Oshen-Dan-Desh

[Steel General]

First off... Welcome Aboard!

A couple of ideas/suggestions for your map (which is pretty good for your first real go):

1) Lower the opacity on the borders a bit (the dark purple one is what caught my eye)
2) Consider adding some textures to your map for the mountains, forests, etc.

[Diamond]

Yeah, welcome aboard. There's some real knowledgeable and friendly folks around here. (Not me, of course. )

As for your map, it's real eye-catching. I like the crisp continental outline/drop shadow, and the pattern you used for the seas looks really nice with the terrain colors. Like Steel General, I'd recommend toning down the borders a little bit. Since you have a lot of long, narrow coastal kingdoms, it looks kind of distracting to have such bright, neon colors. Maybe lower the opacity of the borders, and in the nations' interiors, do an overlay of the same color as the border, but only at 20-25% opacity? That might reduce the harshness of the border edges and also make it easier to tell exactly what land area each nation encompasses.

Edit: Oh, and I like the name 'Sprawling Undead'. Kind of makes me think of a bunch of liches sitting on the couch watching a football game.

[Ascension]

Diamond, too funny. I love your coastline here, very striking...really makes that pirate city into a major political player. For the forests I would suggest that whatever you decide to do with them just make sure that the edges have a lot of little round blobs sort of halfway sticking out from the main shape (this will suggest tree shapes) and then put a black stroke around the shape and maybe that drop shadow. Nice stuff so far.