Map Progress

It's been a good five years since I started to dick around on the map. I designed layouts, blueprints and old maps for several companies over my times and it's a bit of a personal hobby. So one day I began on Photoshop to pen up a concept for a staging ground for a part on the story, part curiousity and part visual aid, purely to assist the writing.

Dawnfall Beginnings - March/April 2008


I began with the little island Mercurius and Heartbreak Hills, both were ment to be part of a main landmass somewhere but honestly, I drew a blank on where to stow them away.

I made some placeholder names here and there, some just plainly nicked from other games/stories/movies/songs on a count of pure mental blanks at the given time.

Kolarn and Dantarr for instance were named after the character names of two buddies of mine called Kolarnn and Dantar. Heartbreak Hills? Bringing on the Heartbreak, thank the Def Leppard. Mercurius? Freddie Mercury. Most of the names I stuck with but mostly it really just came down to who I talked to and listened to.

The parts that are entirely filled in already have a shitton of lore related to them, hence the massive blank spaces. And eventually I added a continent to the south, no idea why. Felt like I ran out of space, I guess. Despite that, I sorta walled off the north but I opened it again and used that exact reason to wall off and make the hyper enclosed Ellis Isle.

Once again nicked a name ever so shamelessly and didn't change it for a good three years; Theramore Isle.

Southlands - Late '08
Near the end of the year I had a burst of imagination and a lot of free time and came up with the entirety of the Southlands in a matter of a week. I even textured and detailed it to a crazy point, a huge waste of time looking back at it considering I should've put that time to use on filling up more of the white spaces...

Then I added more and more detail to the surrounding areas and figured something out, I made a evaporated river in the desert and I formed a entire region, story, lore and even a religion out of just the names of the mountains and the name of the river; Erin and Eniyes, queen sisters of a semi jungle/amazon tribe.

Eventually I gave more detail to Dawnfall again, such as creating the reason why the west is inaccessible and the now opened path to Ellis Isle.

Later on I decided to dump the remains of the ghastly Lesden back into the ocean as a half sunken rock, think of it as the entire thing being lifted out of the ground and about half snapping off and plummeting back to earth.

Tenador, Varicado, etc - 2009-2013
After a long, long time I added a entire new civilization to the map. In an area called Tenador, which is just crazy enclosed and hyper hostile to outside influence; there live a bunch of highly intelligent collosal humanoids that sorta look like the human version of a T-Rex(say wut) with massive chests and heads but with small arms and janky legs that seem to be under a lot of stress. It's also entirely self sustaining, with mines and a very interesting water spreading system.

Also after a long time I added the outer edges of Varicado so it looks more... seamless.

Some extra details here and there but mostly still empty. Also a few extra touches up north, once again.

Varicado and the Jungles - April/May 2013
What am I stuck on this time? Well I got around to properly adding Varicado as a whole. After fixing up the horribly plain edges to Varicado, I added a whole new zone that's ment to be a little bit more tribal and fierce of a jungle that should make the northern(yet empty) bit look tame in comparison. Decided to make it a little more habitable by adding some traces of aggressive colonization by the Dawnfall Militia that apparently wanna rob the entire place for trade goods, setting for a nice tribe-versus-militia war.

Ellis Isle, Glensworth and Halford - May/June 2013
Added the entirety of Ellis Isle to the place from a previous draft and began to tinker on it. All I really did was get rid of some dated stuff that I changed, such as the old square text zone names to the new font. Eventually I added some ice forming to the north and textured it as well. Then, randomly, I decided to add a island in honor of a good buddy of mine called Glen MacDonald, who's in the US Army as a private, part of a mortar squad deployed in Afghanistan.

He's recently returned, and he did return a slightly changed man, not as social as he once was, calling it living in his own box. In this case, a secluded abandoned island.

Also, in the end I decided to bin the concept of Halford for a whole new designed and a lot more smoothened out Halford. Now the map is looking a lot more complete than it ever has before.

Varicado Update and Current
I've made some huge progress on the plateau that's sitting in the lava lake in the blasted calderra of Varicado. Completely textured it with effects and whatnot, currently working on filling the lava lake and giving the walls a fitting texture as well.

Other on-the-side-projects
There's a end game/end zone place I'm penning up, under the half Dutch name of "Tydverlrn" which translates to Time Lost or Lost Time. It's a designated staging ground for the highest of Gods/dieties to duke out there differences, as well as a home for the "forsaken souls", damned for eternity to work in insufferable conditions.

It's a mere concept but... Hey, it's making me brush up on texture work significantly.