The Urals, Ob & Irtysh

A call out to all those who are still following this blog; I'm still doing a bit here and there on my world, still making maps, which I will probably do all summer as I concentrate on writing.  Here, however, is an update of the Ural Mountains map, now colored:

The Ural Mountains are less stark in the above image; it shows that the 'mountains' are rather low, and narrowest in the center.  Still, they divide the rivers from those going west and south, and those going east and north.  On the east side of the Urals there are two big rivers, the Tavda above and the Tobol below, which meet the Irtysh River just off the map, which then flows along the edge of the map to debouch into the Ob River top right.

The Urals at this point correspond two the modern oblasts of Sverdlovsk and Chelyabinsk - on the map they appear as 'Eykhoth' and 'Kord.'  This is one of the richest mineral producing areas in the world, which was why I decided to assign the area to the Dwarves.  Thus, these are both big Dwarven cities, and the central part of this map is under the Kingdom of Hoth.  The lands around Great Bolger, on the west of the mountains, is 'Bulgrastan,' which is a left-over territory from the Mongol raids, always remembering that the Mongols were orcs (urukai).  Bulgrastan is controlled by a hierarchy of ogres ruling urukai, so it's a mean little region.  North of Bulgrastan is the Kingdom of Bjarmaland, land of the gnolls, while south of Bulgrastan, and showing partly on the southeastern corner of the map, is the great Jagatai Empire ... which I've linked to the real thing. My Jagatai, however, is occupied by orcs.  The history comes pretty close to matching up, although the exact borders are a bit different (my version is larger, as it includes parts that Russia never seized in my game).  Finally, the northeast corner of the map is occupied by the Kingdom of Magloshkagok, or that of the goblins.

The dwarves, then, are in a sea of enemy races, but the dwarves are easily the strongest, most protected force in the region; except for Bulgrastan and the ogres, Hoth is well able to manage their own affairs ... and there is always a way to stir up the orcs or the gnolls against Bulgrastan if need be, as the dwarves are very rich.

Very well.  Further east, I've begun working on this map:

This shows the enormous flatlands between two great river basins, the Ob on the north, and the Irtysh on the south.  Both rise in the mountains that border on West China, and as was shown on the previous map, they inevitably meet.  The rivers are highways through central Russia ... and indeed create a means of travel that extends to the Yenisey, the Lena and the Amur, right across the Asian Continent.  Each of these rivers flows generally north, and are deep.  They have tributaries that are deep as well, and the tributaries run east-west; thus, the Russians in the 18th century were able to ride up a tributary of the Ob, portage to a tributary of the Yenisey (showing in the very top right corner), then ride down the Yenisey in order to find another tributary going even further east.  Roads were unnecessary, as the whole continent could be travelled fairly quickly by water.  This was the manner in which Russia conquered the top of Asia.

Of course, there were no orcs, hobgoblins, goblins and other creatures in the real world, so Russia wasn't met with formidable enemies.  My world, on the other hand ...

The map above is divided into three entities; Magloshkagok on the northwest, the Jagatai Empire in the south, and the great Vostoch Empire, controlled by hobgoblins, in the northeast.  Of these, the hobgoblins are the most warlike; but they are chiefly concerned with threats to the east of their Empire, and the great swamplands (shown above in yellow) of Vasyugan are virtually uninhabited.

I trust the reader is enjoying these.  When I finish the Ob & Irtysh map above, I'll post it again.

Ural Mountains - Rough

I crashed last night from writing early, which for me means I relaxed and worked on a project that requires attention but practically zero creativity.  Yes, you guessed it, another map.  This seems to be all I'm up for doing lately, what with the book sucking up all my creative juices.  When the book is finished this blog should actually get a shot in the arm.

Anyway, this is as far as I got.  The map below is directly east of the Upper Volga map I posted last - in a way, it shows the Ural mountains down the middle:

The only hexes colored are those that show desolate mountains (grey), muskeg swamp (whitish yellow)
and hexes below 500 feet elevation. Thus the Ural Mountains are shown starkly highlighted, right down
the centre of the map.  The rolling hills of the Russian plain are west of the mountains, while
the edge of the great Ob River flatland are to the east. 

I'll post a finished version in a few days, when I have the time to color in the rest.

Upper Volga

I haven't had much time to work on my world - this below took two weeks.  And what with decisions I've made today, that are not discussed anywhere on my blog, I don't know how much work I'll get done in the next few months.

But, here's the Upper Volga map, fully reformatted for the new publisher program:

Just one big flat part of the world.

This was waaaaay, way more work than I expected.  That multiplicity of rivers was a major bitch.  I see that google has made the swampy hexes blue; there are four of them, areas 20 miles in diameter with no civilization in them, even modern civilization.  But then, this is quite a ways north; people in North America really don't conceive how far north Moscow or St. Petersburg is (my world has no St. Petersburg, it was founded by Peter the Great in 1703).

I'm glad this one is behind me.  I prefer maps with lots of mountains.

First C-Ring Map - Upper Volga

To tell the truth, the book is really getting in the way of my working on my world.  Sigh.  I didn't get to work on the cleric sage table, so there it sits, maddeningly five subjects from completion, while I am pushed and pulled by other things.  But those subjects take mental work, whereas remaking maps is relaxing and more gratifying.

Here and there, starting a week ago, I've been working at the first C-Ring map I'm going to post here.  This is C 04 - Upper Volga, in mid-reconstruction:

Russia between Moscow and the Ural Mountains, which are just slightly off the map to the right.
At the low center, the Oka River (from the southwest) and the Volga River (northwest) join
together at Nizhniy-Novgorod, which would today be called Gorkiy.  Gorkiy's importance
derives from the joining of these two rivers.  The Volga flows east to meet the big Kama
River from the Urals.  

