The Cartomancer's Map

[jshoer]

I've got a new project that's reached a nice point to show on the Guild!

Austable du lo Vellumi is the Master Cartomancer in the noble court of Hocaute, and this will be the map he uses to practice his magical art.



Cartomancy is a tricky but powerful magic: the cartomancer must first construct an accurate representation of the land as it is, and then alter the map to realistically capture changes to the land. Using glyphs and inscriptions based on the cartouches of cartography - windroses, scale bars, and so forth - the cartomancer casts the spell to make the changes take hold. The more dramatic the changes, the more painstakingly accurate the maps must be, which typically limits the ability of a cartomancer to alter the world with a simple flourish of the pen.

This is the map that du Vellumi uses for overall maintenance of the Barony. Adding a peninsula to shelter a harbor, diverting a river to improve crop irrigation - these tasks and others are within the cartomancer's power here. Other specialized maps are used for targeted applications. Du Vellumi even once accompanied the Baron out into the field as a battle-cartomancer - making trenches appear for the Baron's shelter, erasing orchards to deny the enemy supplies - but he prefers the familiar comfort and slower pace of work of his drafting laboratory.

Here's a closer shot, so you can see some of the detail work I'm doing with that pen a little better -



My plan is to finish out the linework for this map, and then I will take another piece of paper and start cutting out pieces to paste on top to make alterations. Each change will be surrounded by cartouches in another color ink. Until then, I am just having fun with a narrow pen nib and my sumi ink.

Oh, before I started, I searched this forum for the word "cartomancy" and I didn't find anything. Somehow, I was surprised!