And a tasty style it is. I'm glad you've returned to it! Those mountains are very effective, and the rivers have about the right level of generalization for a hand-drawn period piece. The landforms are pleasing, and interesting -- all the straits and inlets make one want to know just what the locals are up to, across this landscape.

I do wonder how you'll reconcile the parchment-y sea with the flat white land - will the land get some overall texture too before you're done? I suppose a one-off map could be painted - call it whitewashed - -to get that, but printing with white ink would be a little odd. Heh - write it into your background though if you like - the look you wind up with is worth a little creative rationalization to sell :-).

"Placement off" .... well those blank seascapes to NW and SE will presumably host a bunch of legend, key, scale, cartouche, text, illustration, and whatnot, right? That may be all that makes it feel off balance right now. Or maybe it is feeling to you like there ought to be more of a topographic reason for the sharply indented land shapes - could they be calling for some ridges of at least hills, running SW-NE, to cause the coastline? It doesn't feel like there's much flat land; to me it feels like a pretty rough place.

The labeling: if it's a hand-drawn style, I can see the regional labels getting in there all outlined & blank-filled. Makes 'em legible, for sure. The littlest ones though are a style I don't remember seeing on anything made by hand - they're saying "we are typeset", not to mention expecting them to be *first* laid down with every last other element drawn around them stretches credulity. If I've misread your intent about the hand-drawn-ness, still think about what you're implying about the production method for this.

Oh. <facepalm> of course - maybe your cartographers DO have a nice opaque white ink to work with, and the labels literally ARE drawn across the top of other linework. I don't care if you have that in mind or not, I am SO stealing that rationale :-).