[WIP] 1000th Map Competition: Elkton, Alarius North Central

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  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer

    I was hoping to have finished this map tonight, but I still have a bit to do.


    Royal ScribeRalfMonsen
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer

    Do we have axial tilt and high/low solstice suns?

    It affects the naming of the temple at the top of the terraces.

    I think I'm more or less finished here, apart from the story. Shout if the labels are too tiny or not easy to see, or if you think I've done something wrong.


    QuentenRoyal Scribe
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 51 images Cartographer

    Do we have axial tilt and high/low solstice suns?

    The axial tilt is 25 degrees.

    Loopysue
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer
    edited September 27

    Thanks, Remy :)

    That's slightly more than the Earth. They really are going to need that temple to go and sit in the sun on those winter days when it barely skims above the crest of the hills on the other side of the valley.

    EDIT: Yeah. Just realised where I got Alderan from. It's only one letter different to Alderaan. Better change that one.

    Royal Scribe
  • Disappointed we've lost the pogoing were-elks now (yes, yes, I know those were just dots marking the lines of the trails-to-be, but even so 😉)!

    And this is the Village of the where? Ah, no, it's the "were(-something-still-to-be-added)".

    Alderun Wood and Lake instead? Alder from the tree, and run from the river, say? And at a guess (knowing nothing much about Star Wars), Alderaan sounds likely a contraction of the real-world star-name Aldebaran, the brightest star in Taurus, the Bull.

    Loopysue
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer

    Oh I see! Yes, I didn't like the dashed lines. Sorry Wyvern! All my elks have four good legs and are big enough to just wade through the snow.

    Still open to suggestions.

    I've changed a few names and written a possible history...


    One possible history...

    The first to come this way were the elves, who escaped the growing noise and fuss of the humans to come and live in harmony with the wilderness. As these things happen, eventually tales of gold and incredible wealth to be found in the hills around caught the attention of the dwarves, and they were not the sort to let an opportunity go by.

    Akiya Pine is said to grow on the spot where the elven queen made her last stand. Some even say that the pine is Akiya – that she transformed herself on the point of death, and that her people likewise comprise the trees of the south facing slope either side of Elkton.

    It was only after they were gone that the dwarves realised the elves had never been wealthy. However, they followed their dwarf instincts and found a pipe (a deep igneous intrusion) of diamonds deep underground through Maws Cavern.

    And what diamonds they were! Big as elks, some say. This is how the settlement they and their human partners built came to be known as Elk Stone, or Elkston.

    The dwarves worked out the diamond mine and moved on. In their wake they left a perfectly good but rather empty settlement, much of which fell to ruin. However, Elkston was now on the map, and eventually attracted a slow trickle of outcasts running for cover – criminals mainly, but among them the various were-folk who had been treated little better than they by the everyday folk of Alarius.

    Today the population is low but steady. Strangely, they are mostly were-folk - mainly were-wolves and were-elk, but there are others among them who are a little more unusual, such as the huge were-boar, Jungen, and the tiny were-hawk, Shinsa.

    Outcasts continue to arrive in Elkston; thieves, murderers - anyone with a price on their head, but for some reason they don't seem to do very well. Most inexplicably vanish within the first year, along with their associated bounty hunters. Maybe they cross the bridge and flee the ghosts of Akiya’s battle along the trails of the lost.

    Royal ScribeRicko HascheQuentenShessar
  • LoopysueLoopysue ProFantasy 🖼️ 40 images Cartographer

    I totally forgot to extend the forest and the cliff shadow where I expanded the map a little to make more room for the legend, so here is the final version uploaded to the competition thread.

    There's a hi res image in my gallery here.

    Royal ScribeRicko HascheQuenten
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