The Continent of Ithos

[Tiana]

I've been looking forward to showing off this map made for Mage Errant book 4.

I think ya'll are the most likely to zero in on the one very non-conventional detail. The compass is not a compass rose, but instead a weird 10 pointed magic warding circle. The 6 cardinal directions are instead represented in the peaks of the hexagonal ward writing around it, not the arrows within, which are part of the magic 'circle' design. Then the magic circles are continued as part of the design in the frame as well. This was all an intentional design choice to reflect some of the nature of the world and how the people within it interact with it.

Tons of weird worldbuilding details are present within this map, we're both very happy with it I think. There's a lot of really cool large scale worldbuilding concepts involved in Ithos, and I'm really excited about what these ideas might mean in narrative play. Read the books if you want to, and well, enjoy having a look at this map made to go into the novel sized print as a 2 page spread.

[Bindusara]

I find it excellent at first glance, a map i like to dive in!!!

[- JO -]

I really like the precision of the line and the small vignettes. I'm less of a fan of the background for the frame, I find it doesn't really fit with the rest, but that's just my opinion. You did a great job!

[Tiana]

Thanks, Bindusara.

I really like the precision of the line and the small vignettes. I'm less of a fan of the background for the frame, I find it doesn't really fit with the rest, but that's just my opinion. You did a great job!

Indeed. My client had the choice of it with or without the border. Originally I had made it simply on a flat rectangle with a minimal frame, but he really wanted the magic circles theme to be prevalent, so I made this variant which was not planned, so, it really "doesn't fit" as it was not conceived of in the original sketch and only came about in the last couple of stages. So, you are completely correct in your observation of it being a bit different. If I had always meant for a magic circle to surround it, I likely would have done it in a different fashion instead of figuring out how to fashion it in at the last couple of stages. I like it, but hey, you do you. In the end it was his choice which version to make official and this was the one.

This was the original version of the frame.


Thanks for, y'know, commenting, or even just taking a look at my art.