A Hexal Map of Aerb

[RobertWinslow]

This is a map of The Prime Elemental Plane of Aerb, from the web serial Worth the Candle, by Alexander Wales (link 1, 2).

From the world-building document:

Aerb can be represented as an infinitely tessellating hexagon with an edge length of approximately twenty-seven thousand miles and a surface area of 1.9 billion square miles. Traditional directions on Aerb are determined taking the direction of travel of the sun as one axis ("east" and "west") and then establishing a second axis perpendicular to the first ("north" and "south"). For technical purposes, a six-axis directional system, with the three axes sixty degrees offset from each other, is used.

Here's a larger version (alternate link):





Created With: QGIS, Inkscape, and GIMP.

1. This originally started as a raster map in GIMP. But dealing with such a large raster file taxed the limits of my computer. GIMP would frequently freeze or crash.
2. I vectorized the continents and moved things into Inkscape. This worked well for a time, but eventually Inkscape also started to slow. It was never bad enough to be completely unusable, but sometimes when editing a polygon, the software would stutter and fail to register my action.
3. Finally, I moved things into QGIS. This involved saving the map as a .dxf file in Inkscape, importing that data as a vector layer in QGIS, and then running some processing tools to clean up the data. Once in QGIS, things ran smoothly. I could zoom in and out; QGIS only renders what's on screen, and when zoomed out, it simplifies the render geometry.

To get the final result:

1. I first exported the map from QGIS to a pdf file
2. I imported that pdf into Inkscape to add the info boxes, border decorations (based on public domain graphics), and curvy continent labels.
3. I exported the full resolution raster image, sans the subtle mountain shading, from Inkscape.
4. And finally I used GIMP's Bump Map filter to apply shading using a crude height map.

Design Goals: I was inspired by world maps that look simple from a distance but are revealed to have lots of details when looked at up close. To accomplish both of these goals required having a very large map size. I always envisioned this map as a diegetic object -- the kind of map that might actually exist in the world of the story, unrolled onto some table while the characters discuss their plans.

Semi-Commissioned: I worked on this map slowly over the course of several years, while reading Worth the Candle. I initially made the map as a bit of fan art, simply because I was enthralled by the world of Aerb. A few months ago, when both the story and the map were nearing their conclusion, the author contacted me and asked if he could purchase the rights to use the map in ebook and print media. We quickly worked out a deal. He paid me a fee, and also provided some additional canonical details to include in the map, which never came up in the story proper. His wife had a full-size print of the map made, and it's pretty fun to know that my fan-art is hanging in the office of one of my favorite authors.