Ashtagon's maps

[Ashtagon]

So among other things, I've been teaching myself to make maps. Specifically, I've been taking early renaissance maps and re-projecting to a standard projection (specifically, Kavraiskiy-7), to make them easy to compare with each other. Their views of the world were sometimes quite surprising.

I've finished two so far.

Oronce Fine's 1531 "double cardiform" map


Martin Behaim's 1492 "Erdapfel" map

[zontoxira]

Is the bloodied strip in northeastern Africa the Red Sea?

[Ashtagon]

It is indeed the Red Sea. It was drawn that way in the source map. I would hope it was an artistic licence, as it should have been known to be normal water even back then.

[Thorf]

Strangely freaky seeing the weird mistakes and misconceptions in a modern style view.

[willpell]

Giving a Fantasy Earth a literal Red Sea would be a nice touch. Make them plenty scared to ever go to Death Valley, that's for sure....

[Sturm]

It's not even clear why the Red Sea was called so, algae, surrounding rocks, or maybe an ancient way of associating the southern direction with the color red. Anyway it would be interesting to have a fantasy world/alternate Earth with magical red floating algae..

[Havard]

Very nice maps Ash!

-Havard

[willpell]

It's not even clear why the Red Sea was called so, algae, surrounding rocks, or maybe an ancient way of associating the southern direction with the color red. Anyway it would be interesting to have a fantasy world/alternate Earth with magical red floating algae..

I was going more fantastic than that. Blood ocean. All blood, the whole thing of it.

[Ashtagon]

When I was really young, I used to imagine the Red Sea was called that because it was literally on fire. Because fire is red of course, and it's hot, and that sea is in the middle of the world's two biggest deserts, which are also hot. And therefore the Red Sea's fires is what turned them into deserts.

Gotta love child logic sometimes.

[Morfie]

Some cultures have traditions associating colours with cardinal points. Red Sea was south, Black Sea was north.

[Sturm]

And therefore the Red Sea's fires is what turned them into deserts.

Well both this and the sea of blood could be nice ideas for fantasy worlds
You could have a nation of efreets and fire elementals in the sea on fire, and imagine how they could interact with other non fire based people

[shesheyan]

And therefore the Red Sea's fires is what turned them into deserts.

Well both this and the sea of blood could be nice ideas for fantasy worlds
You could have a nation of efreets and fire elementals in the sea on fire, and imagine how they could interact with other non fire based people

Excellent start for a fantasy setting!

[willpell]

And therefore the Red Sea's fires is what turned them into deserts.

Well both this and the sea of blood could be nice ideas for fantasy worlds
You could have a nation of efreets and fire elementals in the sea on fire, and imagine how they could interact with other non fire based people

This is already how DND handles one of the Elemental Planes.

[Sturm]

Well not really as a place you can reach by walking is not the same as one you can reach only by magic..

[Khedrac]

There's always Glorantha...

Towards the south things get hotter and hotter - the sea that goes south starts to boil and on land it turns to desert before becoming really hot - the Gloranthan equivalent of an elemental plane of fire is just the far south (far north is ice).

Actual burning sea is covered differently - when at sea you do not want to run into a 'fireberg' (think iceberg but made of fire) which are the result of the Godlearners messing around while at war with a race of sailors.

[willpell]

There's always Glorantha...

Towards the south things get hotter and hotter - the sea that goes south starts to boil and on land it turns to desert before becoming really hot - the Gloranthan equivalent of an elemental plane of fire is just the far south (far north is ice).

Actual burning sea is covered differently - when at sea you do not want to run into a 'fireberg' (think iceberg but made of fire) which are the result of the Godlearners messing around while at war with a race of sailors.

Something like this is also true of the Exalted setting. The four cardinal directions are associated with elements, and the world stops containing any other elements if you travel far enough in that direction. The south is fire, the west is water, the north is air (and also cold), and the east is wood. So if you go all the way south, you get nothing but a chasm of fire beyond the edge of the ground; if you keep going east, you eventually find giant trees growing infinitely up to the Firmament and infinitely down into the bottomless pit.

