Calidar

9 December 2017

Araldûr Topographical Map (Patreon)

Araldûr, Calidar, Great Caldera, Patreon, topographical maps 0

I’ve been very busy working on the next Calidar book, Dreams of Aerie, and as a result I’ve fallen behind on posting my latest Patreon maps here. To get back up to date, I’m going to post a new map each day for the next few days.

First up is August’s topographical map of Araldûr, Calidar’s dwarven kingdom:

Araldûr Topographical Map — *Topographic Map of the Kingdom of Araldûr, Great Caldera, Calidar. This map was created with the support of Patreon patrons.*

This map was produced thanks to the generous support of August’s patrons:

Jesper Andersen, Azure Admiral, Trentin Bergeron, David Chart, Francesco Defferrari, Christopher Desmond, Joshua DiCicco, Paul Dupuis, Bruce Heard, Brian Isikoff, Eric Jackson, Grégory Le Louette, Wendy Lord, Harri Mäki, Nate Mangion, Gordon McCormick, Anna B Meyer, Sverre Midthjell, Hervé Musseau, Wolfgang Neckel, Cameron Paine, Thomas Pizard, Dave Poppel, Stephen Rider, Friedrich Röhrer-Ertl, Jeff Scifert, Robert Slaughter, Erin D Smale, Joshua Starnes, Kurt Stoffer, Maciej Szydłowski, Charles Tait, Sandra Tait, Greg Traeger, Douglas Zielsdorf.

Here’s an excerpt from the post for this map over at Patreon:

The mountains and valleys received a great deal of attention during the sculpting and erosion processes back in 2014, and I’ve been wanting to show them off properly for years. The twisting canyon-like valley running south from the central valley area out to the Inner Sea of the Prophets in particular took a lot of tweaking to make it work properly.

I’ve been slowly revising how I depict water depth, in an effort to make more of an obvious gradation. You can see the results here, with shallow/coastal, sea, and deep sea areas. I’ve also tweaked the ripples round the coasts, but I’m still on the fence about this version. The problem is that shallow coastal water makes my previous light ripple effect almost invisible. Perhaps I just need to reduce the opacity of these new ripples to make them merge in a bit more.

Next up: touring the fjords of Nordheim.

Update (28th January 2018)

I just finished making some major revisions to this map’s labels, tweaking all the positions while making the font size match all the other maps in the series. I also added names of neighbouring countries as well as their regions; added a stronger glow around the mountain names to make them more legible; and got rid of the map border, which was an experiment that hasn’t turned out quite how I wanted it to.

This map incorporates a vertical exaggeration effect into the terrain, which looks great but also displaces the terrain slightly. A plain top-down version of this map is available to all patrons over at my Patreon.

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1 August 2017

Alfdaín Topographical Map (Patreon)

Alfdaín, Calidar, Great Caldera, Patreon, topographical maps 0

July’s Calidar Patreon map was a big one: the Confederacy of Alfdaín!

Alfdaín Topographical Map — Topographic Map of the Confederacy of Alfdaín, Great Caldera, Calidar. This map was created with the support of Patreon patrons.

Courtesy of this month’s patrons. Many thanks to:

Jesper Andersen, Azure Admiral, Trentin Bergeron, David Chart, Francesco Defferrari, Christopher Desmond, Joshua DiCicco, Paul Dupuis, Bruce Heard, Brian Isikoff, Eric Jackson, Grégory Le Louette, Wendy Lord, Harri Mäki, Nate Mangion, Gordon McCormick, Anna B Meyer, Sverre Midthjell, Hervé Musseau, Wolfgang Neckel, Cameron Paine, Peter, Thomas Pizard, Dave Poppel, Stephen Rider, Friedrich Röhrer-Ertl, Mirco Sadrinna, Jeff Scifert, Robert Slaughter, Erin D Smale, Joshua Starnes, Kurt Stoffer, Maciej Szydłowski, Charles Tait, Sandra Tait, Greg Traeger, Douglas Zielsdorf.

As explained on the post for this map over at Patreon:

Mountainous Fëoros in the northwest is home to many of the Elëan — winged elves whose capital is Aërin, up in the peaks of the Elëaras Range. This region also includes Pearcelsus Island and its smaller siblings, which form the northwestern extent of the nation.

In the southwest is the Kingdom of Lathraël, heavily forested and controlling most of the border with Ellyrion to the south. The people here are mostly Sherandol — forest elves — with their capital in Lathias in a clearing between the Silverleaf and Tremblethorn Forests.

Finally, in the east is the Matriarchy of Andolien, liege realm of the confederacy, home to a mix of Sherandol and Meruín elves. The capital, Mythuín, also serves as capital of the confederacy as a whole.

This map also sees the debut of a new forest texture. What do you think?

Next up: a journey through Caldwen in hex maps.

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21 June 2017

Caldwen Topographical Map (Patreon)

Caldwen, Calidar, Patreon, topographical maps 0

Presenting June’s Patreon map: the Magiocracy of Caldwen!

Caldwen Topographical Map — Topographic Map of the Magiocracy of Caldwen, Great Caldera, Calidar. This map was created with the support of Patreon patrons.

With many thanks to all of June’s patrons:

Jesper Andersen, Azure Admiral, David Chart, Francesco Defferrari, Christopher Desmond, Joshua DiCicco, Paul Dupuis, Bruce Heard, Brian Isikoff, Eric Jackson, Grégory Le Louette, Wendy Lord, Harri Mäki, Nate Mangion, Carl Matthews, Gordon McCormick, Anna B Meyer, Sverre Midthjell, Hervé Musseau, Wolfgang Neckel, Cameron Paine, Peter, Thomas Pizard, Dave Poppel, Friedrich Röhrer-Ertl, Mirco Sadrinna, Jeff Scifert, Robert Slaughter, Erin D Smale, Joshua Starnes, Kurt Stoffer, Maciej Szydłowski, Sandra Tait, Douglas Zielsdorf.

For more on Caldwen, including a short overview of the magiocracy, check out my post over at Patreon.

In other news, you’ve probably already heard about the new Calidar book, Dreams of Aerie. In case you haven’t: the Kickstarter is now in progress, and it’s already almost funded. It’s an adventure set on the Flying Circus previously introduced in CC1 Beyond the Skies, and it’s full of mystery, secret societies, and of course Bruce’s usual quirky humour.

Check it out here:

Calidar: Dreams of Aerie Kickstarter

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