Tropan, yet again.

[Diamond]

One of the very first settings I created years and years ago is Tropan, a land whose primary nation (and main baddies) is a theocracy run by necromancers. Over the years, the setting has changed vastly as I began to write stories set in it; every time I think I've got the look nailed down, something else occurs to me, or I have a story idea that necessitates geography changes. A couple earlier versions of this world can be found here and here.

This newest version incorporates everything I've done to date on this setting so far, which is... a lot. (I'm thinking of starting a Wiki or Obsidian Portal site for it at some point.)

Anyway, onto the map. I started with a hand-drawn rough outline, which I scanned and imported into CS2. Creating a new layer, I traced out the land-mass outlines and turned it into a black and white base map. The land is actually three separate layers - two B&W cloud layers with lighting effects and beveled, angled slightly to each other and merged, with another layer on top set to soft light, which contains not only the base terrain colors but another merged layer with a film grain overlay gaussian blurred to break things up a bit.

The mountains were drawn using Pasis' excellent method, and the forests are a simple grass pattern set to overlay. Overall I'm really pleased with the variation and richness of the colors. The rivers, roads, and borders were designed to be as 'non-intrusive' as possible, and I think they do the job. I made the city icons, and the skull and crossbones and compass are CC-licensed images from Wikipedia. The font is Benegraphic on the title name, and Fertigo Pro for everything else.

Eventually I want to do some regional maps in a more antique style, but I think that'll have to wait a bit; I'm burnt out after this one.