Okay, so this is very tangential topic to mapping... but I got to thinking today about how culture and technology interact with the sorts of things we'd put on a map... i.e. I'm interested in some other aspects of world-building.

One thought, in particular, I've been pondering today regards how advances in technology and knowledge will affect what we see on maps and what the imaginary people that inhabit those lands think about their world. For instance, by the time an imaginary peoples reaches something of a rennaissance level of technology and culture, is there any room left on a local/regional map for mysteries, "haunted forests", "here there be dragons", or other unexplored or wild lands? Or do we have to journey to a distant and unknown continent for these things?

What about Gunpowder? How does is that going to affect these things? Are societies with access to gunpowder inevitably going to look more modern, or do feudal systems and monarchies evolve to meet these challenges?

What do you guys think?