Calidar: Emirates of Narwan Topographical and Hex Maps

[Thorf]

Recently I've been working on new maps for Bruce Heard's World of Calidar through a Patreon project. These are the first completed maps, detailing the arid lands of the Emirates of Narwan.

Narwan's deserts are the result of a mix of dry climate conditions and the presence of jinn in the region. The terrain is somewhat of a remix of the real world's Lebanon with the Arabian peninsula, with patchy desert dominated by a number of permanent and season rivers. The Narwani are worshippers of the sun god, Soltan, and their society is strictly monolatrous. The human population coexists and intermingles with the jinn, who are forbidden from holding public positions due to past conflicts.

The map is derived from a smaller scale map of the wider area, known as the Great Caldera (which I previously posted here). Underlying the terrain is a DEM that I created four years ago using Photoshop and Wilbur. I made the DEM at quite a high resolution, so I can create one further level of zoom beyond this map detailing the individual sheikhdoms.

The DEM is coloured in Photoshop, combined with lighting layers generated in Blender using Daniel Huffman's excellent Blender Tutorial, parchment texturing, and vector work from Adobe Illustrator.

The hex map is adapted from the topographic map, detailing the terrain in a rather different way than the topographic map, which I feel is quite complementary. I put a lot of thought into what terrain type to use for each hex, and these choices will eventually be reflected back into the topographic maps when I work on larger scale sheikhdom maps at a later date.

The hex map is composed entirely of Illustrator vector work, though I composited all the layers in Photoshop in order to make use of Photoshop's layer effects.

The public versions of these maps are 150 DPI, while the full resolution versions are 300 DPI.

I've written a little more about these maps on my web site.

[Voolf]

This is pretty darn good map here Thorf. Well done !

[kacey]

Very nice! I like that you did this in two styles.

[Olvyr]

Absolutely love them! Also, I like the Arabian theme going on. Having studied Archaeology of the Middle East, I know a thing about arabian place-names, and those sound very "real" to me. (I don't know if Bab al-Ghannuj is supposed to be a joke, but it made me chuckle)

Those maps are outstanding!

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

[Greg]

Really solid work on both of these pieces, and it's great to see the way they compliment each other.

[Kellerica]

I love both of these. There's something special about Wilbur-made terrain that I just adore. I applaud to anyone who's been able to learn the use of that program, as I can't seem to get hang of it myself. The mountains in particular looks fantastic. Lovely colors, great-looking landscape and interesting lore behind it to top it off - can't wait to see more.

Have some well-deserved rep. How the hell I have managed to miss your work before is beyond me - it is outstanding!

[Thorf]

Thanks for all the comments!

Absolutely love them! Also, I like the Arabian theme going on. Having studied Archaeology of the Middle East, I know a thing about arabian place-names, and those sound very "real" to me. (I don't know if Bab al-Ghannuj is supposed to be a joke, but it made me chuckle)

Knowing Bruce Heard's sense of humour, I'd say it's a safe bet that it's a joke, yes.

I love both of these. There's something special about Wilbur-made terrain that I just adore. I applaud to anyone who's been able to learn the use of that program, as I can't seem to get hang of it myself. The mountains in particular looks fantastic. Lovely colors, great-looking landscape and interesting lore behind it to top it off - can't wait to see more.

Completely agree — Wilbur is awesome, I'm a huge fan.

It took me six months to do the full 40,000 x 40,000 pixel area for this continent back in 2014. I split it up into numerous chunks and knitted them together in Photoshop. Unfortunately my "recipe" is not really very practical for large areas, so I've been researching alternatives to detail the rest of the world.

Wilbur's other problem area is large plains. The mountains are wonderful indeed, but the plains are a major headache.

Have some well-deserved rep. How the hell I have managed to miss your work before is beyond me - it is outstanding!

Thank you very much! I'll try to most more often.

[Tom]

Great work Thorf!! I like both maps, but the hex one is my favorite, it reminds me of the old D&D gazetteer Awesome!

[Wired]

Very nicely done, and both styles look very appealing.