Community Atlas: Errynor - The Isle of Zaraq

Wyvern

Having tackled its nominal twin Isle of Zariq, it seemed reasonable to follow-up with the other seamount-tip Isle of Zaraq next, set amid the Frigid or Equine Ocean, about 620 km (385 miles) off the northwestern coast of Alarius. 

As with Zariq, I based Zaraq's appearance on another randomly-generated island from the Red Blob Games website, altered where necessary to suit what was needed here. 

Originally, I'd thought of reusing the Mike Schley overland style from the Zariq map, and reworking that map as the base template for this one. However, part of my reason for participating in the Community Atlas project was to experiment and explore different mapping styles. So this time, I went with the Volcanic Islands style from CA88 for April 2014 instead.

Indeed, I'd intended to use this style for the more volcanically-active Zariq map, till I discovered it doesn't have any actual volcanoes in it! My vision for Zaraq was with a longitudinal volcanic fissure or crustal weak line along the island's N-S long axis, which would only occasionally produce significant fresh lava, more commonly just giving frequent minor earthquakes, small eruptions, or exhalations of smoke and gas.

There were a couple of false starts. This island, like Zariq, is tiny, at about 5¼ km (3¼ miles) long, with "peaks" just 60 m (200 ft) high, so scaling the mountains to look right as sharp-featured hills needed some experimenting. Once that was sorted, the map overall was completed in a fraction the time the Zariq one had needed, largely thanks to the simpler vegetation tools in the Volcanic Islands pack.

That extra mountains-as-hills work had its advantages though, as the look of the symbols reminded me a little of the conchoidal fractures shown by the volcanic glass obsidian, so Zaraq and some of its surrounding islets became endowed with scattered obsidian deposits. These are especially common on Star Isle, which glitters even from a distance, when the sunlight hits it just right!

Apart from the usual wealth of invertebrates, most of the island's inhabitants are seabirds, chiefly when breeding. There are some nasty little lizards with a poisonous bite too, notably in the more northerly of the dense, low-growing, thorny "forests" of the main island, along with some still more venomous giant water spiders that lurk among the marshes surrounding the solitary freshwater lake further north, creatures whose range extends into the northern fringes of the forest cover and across Landslip Bay - they can raft over water using surface tension.

Landslip Bay is the only sort-of safe anchorage for ships, where the best shingle landing beaches lie under the looming cliffs along its eastern shore - hence the name, and remembering the "earthquakes" motif... For some extra spice, there are three deserted structures on the main island's eastern flank, whose natures are noted in the map's accompanying PDF and text-file descriptions. The inhabitants and structures were determined by random rolls using an old set of island generating tables, slightly modified, from the Judges Guild tome, "Island Book One" published in 1978, incidentally.

As for why the structures are deserted, well, the perceptive may recall there was a "Deep-Sea Hag" symbol shown in the lower right corner of Errynor Map 01, which might be related. We'll be coming back to her again, especially towards the end of this set of maps...

Monsen

Map added to the atlas. Thanks for the contribution.

https://atlas.monsen.cc/Maps/The%20Isle%20Of%20Zaraq

Wyvern

Thanks Remy. Missed this update yesterday as I was scrambling to catch the live stream!