WIP: Aardia and the Kyzian Empire

[SumnerH]

Interesting fact 3: This is also true of the Chinese languages but they look the same when written down. Since it is one country they are considered dialects.
Interesting fact 4: The Scandinavian languages are more or less mutually intelligible but since they exist in different countries they are seen as different languages.

Hence the somewhat comedic and somewhat true definition: a language is a dialect with an army.

[Viking]

So if your land had a less decidedly roman/european history (which it doesn't, so for future reference) it would be much more common (to the best of my understanding) to see the "local vulgar" than the fully translated version.

Maybe I don't quite understand the nature of your question and perhaps this is because maybe it was not directed at me and I have not read this whole conversation. That said, in Europe in the middle ages and early modern period a "vulgar" (or perhaps they'd use a word similar to tongue) language would be a language "of the people" that was not a classical language such as Latin or Greek which were seen to be legitimate languages with their own grammars and worhty of study. For a long while during and after the Roman empire Latin was the language of government and the catholic church continued to use it for centuries after though it too developed from its classical routes. It was a big deal when the first Bibles were written in a "vulgar" language instead of Latin/Greek.

Interesting fact 6: The first non-classical language that got some serious study of its grammar and form was Spanish.
(I had to change this from interesting fact 5 due to SumnerH's very valid and interesting point 5 haha)

You may know this already but all the so called Romance languages (A term I feel disdain for due to "romance" also having a second meaning in English relating to love etc. instead of being "Roman like" and yes, I am sure the one derived from the other) such as Spanish, French and Italian all developed from a hybrid of Latin and local words in those specific environments and this vulgarized form drifted further and further from the classical forms.

[Jalyha]

Yep


Was saying, without the rigid structures those militaries and caste systems imposed, you'd be more like to see the language of the common people


I used that terminology because it followed earlier parts of the discussion.


And yeah... I think the "Romance" vs "Roman" thing is why people say (of either French, Italian, or sometimes both) "It's the language of LOVE".

Lol.


& @ Sumner : Yes and no on the nordic/english thing... I was referring to the splits, not the direction, so yes, it boils down to what you said, but I meant the *degrees* of seperation between them, rather than the path they took Same result, different methodology, lol

[SumnerH]

Shifting gears, I'm playing with some hand-drawn terrain to see if I want to go that way. There are only about 5 unique mountains and 5 hills here, if I did go with this I'd draw them all or at least have many more variants. Also the lines under the mountains should be split into another layer and be more consistent. But it's enough to get a first impression (and I just got a Wacom tablet so it's an excuse to play with that):



EDIT: I realized I moved the continent layer accidentally and have floating cities in the ocean. Oops! Ignore that, the only thing I'm interested in are thoughts on whether those style mountains/hills are worth pursuing.

In particular I'm going to want some kind of monochrome option for paper printing, and this is one of the better ones. I'll also be pursuing a realistic/satellite-style view as well.

Tutorial I found handy: http://www.cartographersguild.com/tu...e-ps-gimp.html

[SumnerH]

So, extending that idea to the full region for a monochrome map.


I'm not happy with the hills, I think the shading to the right side may be too heavy. Considering. After that: forests.

[SumnerH]

Still working on the hand-drawn map, but also working on an artistic regional map per RobA's tutorial here:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/tu...l-rpg-map.html

First cut:


The labels were just copied and pasted out of inkscape and need the transparent groupings removed, the rivers need to be rendered at higher res and then reduced, lots of other tweaks and cleanups, but it's a first learning experience at bump-mapping and pixel operations and some parts of it look okay.

[SumnerH]

And some forests per:
http://www.cartographersguild.com/tu...-mini-tut.html

Also toned down the ocean color and darkened the rivers/lakes.

And I brushed in some hill variance in some of the regions that should have it. Too subtle? Any tips on hills?

[Lingon]

I like the latest version! The hills are really nice. I think the forests are too dark though, either lightening them or dropping their opacity (or both) would make them fit in with the rest of the landscape better. Also, a tiny nitpick, because I'm like that: the coast in the south tangents the edge of the paper, making it look like the map was cropped and something is missing. I'd suggest giving it some water below it, or cropping the coast away completely, for a more harmonious picture.

[SumnerH]

Thanks for the feedback.

You're right, the forests do look way too dark for the rest of the palette. I think this is maybe a bit too light, what do you think? (Also added some sea floor texture):



The framing issue is a good one, I'll crop it down but I'm going to wait until it's closer to finished. I may also crop out the western continent entirely, haven't decided yet.

[Lingon]

I don't think it is too light, but I do think it is too vibrant. The rest of the land is nicely muted. Lowering the opacity of the forests would probably blend them in more, but you can also play around with the saturation and color balance of the forest layer