It's actually further along than it looks; I've redrawn the many, many rivers and the rest gets easier.  Some of the details at the top of the map are missing; that is only because they are temporarily behind the hexes, as I am layering things.  The best way I find to do this is to sweep through everything that should be on top and then send that to the back.  Then the same with the next type of thing, and the next, until everything is stacked.  As each new group is sent to the back, it puts the first thing that was sent there further in front.  If that makes any sense.  Anyway, first the titles and text go back, then the cities, then the lakes and coast, then the rivers, the roads, the borders and finally the hexes.

The roads on this map that are in pink still need to be redrawn as red, and the borders that are in orange still need to be redrawn in grey.  Some of the lakes need to be redrawn.  And many of the text has light blue borders that need to be cleared off.  Somehow, this happened when transferring from the old to the new program.  Never has before.  C'est la vie.

The more clever among you will notice that the map is 33 hexes wide, and not my usual 30 (if you're even aware there is a 'usual' number).  You might also wonder why I'm starting with C-04 and not C-01.  This is hard to explain.

Each ring has six square maps that represent the point where the direction of east-west turns 60-degrees (there's an orange line running down the middle of the map for the 30th E, 90th E, 150th E, 150th W, 90th W and 30th W parallels).  For the remaining maps of the ring, east and west is always a straight line.  On the map above, the orange line (which is not a boundary, but is the 30th E parallel) can be seen in the top left corner.  The reader can compare this with other maps I've shown in the B-Ring, such as the Yak'Margug Map or the Tunguska Map.  Note how the orange line is always in the same place on either of those maps as it is on the map above.

Now look at the Lofoten Map of north Norway, or the Ob Gulf Map.  Note how there's an orange line, again, but it is through the two corner hexes on the upper right.  This is consistent all around the B-Ring, so that there is a turning map (B-02), then two straight maps (B-03, B-04), then a turning map (B-05), etc., until all 18 maps circle the earth.

I wish to do the same with the C-Ring maps, but while I know that there should be three maps between the turning maps, I'm not precisely certain how many hexes there should be to create those three maps.  The distance is (I think) 94 hexes.  Add that each map overlaps two hexes, and that means that the straight maps should have at least 33 hexes each.  Anyway, the best way to tell is to draw those maps and prove it.

This is all crazy map-making shit that can't possibly interest anyone except crazy, map-making people, but anyway it is all carefully constructed.  C-04 is the first of three straight east-west maps, so once I know that it, C-05 and C-6 are exactly the right dimensions, then I can work out C-01 through C-03.  I used to just make ALL the maps 30 hexes wide, but that was creating problems at the turns, and I knew I'd have to adjust for that.  Anyway, it's just a game, right?  Certainly it's nothing that challenges my brain.

Around the B-Ring

I have been working on maps, but there hasn't been much time to post them.  On Saturday, I got completely around the world (with the B-Ring).  So here are those maps (note the pretty maps are on the bottom):

The eastern extension of Baffin island, which comprises no more than isolated villages.  Like
most of these maps, this will look much more familiar when the coast line is added. 

Across the Davis Strait from Baffin, this is the first real coastline that's emerged since Russia.  This
is the west coast of Greenland, which looks busy - but remember the hexes are 20 miles wide
and are therefore still mostly empty.  The three pink hexes on the far right represent a
piece of Greenland's east coast.

This is the Denmark Strait between the east coast of Greenland and Iceland.  That's Iceland on the
right.  The orange line is the 30th parallel west, and the remaining bits are the east coast of
Greenland.  Nearly all the way around.

And this is the east end of Iceland.  I'm not sure what that bit is higher up, left of centre; I'm fairly certain
it's Greenland stretching towards the east.  Jan Mayan land, for those who might be interested,
should be somewhere on the right hand side - but it has no permanent habitation, so
until I create coastlines for this map, it won't appear.

And this is the coast of Norway above Tromso, with part of Sweden to boot.  This part HAS been
made, and what a difference.  I remember how nasty was that coastline when I drew it - and then again
when I upgraded this map.

This, of course, is northern Finland, Sweden and Norway, with part of the Kola Peninsula of Russia.
The eastern shoreline around the White Sea is mostly occupied by an Elven Kingdom, Ulthua,
while northern Sweden is dominated by Gnomes.  But its a comfort that the left areas on this map,
Lansi, Nordland and Angermanland, are parts of human Sweden and Norway.

Last map; this is mostly the Gnoll Kingdom of Bjarmaland, divided between Glu'Bak, Gaa'Kaa and
Yak'Margug.  As a reminder, the darker gray areas are barren mountains, the lighter gray are
barren tundra and the yellow are muskeg swamps.  Jotunheim, at the top, is mythically
the Kingdom of the Frost Giants.  I haven't had anyone visit yet.

Going all the way around the world, then, that's 18 maps in the B-Ring.  The C-Ring will have 24.  Which is to say I haven't hardly begun to add maps ... but most of the ones above did not take much time, just plotting the few occupied hexes on a big empty nothing.  The coastlines for those will take MUCH longer.

Remember that these are pretty big maps - 600 miles by 700.  Yet it takes many dozens to even map the upper part of the globe. Thankfully, much of the globe is covered by empty ocean, which does not require detailed coastlines or even islands.  The B-Ring is, I think, the only one where all the way around the globe there are no sea-only maps.

But of course I'll have to see.