Today would have been my grandmother's 105th birthday (she passed away six years ago). She was fond of turtles, so in her memory, I designed this silly little map of an aspidochelone, a giant turtle.

In mythology, the Aspidochelone was a sea creature portrayed as either a giant whale or giant turtle -- a creature so large that it would be mistaken for an island covered with sand dunes and vegetation. Sailors would camp out on the "island," but when the heat from their campfires awakened the creature, it would plunge beneath the waves, killing the intruders.

In my campaign world, one of my religions is loosely inspired by astrology. There are twelve gods depicted as mythological creatures who are shown in the heavens as constellations of stars. They each consecutively take precedence for one-twelfth of the year, when their constellation is most prominent. Each is assigned to one of the four elements, as well as one of three qualities. Chelys, the Aspidochelone, is one of these gods. He represents Water Resolute, "the great sea depths in their untamed but passive state." (The other water gods are: Tuthose, the kraken, Water Ascendant: water in its wildest, untamed form, like hurricanes at sea; and Melquart, the hippocampus, Water Adaptive: water tamed for use in drinking, cleaning, powering watermills, and the like. Chelys' month is the eleventh month of the Common Calendar at the second month of Autumn. (The calendar begins on the Winter Solstice.)

Anyway, here is an aspidochelone.

This isn't intended for the Atlas or the village competition, it's just for fun.