[timemrick]

When I was really young, I used to imagine the Red Sea was called that because it was literally on fire. Because fire is red of course, and it's hot, and that sea is in the middle of the world's two biggest deserts, which are also hot. And therefore the Red Sea's fires is what turned them into deserts.

Gotta love child logic sometimes.

You would love Earthdawn. The Death Sea (where the Black Sea is today) is a literal sea of lava.

[Ashtagon]

An excerpt from my latest project (A 1708 French world map). I have used the London meridian as a reference point , overlaid with a modern topography map I made earlier. I'm mildly unimpressed with their accuracy for Ireland.

crop.png (195.18 KiB) Viewed 1799 times

[Ashtagon]

This map reminds me of a rather unusual factoid in early modern UK politics: Cornwall and Devon, which are drawn almost twice their actual size in the historic map, had a massive amount of political representation (44 and 26 MPs then, vs. 6 and 10 MPs now). While this was in reality a demonstration of rotten boroughs, what if in a fantasy world it instead represented an incredibly large and populous and politically active southwest of England? That would suggest tin (and perhaps coal and iron too) mining, plus based on location a healthy shipping industry (especially for Bristol, which was a potential contender for Liverpool in Atlantic shipping). This could change the dynamic of the country quite a bit.

[willpell]

This map reminds me of a rather unusual factoid in early modern UK politics: Cornwall and Devon, which are drawn almost twice their actual size in the historic map, had a massive amount of political representation (44 and 26 MPs then, vs. 6 and 10 MPs now). While this was in reality a demonstration of rotten boroughs, what if in a fantasy world it instead represented an incredibly large and populous and politically active southwest of England? That would suggest tin (and perhaps coal and iron too) mining, plus based on location a healthy shipping industry (especially for Bristol, which was a potential contender for Liverpool in Atlantic shipping). This could change the dynamic of the country quite a bit.

I'll have to take your word for it, since you clearly know more about British geopolitics than I do, but I can see using similar logic in more familiar locales. If I were doing a fantasy Britain, the first thing I would do is make it physically larger, as it seems to have a far greater cultural presence than the tiny size of the island would indicate. I mean, if I were judging both England and Russia by their volumes of literary output and conventional folklore, I would think they were roughly the same size. (Of course, I only know them in terms of land area; maybe the population is so dense in England and so sparse in Russia that they really are comparably sized as nations. )

[Khedrac]

This map reminds me of a rather unusual factoid in early modern UK politics: Cornwall and Devon, which are drawn almost twice their actual size in the historic map, had a massive amount of political representation (44 and 26 MPs then, vs. 6 and 10 MPs now). While this was in reality a demonstration of rotten boroughs, what if in a fantasy world it instead represented an incredibly large and populous and politically active southwest of England? That would suggest tin (and perhaps coal and iron too) mining, plus based on location a healthy shipping industry (especially for Bristol, which was a potential contender for Liverpool in Atlantic shipping). This could change the dynamic of the country quite a bit.

I'll have to take your word for it, since you clearly know more about British geopolitics than I do, but I can see using similar logic in more familiar locales. If I were doing a fantasy Britain, the first thing I would do is make it physically larger, as it seems to have a far greater cultural presence than the tiny size of the island would indicate. I mean, if I were judging both England and Russia by their volumes of literary output and conventional folklore, I would think they were roughly the same size. (Of course, I only know them in terms of land area; maybe the population is so dense in England and so sparse in Russia that they really are comparably sized as nations. )

Err, well, England is actually very densely populated these days, Scotland and Wales less so (in fact London now has a higher population that Scotland and Wales combined). If I remember correctly, England is getting close to the Dutch population density!

