth (that would be a project in and of itself), but rather a small representation of one, like a button or pendant.

As always, I welcome suggestions/critiques.

There are about 10 more cities that are mentioned in the text in passing that are not marked on canon maps. Only some are named, and only some are precisely located, though the rest have general location information, such as "within 150 miles of Ki-Talan". I plan on including these cities in a later version, though I may need to scale down the icons a bit to do so.

I'm still hunting for a good font to use, too, but I just couldn't resist giving the icons a try when the Splugorth anatomy idea hit me.

[Glistam]

I can't tell you enough just how awesome I find this to be. I love the idea you've done for the Splugorth icons.

[Hotrod]

Thematic fonts for maps are tricky; they need to be legible at a wide variety of sizes, and many fonts have flourishes that either don't show up at small sizes or make them harder to read. For Atlantis, I wanted the font to suggest something evil and arcane.

I'm going to try Yataghan and Metamorphous and see which looks better on the map. Time to start labels.

[Alrik Vas]

/applause

Looking good, Hotrod!

[Hotrod]

Status: I'm sizing, curving, and stretching labels around to make them fit and stay legible. In the meantime, I did a little refining of the ley lines, nexus points, and especially the Demon Sea. Here is a complete, bare-geography version of the map in full definition (click a couple of times to see it at 100%; hope you have a bigger screen than I do).

I may still do some tweaking, but I'm content with the look of the bare map.

[Hotrod]

Status: I've placed icons and labels. Here is the current state of the map. While I may do a little revising to fix errors and optimize, the base map is essentially done.

New Features

+I added city icons for every city I could find in Atlantis. This includes nine cities that aren't on any canon maps.
+The three extra Metzla cities are named in the text, but their locations are "nearby Xym", so I put them in high ground (since their hives are artificial mountains) around a valley.
+The Kittani have three cities half the size of Ki-Talan, but aren't named, and have no location data other than "...within a 200-mile radius of Ki-Talan". I made two of them major cities (over the 3-million mark, hence the eye icons) and one minor (under the 3-million mark). I placed a major Kittani city at the sea for the purposes of being a major hub for maritime trade, since the east coast of Atlantis seems to be fairly stable. The smaller Kittani city I also put on the coast, but further out, and reasoned that it's more of a maritime military base for the Kittani. The last Kittani city I put inland, in its own sub-valley, where two major tributaries to the southern river system come together.
+The three small cities in the north are described in the Azlum section as being minor cities which are 100 miles to the south, southeast, and east of Azlum.

+I added labels for the natural geography, regions, and cities.
+I gave the natural and regional labels a transparent look and curved them with the terrain they label, since they're large and I don't want to obscure the terrain they represent.
+I gave the city labels a solid-gold look, since the icons they go with are solid too. Gold seems an apt choice given the whole megaversal market angle of Splynncryth and his off-the-scale wealth.

+I added in a scale for the map. Since no scale is provided on any canon Atlantis maps, I used Google Maps, which lists the distance from Bermuda to the Azores as 2100 miles (3400 km). On the map, this is 2950 pixels. Therefore, a distance of 500 miles = 800 km =714 pixels.

+I threw in a placeholder north-seeking arrow. It'll hold the place for a fancier-looking compass rose I'll try to dream up later. Most of my compass roses to date have been are very simple, but this project calls for something a bit fancier.

+I added in some geographic references on the map (this way to Africa, etc) since North America, Europe, and Africa aren't far off the map. I liked these features on the WB2, page 38 map. They don't look all that special, but I find they help me establish a good frame of reference. They're all over a bunch of otherwise-unmarked water, anyway.

+I added in borders for the Refuge, Preserves, and Gargoyle Kingdom. This makes for a somewhat incomplete look. Though the text suggests that the Kittani and Metzla have their own regions, these are not marked. Also, the Gargoyle Kingdoms

New issues with the map! I could use some suggestions for how to deal with these.

-I'm unsatisfied with the borders between regions. They look sloppy, and I'm not sure how to fix them yet.

-There's still a major city unaccounted for in The Valley. There are 7 total, according to WB2, but only some are described. I have accounted for most of the rest through intuitive guesswork, but I'm not sure whether or not I should just throw in another eyeball somewhere logical and label it "City". Maybe where the southern outlet of The Valley reaches the sea? Or is it better to stick to what's specifically mentioned in WB2?

-There are 11 minor cities in The Valley that are still unaccounted for. There are 20 total, according to WB2. Do I make more educated guesses and label them "City", or should I stick to what's specifically mentioned in WB2?

-The Azores. I could individually mark these with names from current Azores islands, but I have no clue which is which. These islands don't even approximately match the size, number, and shape of the real-life archipeligo. Do I do some educated guesswork here, or do I just leave it be, since there are loads of unnamed natural features on this map anyway?

-The Great Stone Mountains are unmarked. I actually tried marking the range, but that didn't turn out great due to its twisting shape, which requires part of the label to wind up a little upside-down. Also, this label's length caused it to overrun the Gargoyle Kingdom. Since the other mountain range isn't labeled (or named in WB2, for that matter), I can live with it, unless someone has a better idea. I'd also like to label individual mountains, but Mount Doom is the only one with a precise location (and it would overlap with Kii-Kyl), and many of the others are too wordy to fit nicely on the map.


Though the cartography and research are pretty much done now, there's still plenty to do, including making a compass rose, making a legend, and making a border. I'll have to think on how I'm going to do them.

[Akashic Soldier]

I am too busy to be able to respond the way I want to but I will as soon as I am able. For now I just want you to know that this is excellent. My only "complaint" is I would like the ley lines be a tiny but more prominent so they're easier to spot at first glance. The things you mentioned about the boarders I think are just a problem in the eye of an artist. This thing looks amazing to me!

[Hotrod]

My only "complaint" is I would like the ley lines be a tiny but more prominent so they're easier to spot at first glance.

How's this?

[Akashic Soldier]

Significantly better, but the problem is still sort of there in the mountains and tundra because its "white/grey" on "white/grey". That said, I am sure I am sure being anal retentive. This is fantastic Hotrod, it really is.

P.S.: Oh!!! I just noticed what you did with the demon sea. I love that. That was clever.

[Hotrod]

Yeah, ley lines are tricky in the high ground. You're also at the disadvantage of seeing the map at 1/3 of its true resolution. They become significantly clearer as the map gets bigger. Here's a sample of the area at full resolution.

I'm glad you like the Bermuda Triangle area. I wanted to create an effect that didn't draw the eye right away, but remained distinctive from the water around it.

[Hotrod]

Small update today. I made a compass rose with an Eye of Eyelor in the middle. It seemed appropriate, since the Eyes of Eyelor are emblematic of the signature Splugorth technology of bio-wizardry. I made 2 versions, with two different sizes for the Eyelor eyes. I think I prefer the one with the smaller eyeball, even though the Eyelor eyes are supposed to be over-large in general.