Touenkoku

[Naeddyr]

Yes, it's a Fantasy China through a Japanese lens for a multiverse of manga- and anime-trope based stories with one side character taking part in all of them. The idea for the setting (using a protagonist who lives at the crossroads of different genre domains and acts as a go-between and a surprise factor) is versatile, and I've had two versions in my head: Elizabeth Ekstrand (Ellie Extra), inhabitant of Not Sunnyville somewhere on the shores of I Can't Believe It's Not Lake Superior, and this one, with Yamada Tarou, normal boy. For reasons I will leave for the reader to figure out, I ended up thinking that making Yamada's story would be easier (because I am probably not going to figure out Minnesota), so here's one part of that multiverse. The previous map I worked on here was for Elysion, a more straightforward JRPG / Japanese high fantasy world that you'll find in this forum.

Touenkoku, the Land of the Peach Orchard, is a really fantastic, high-on-wonder Fantasy China. It is ruled by the Emperor or the Empress, may they reign a thousand years, milk flows and trees grow delicious fruit and animal does not kill animal because all the people are shapeshifting animals. The northern steppes have hordes of galloping horse warriors, or warrior horses, and the south is dominated by oxen in the fields, tigers and cats tend to go into law enforcement, and mice and rats are rich and poor merchants, etc. etc. Gain enough mojo and magic, and maybe your animal forms turns into a qilin or dragon or a justice beast (especially if you're a tiger already), gain enough strength and prestige and turn into a tiger if you're a cat, etc. etc. that sort of thing. The current Empress is a phoenix. Everyone is vegan. Well, maybe they might eat fish and insects, haven't figured that out yet.

The land is divided into five major provinces, eastern Blue, western white, northern Black, southern Red and central Yellow provinces. The capital, Ōkyō, the Yellow Capital, lies in Yellow province, Ōshū.

If Elysion was tied into the multiverse by being a story where a group of friends are the Chosen Ones ported into that world to defeat an evil emperor, Touenkoku is more of a paradise-like background place from where the powers of a group of taoist/onmyodo inspired magical girls originate. Their Magical Girl Magical Pet is a qilin, they wield swords or other weapons, and fight against spirit monsters that try enter Touenkoku by stepping through a portal that the girls opened with a magical scroll detailing divination techniques a couple years back. Besides fighting these spirit monsters hidden within time-stasis bubbles, the qilin is also a high-ranking member of the court whose job is really recruitment -- for example, recruiting young people who could be groomed into emperors later on during their "retirement" to Touenkoku.

For the map, I've chosen to use this map:

File:GeneralMapOfDistancesAndHistoricCapitals.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

as the basis of the style. The shorelines are different from what I usually do, for example: the "puff" outwards, while I tend to "carve" inwards.

But I've also decided to take it slow with this one, so hopefully I won't update too often.