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Thread: [WIP] Eärwa

  1. #1
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    Wip [WIP] Eärwa

    I just started work on a map of Eärwa, which is the name of the continent in R. Scott Bakker's fantasy series The Second Apocalypse. Besides wanting a big wall poster of one of my favorite fantasy series's, I'm testing out various tutorials for making fictional geographic features, before leaping off and making my own world out of whole cloth. My experience lies in making maps of real places, which in some ways is easier than making places up, especially for things like terrain elevation.

    Anyway, presented below is my start at the map (the second one), as well as the map found in the book (the thumbnail). My intent is to symbolize some geographic features that are currently represented by text in the book map, like deserts and steppes. However, I haven't settled on a style yet. Also, you can see the mountains I attempted using ravell's tutorial. I'm not quite happy with how they look, but it's a start.

    Comments? Criticism?
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by jetfx; 12-23-2010 at 12:07 AM. Reason: clarifying which is my map

  2. #2
    Guild Adept Aenigma's Avatar
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    This looks interesting but I didn't really find anything about 'The Second Apocalypse' on wikipedia.

    Could you please tell us what the series is about? The title whispers promises of a good reading.
    Yesterday today was tomorrow.
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  3. #3
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    Tolkienesque! The original. Who made the original?
    Last edited by Galendae; 12-22-2010 at 09:57 PM. Reason: ooops looked at wrong map

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aenigma View Post
    This looks interesting but I didn't really find anything about 'The Second Apocalypse' on wikipedia.

    Could you please tell us what the series is about? The title whispers promises of a good reading.
    Certainly! I cannot recommend Bakker enough, yet so few have heard of him. There is actually an entry on Wikipedia about it, just sort of under a different name. The Second Apocalypse is the name for the overall series, but it's divided into two trilogies and one duology. The first trilogy under the name The Prince of Nothing has been published, along with the first book in the second trilogy. The second book in the second trilogy is due in March.

    Anyway the Wikipedia article does contain some spoilers, if you find them bothersome, but it does a decent job outline the story and the world. Basically the story the first trilogy covers a holy crusade to it's bloody conclusion in the world of Eärwa, and the second trilogy starts twenty years later with another even larger crusade attempting to head off a Second Apocalypse. The first occurred a few thousand years before. The tone of the work is very dark, but with heavy emphasis on realism in characters and world building. Most importantly, there is a lot of philosophical material in the series, much of it hinging around the concept of a world where the metaphysics can be altered by the collective beliefs of all sentient beings - a way of criticizing the rigid good-vs-evil conflict in much of high fantasy. If it is physical reality that those deemed good are saved and those deemed evil are damned, but reality is malleable, what if you kill enough those deemed good to be able to change the nature of salvation?

    Quote Originally Posted by Galendae
    Tolkienesque! The original. Who made the original?
    The original is by the author, Bakker, and is found reprinted in the back of his fantasy books. The similarity to the geography Middle Earth is not unintentional, but the similarity basically ends there. Bakker goes in a much different direction than Tolkien, if sticking to a lot of the conventions of epic fantasy.

  5. #5
    Guild Expert Eilathen's Avatar
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    Yep, i can also recommend those books. Very different in style and tone. Very dark and also, Bakker has a quite pessimistic view on mankind. That shows in his novels. The books are for me a love-hate relationsship. The writing is superb and the worldbuilding very deep and interesting. The characters are another thing...not one of them is really one i could root for. And Kellhus is way overpowered...so much that it becomes boring. Anyway, the books still make my top 5 list and that says a lot about the quality of his writing and woldbuilding ^^
    There are some similarities with Tolkien! Nonmen and their fading (elves, anyone?) and when you come to the passage in the first book of the second arc, there is a story line in some mountainhalls... you'll see

    Earwa would make a tremendous rpg setting imho (which is no wonder, as it started as the authors playground with his DnD group).
    I'm trapped in Darkness,
    Still I reach out for the Stars

  6. #6
    Guild Adept Aenigma's Avatar
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    I have put them up on my "things to read in the future" list

    Right now I'm eagerly awaiting The Wheel of time 14 (the final book) whilst I'm reading the sword of Truth (gonna begin reading book 4 soon).
    Yesterday today was tomorrow.
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