The Cartomancer's Map

[jshoer]

Sumi and fountain pen inks on bristol, drawn with a dip pen, with additional paper texture added digitally. 17x14".

I think I'm pretty effectively done with this one - hope everyone enjoys it! Here's some of the worldbuilding and fiction I posted on the WIP thread.

This is the map Austable du lo Vellumi, Master Cartomancer of the Barony of Hocaute, 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. The invocation incorporated into the border - translating to "let the map show the land, and [let] the land be [so]" - and the use of specially treated cartomantic inks, along with the mapmaking rituals conducted by the cartomancer himself, create the magic and alter the lands depicted.

Austable changes landforms by pasting fresh paper over the features to be changed, and then drawing new features upon the fresh material. A wise cartomancer cuts the blank material to limit the scope of the changes they have to implement as much as possible. Finally, one invokes the changes by adding cartomantic symbols around them. Usually these include a border, to constrain the magic to a particular region. Scale bars indicate changes in topography. Windroses help invoke changes to fluid flows, including wind and water. When he invoked the changes, Austable also wrote explanatory notes. 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. A limitation of cartomancy is that it cannot affect people or things built by people - which is why those are the only things labeled on this map; they are immutable here!

This is the map that Austable du Vellumi uses for overall maintenance of the Barony. (He works with many cartomantic maps at a variety of scales.) 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. Austable 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.

There's one spot that Austable gave over to his apprentice, who tried to remove a stand of trees. However, he flubbed the ink and his invocation work was messy, and he accidentally not only removed the trees but sunk the land such that it become prone to flooding in rain and high tide. Austable was obviously grumpy about this. He also took a gray-green ink and sketched in the boundary of the lowland and how the road was diverted to more easily cross. He didn't give that apprentice access to the regional map of the Barony again.

[Arimel]

Really creative and neat style! I would not like to be that apprentice, that is for sure. I don't think Austable would have been the only grumpy person as a result of that!

[Marc Moureau]

Very good concept, the annotations are particularly fun to read.

[- JO -]

As Marc said : a very funny map to read, lots of details to discover : great ideas !

[MistyBeee]

A super cool map, creative , different, super interesting. Good job !

[Ilanthar]

Original, imaginative and well crafted!

[jshoer]

Thank you, everybody, for the comments and rep! This is a concept that I wanted to try for a while; I'm glad I finally did it and I'm glad it's enjoyable.

[Yrda]

On first sight I liked the simplicity of this. A very readable map, no colors where no colors are needed. Then - what's that? - I saw the corrected/changed details. Funny idea!