Last week, I completed this map of the Western Empire in the Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying Game.
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I'm looking for feedback I can use to improve what I have. In particular, I'm interested in ways in which I might improve the map's aesthetics, readability, and thematic impact.

I have a minor color vision impairment, and I have a pretty unrefined sense of style in general, so I'd particularly appreciate feedback about the color balance. While I think they look spiffy, I'm a little concerned that the gold of the title text and compass might be clashing with the rest of the map.

I'd also appreciate your thoughts on how I might evoke more of the themes of the Western Empire. In the setting, this empire is analogous to the decadent later phases of the Roman Empire. Rivalries and conflicts between the regional houses are a big thing, and there's both a looming civil war and a massive barbarian invasion army massing in the Old Kingdom region to the east. Much of the nobility is into hedonism, petty ambitions, and forbidden stuff. The empire has been around for 6,000 years and is big on military conquest, slavery, gladiator combat, drug trafficking, and magic (including the less savory varieties). It's quite powerful, and the only thing that's kept this country from conquering the world is its tendency to implode due to corruption, incompetent leadership, and civil war. I'd really appreciate any ideas on how to better evoke these themes in the map and frame.


A few notes on the design of this map:
+I like to present these maps as magic maps that aren't hand-drawn, but seem otherwise thematically appropriate to the setting.
+I want this to be usable and nice to look at on a large screen high-definition display or as a large printed map, and this is the largest of three versions of this map that I've created. The map itself out to the neat lines is sized to print at 11x17 inches at 300 dpi, but this particular version is sized to print on a 18x24 inch poster at 225 dpi. I've also made a framed version without the faction-describing panels at the bottom that's suitable for printing on a 12x18 inch poster at 300 dpi.
+I created the Compass Rose to look like an in-game compass. I know that there are normally 360 degrees in a compass, but the Western Empire uses 120 degrees in their shiny gold compasses since they care more about looking fabulous while conquering the world than they do about precision navigation.
+The frame background is a blood marble texture I created; blood marble is a mineral found in one of the mapped regions, and it seemed an apt metaphor for a violent empire on the precipice of foreign and civil war.
+The wraparound inscription is thematic and isn't important to the map's function. I put it in because I think it looks cool and it gives me a chance to work in some of the subject's themes directly.