Thanks for the replies! I agree that the rays around the outer groups look a bit awkward, but there was an historic reasoning behind using them. The Chinese viewed the populated regions outside of the empire to be worthy of little attention, and the obscurity of where these "barbaric" peoples lived was what I was trying to give a sense of with the use of the widespread and non-specific ray pattern. It is a bit jarring, alas.

Cheers!

-Gerhard