Project Qilar - WIP

[Koleeflour]

So I've been working on this worldbuilding project for some time now. Most of what i need is written down, and now its time to nuckle down and do the artwork. Unfortunately my artistic skills are limited to conlanging and mapmaking , guess there's not much shame in that.

If you have any questions about the people, their culture, their world or even about why on earth im doing this (primarily because it's fun), ask away!



Qilar World Map in Kufian (This is before i nailed down the conlang. The labels here make little to no sense.)

[jplet]

I dig the style of these maps; it's simple, but there's a good sense of historicity to them, and they have certainly piqued my curiosity. Some questions to start then:

1a) Can we get some summary definitions of keywords here? I want to know what these are: First Rhual'Akhar, Qilar, and Kufian.

1b) I'd also be curious as to the significance of the Prophet King and his death and why those are important.

2a) Very pressing question: the society depicted in the first map seems pretty well developed to have that many provinces and settlements, but its built around the North Pole! How do they even function? It's cold as heck up there...right?

2b) Follow up question: what about that country/kingdom, which seems pretty small relative to the rest of the world, makes it so significant as to deserve it's own minimap? My suspicion is this answer is tied to the answer for 1b, but how I can only imagine.

Would love to see more from this project! Keep it up!

[Azélor]

a few things:

Why is South Qilahne sitting on the North Pole and North Qilahne located south of the Northern part?
Why is the North Pole not a frozen wasteland? does the planet have a different tilt/atmosphere/something than Earth to explain this?

There are some incoherence with the river system, unless these are meant to be straits.
You have two large inner ''seas'' with multiple rivers flowing outward. If these are really rivers, there can be only one per water body unless there is a major flood going on.
They are too narrow and homogeneous to be straits.

But they are really big lakes with too small water bassin to fill them naturally, unless it is a very rainy climate.
They must be the result of a deglaciation like many lakes in the Northern hemisphere.
or salt water that was somehow trapped when the sea level dropped, like the Caspian sea. If that is the case, while the salt concentration is much lower than the ocean, it would still be too high to drink or use for agriculture. And the rivers would also be salty.

[Koleeflour]

I dig the style of these maps; it's simple, but there's a good sense of historicity to them, and they have certainly piqued my curiosity. Some questions to start then:

1a) Can we get some summary definitions of keywords here? I want to know what these are: First Rhual'Akhar, Qilar, and Kufian.

1b) I'd also be curious as to the significance of the Prophet King and his death and why those are important.

2a) Very pressing question: the society depicted in the first map seems pretty well developed to have that many provinces and settlements, but its built around the North Pole! How do they even function? It's cold as heck up there...right?

2b) Follow up question: what about that country/kingdom, which seems pretty small relative to the rest of the world, makes it so significant as to deserve it's own minimap? My suspicion is this answer is tied to the answer for 1b, but how I can only imagine.

Would love to see more from this project! Keep it up!

Thanks for the kind words! There are many parts about the first map that i need to improve, but im quite happy with the overall style

In answer to your questions,

1a) The conlang (Kufian) is certainly a WIP, the words seem to sort of crop up as i need them and evolve over time, however I have been working on keeping the phonemes consistent, with varying degrees of success. Rhual'Akhar translates roughly to "Holy Empire". It functions similar to a caliphate/monarchy in many ways. For an exact breakdown there, Rhual=Spirits, whilst Akhar = Place or Land. The dominant religion in these lands (which i still haven't thought of a name for) worships stars, and perceives them to be "ancestor spirits". Qilar is the name of the planet.

1b) The Prophet king was an important religious/political figure who united the clans of the northern regions under his new faith. In a sense, he reinforced and slightly reformed the more traditional faiths of the area, in an effort to fight off cultural influence (or as he considered it, corruption) from the southern nations. His new faith spread rapidly to the southern nations. As a result, The city of Nifar El'Rhual'Or became a centre of religion to the people of this world, similar to the Vatican City or Mecca. His death is important because it is here that he became one with the spirits and joined them in the heavens. (Part of the myth is that he and his wife became the star system of Achird , however i need to check to see whether this system is even visible from Qilar's northern hemisphere). Hopefully this answers 2b aswell :')

2a) Qilar is significantly warmer than Earth, and as a result the polar regions are deglaciated. (I did mess up some of the geography of the map however, ill get to amending that at some point). It has incredibly hot summers, and very cold winters. Because Qilar orbits much closer to its star, Summer and Winter are only around 3 (earth)months apart, meaning that there simply isnt enough time for the land to completely glaciate. the lakes do temporarily freeze over however. Being a polar region, night and day are both incredibly long, hence the importance of stars in this regions culture.

[Koleeflour]

a few things:

Why is South Qilahne sitting on the North Pole and North Qilahne located south of the Northern part?
Why is the North Pole not a frozen wasteland? does the planet have a different tilt/atmosphere/something than Earth to explain this?

There are some incoherence with the river system, unless these are meant to be straits.
You have two large inner ''seas'' with multiple rivers flowing outward. If these are really rivers, there can be only one per water body unless there is a major flood going on.
They are too narrow and homogeneous to be straits.

But they are really big lakes with too small water bassin to fill them naturally, unless it is a very rainy climate.
They must be the result of a deglaciation like many lakes in the Northern hemisphere.
or salt water that was somehow trapped when the sea level dropped, like the Caspian sea. If that is the case, while the salt concentration is much lower than the ocean, it would still be too high to drink or use for agriculture. And the rivers would also be salty.

Thanks for the constructive criticism, I would never have noticed the North Qilahne/South Qilahne GLARING oversight! I deffo need to fix that hahaha.
Qilar has a slightly higher axial tilt, orbits slightly closer to its star and is generally going through a hot period, similar to Earth's Late Triassic. As a result the polar regions are deglaciated and relatively temperate (if you dont count the incredibly high seasonal changes).

In terms of the rivers, you're absolutely right. I need to address that. What i was going for was the idea of this region once (perhaps millions of years ago) being glaciated, resulting in a central lowland region with many large lakes/insland seas, and mountainous regions nearer the coast. I'll probably remove the rivers that lead from the inner seas to the outer sea entirely, rather than opening them out into straits. Also keeping them would mean that the rivers are flowing uphill, which i don't need to explain how stupid that would be.