Yantas - Birth of a New World

[sangi39]

i don't know....for me the coolest one is the first two maps, the third one looks alike to earth. But this is interesting ideas, I'm looking forward to see more of it

Haha, that's what Ithisa said back in 2013 "Looks suspiciously similar to Earth..." and I still don't see it, lol.

Then again, which are you calling the "third map"?

The third one you have uploaded, from the 1st page.

?

[Breadstyx]

hey sangi39, just found your forum and was wondering if you had worked on it since november, it's really cool and is super in depth

[sangi39]

hey sangi39, just found your forum and was wondering if you had worked on it since november, it's really cool and is super in depth

Sorry for the late reply, I was away from home when I saw your post and forgot to get back to you when I got back.

I haven't worked on Yantas much since November, beyond some vague thoughts on a possible calendar to throw into the world. I've been focusing what effort I can at working more on the Kovur, especially their languages, since they're non-human and I've neglected them considerably while concentrating more on the human languages of the world, since a) I knew what sounds humans could make already, and b) hadn't worked out what the Kovur could and couldn't pronounce yet.

I haven't stopped working on Yantas, but this is the most up-to-date map at the moment:



I need to come up with names for the island groups that I've added since the post on island names, and there are a number of additional seas and large lakes as well (in north-western Hungas, south-eastern Sirden and western Mistaya, for example) that will also need naming. And, of course, I still need to work on the altitude map, as well as working more on the description of the Empire of the Kusan, and finalise just how exactly magic interacts with the afterlife. So much still to do

[eldin raigmore]

Nice map! IMHO.

[sangi39]

Nice map! IMHO.

Thanks Still needs a lot of work, but I've more or less reached the limits of what I can do with my abilities when it comes to detail.

[sangi39]

I really, really should get back to working on this. I can't believe I haven't touched it at all in like 3 years

[elemtilas]

I really, really should get back to working on this. I can't believe I haven't touched it at all in like 3 years

Yes please!

[sangi39]

Finally managed to find some time between work and sleep to get some minor changes done. I wanted to add in more things like seas and peninsulas and large clusters of islands, so I've made four changes to the map (using the language family map):

1) The sea in south-western Sirden has been expanded more inland, connecting with what has been an inland sea (and I've added three islands to the south of Palvo Island to the west of that sea)
2) I've added a small bit of land jutting out from the Arendan mainland, reaching out to Gimalva Island
3) North-western Hungas is now a cluster of islands, rather than being part of the mainland
4) I've added some extra land mass to north-eastern Hungas and some islands as well, so just so it's a bit more... craggy.

[Creyeditor]

This looks nice. It's a different map style, right? I like it a lot. What do the colors signify?

[sangi39]

This looks nice. It's a different map style, right? I like it a lot. What do the colors signify?

It's one I've used before in the two "Languages of Yantas" threads (one for humans, another for the Kovur).

The cream(?) coloured areas are where human language families are spoken, at around 1AD (in our timeline, which is roughly the period I want to centre stuff around, since it's around the time of the rise of the Kusan Empire in western Sirden), while the light purple areas are where Kovur language families are spoken during the same period (language families here being the ones that are highest "order", so like Indo-European or Uralic. They might be related further back, but it would be next to impossible to say for sure).

The light brown areas in Velkasta have no permanent human habitation so they're sort of areas where no languages are spoken.

The dark brown areas across the continents are high mountainous regions, and the blue is either ocean or inland seas.

[Creyeditor]

The black solid thin lines on the continents are political divisions, I guess? Btw, I read through your thread on the cartographers' guild and I am really impressed (again) by the progress you made and the endurance you have. I hope one day, I will get a comparable details and results for my conworld Frēdauon.

[sangi39]

The black solid thin lines on the continents are political divisions, I guess? Btw, I read through your thread on the cartographers' guild and I am really impressed (again) by the progress you made and the endurance you have. I hope one day, I will get a comparable details and results for my conworld Frēdauon.