A lot of England's historic world impact has come from its geology and geography. The geology is so varied there's nearly everything in England (one reason why most geological time periods are named after parts of England and Scotland). This did mean that England then was the European source for some significant things, of which the most notable one is Tin (necessary for making Bronze) - Cornwall basically controlled the world Tin market until the 20th Century. Near where I grew up in Somerset (so still SW England) there are the remains of roman Lead mines, fairly near a place called "Green Ore" (so yes, Copper was mined there). There were coal mines in Somerset, there was just much less than further north (and it probably got used up first).
Don't neglect the geographical location - continental coast on the prevailing wind side with a warm current = mild and wet = lots of good arable land and plenty of small streams for powering waterwheels. (The biggest rivers in the country are small by continental standards.)

One of the bigger problems for the South West is the Somerset levels - basically a fairly large (to us) area of reclaimed swamp, often below sea level (in places the unbelievable maps are correct - the river really does flow underneath the drainage ditch...). Prior to the major effort to drain this area it was fine for pre-industrial people to live in, but it was no use in supporting industrial development. (Now drained, some parts are being "mined" for the peat.)

I think the fact that it has become rotten boroughs shows how populous and economically important the Southwest had been, before increasing industrialisation shifted the population balance north.

[Big Mac]

So among other things, I've been teaching myself to make maps. Specifically, I've been taking early renaissance maps and re-projecting to a standard projection (specifically, Kavraiskiy-7), to make them easy to compare with each other. Their views of the world were sometimes quite surprising.

It's interesting to see the differences between Oronce Fine's 1531 "double cardiform" map and Martin Behaim's 1492 "Erdapfel" map. Did Martin Behaim make the land in his world slightly smaller, or is the map shifted a bit to the right (east)?

I wonder if there is a way to blink between the two maps, to get a better idea of what lines up.

[Ashtagon]

New map is up...

Deviantart Link: https://www.deviantart.com/ashtagon/art ... -757676232

Some questions for further development:

1: For a modern world development of this map, I need to understand the climate better. Given the geography, would Australia's climate and/or vegetation be radically different? How so?

2: Same question for NW America. In particular, that inland sea is troubling for geology purposes. It looks like the southern and possibly eastern coast should generally be unsuitable for harbours, possibly mostly cliff-like. Does that make sense given everything else? How would the radically different coastline affect vegetation and climate?

3: Should I use this Antarctica, or a different one?

Alexis Jaillot 1708 28e k7a.jpg (358.22 KiB) Viewed 727 times

[Big Mac]

New map is up...

Deviantart Link: https://www.deviantart.com/ashtagon/art ... -757676232

Nice!

Some questions for further development:

1: For a modern world development of this map, I need to understand the climate better. Given the geography, would Australia's climate and/or vegetation be radically different? How so?

You need to get yourself a climate map, change the projection and then overlay it on top of this map (and your other maps). That should give you most of the answers, as it will show the Hadley Cells and they influence the weather.

Once you have done that, we can all look at how the Hadley Cells interact with your new placements and see if we think they would influence things like the jet streams.

2: Same question for NW America. In particular, that inland sea is troubling for geology purposes. It looks like the southern and possibly eastern coast should generally be unsuitable for harbours, possibly mostly cliff-like. Does that make sense given everything else? How would the radically different coastline affect vegetation and climate?

Inland seas could be fun for roleplaying purposes.

Again, you need to work out where the Hadley Cells and other weather stuff is going. It would be fun to see how that would work with an inland sea.

3: Should I use this Antarctica, or a different one?

Alexis Jaillot 1708 28e k7a.jpg

Use that one...if you can reconstruct the missing bits.

[Morfie]

Where did the 1708 Jaillot map come from?

It seems to have some errors which don't make sense.

1. Your remark about Ireland.
This here is a map of Ireland by Jaillot. It is quite clearly different to the 1708 map, and closer to a modern map.

2. New Zealand.
In 1708 only the Dutch (apart from Natives) had been there at the time. While it is quite possible the Dutch shared maps with France, they hadn't seen that much of it, and from what they saw they knew there were 2 islands. This map only has one.