Those are great looking maps. Its very neat to see the same exact landmasses represented in two different styles. The second map raises a question about the Mercator style.

Do the colors represent some sort of political or cultural boundary, or is it simply a style choice? I'm not talking about your color use necessarily. I'm talking more generally regarding the use of color in classical Mercator style maps.

For gaming, I'm thinking the colors make for nice kingdom borders. Is that how most RPG mappers use them, I wonder? Is this sort of background info covered in the mapping guides that come with each month of the The Cartographer's Annual, or is it more just a guide to achieve the desired style?