Oh, the black solid lines are to mark out where, more or less, different languages families are spoken (at the point of 1AD). So there's a less detailed map from all the way back in... Jesus(!) 2015, that shows the larger ones and misses any exclave areas*:



(you can find more in depth language area maps here and here)



I think I had a few months back then where I had the time to sit down and really focus on things like climate and geography (I wasn't working a full-time job, for example), you can see that in April 2014 I just stopped pretty suddenly, though, and that was down to some pretty big stuff that went on in May that year, and I lost a lot of motivation for anything then. I've never really managed to get back into it after that, but I really want to make an effort now. I have the time again (I have done for over a year now), so I could, in theory, just throw myself back into this like I did in late 2014 to early 2015, and actually make some progress.



On the note of the Cartographers' Guild, it's a damn good resources, and worth checking out. Some of the people who helped me with Yantas went on to write really awesome guides for things like climate. I would highly recommend starting a thread there if you haven't already, and combing through some of the guide-type threads and ask questions if you get stuck.

[Creyeditor]

Ah, I see. I will definitely look at some more guide-type stuff at the cartographers' guild. I basically only know the climate cookbook. When I get started with my first map and have concrete question and longer stretches of time, I will definitely try opening a thread there. Thank you. Also concerning Yantas, keep up the good work. Even if there is not a lot of feedback, people are reading this.

[sangi39]

Probably going about this backwards, but trying to figure out where "major" rivers might go (I know it's probably best to come up with an altitude map first, but I want to go for a mixed approach, i.e. figure out the major mountain ranges, figure out the major river basins based on that, come up with a more detailed altitude map based on that, figure out more detailed river maps based on that, and so on and so on).



I'm very, very unsure about everything that drains into the Dagger Ocean from south of the Mesit Mountains, especially anything draining into the sea in the east, mostly because they're a lot further east, but looking at something like Russia (which I think is around the same latitude) it's just a generall wet area (going by my very basic climate map on Page 3, the entire area ranges from humid continental climate to tundra, which, as I understand it, are pretty, well, wet).

A couple of rivers might start in cold deserts, which I assume, based on the endorheic basin map on Wikipedia, doesn't really happen. And I think the most northern river in the west actually starts in a desert biome, so I'm a bit like "nyeh" about. My only go to with "desert rivers" is Egypt, which, from what I can tell, is maintain entirely from rainfall in a tropical savannah climate, so I assume it's wrong, and either needs to start further south in the Mediterranean climate area, or starts further west, curving round the southern "Spinal" mountain, through a semi-arid region fed by rain water gradually filtering in.



More long term effect of this last concern is that this could impact the range of the northern Nemita languages (which originally I has entirely surrounded by Sirdic languages). If the major river boundary shifts east or south, then the Sirdic languages (which spread along with agriculture), might not expand this far inland at all, expect in instances, for example, where some Sirdic language(s) was(were) adopted by some group that was more predisposed to living in a desert climate.

The downside of drawing language family borders before you properly figure out climate

[Creyeditor]

Has your recent interest in rivers awakened because of Artifexian's (kind of) recent video "How to river"?

[sangi39]

Has your recent interest in rivers awakened because of Artifexian's (kind of) recent video "How to river"?

No, it just seemed like the next best step. Nice coincidence though

I figured I'd done some work on altitude, and climate, so the next most "reasonable" step seemed to be rivers, since, as I mentioned, I can use them to work on more detailed altitude stuff and so on and so on.

[Torco]

I'm glad I took the time to read this thread (though I really should sleep). The maps are cool, and I like the process. The region the map is centered on reminds me of middle earth, but better: no silly mordor.

[sangi39]

I'm glad I took the time to read this thread (though I really should sleep). The maps are cool, and I like the process. The region the map is centered on reminds me of middle earth, but better: no silly mordor.

I should have been sleeping when I was working on that initial river map, lol, so completely get that.

Thank you very much I was somewhat tempted by the idea of something Mordor-esque (I have a magic system that I still haven't decided on incorporating into Yantas, and the mountains around Mordor were raised up by Morgoth, so...), but, yeah, I decided to stick to a geography that was, as far as I can make it, realistic and natural (on the one hand because I don't know if I want to use that magic system, and on the hand because one of the main aspects of that magic system is that it's rarely obvious).

One thing I want to try and keep in mind is "that's good enough", or I'll just keep getting stuck over and over. Like, if I want to focus on the western regions of Sirden, I don't need to know every hill and stream in Konyur.