Solonor Isle: The First Map

My design doings have continued over the Christmas and New Year break—mainly because I’ve been enjoying myself. I’ve made a slight tweak to the way I work which has already started to pay dividends.

Normally, on a workday, my goal is to complete five ideas and 500 decent design words for Citadel on the Wilderlands. That’s fine as far as it went, but a horror began to loom in my mind: the many, many maps I will no doubt need for this project.

(As you might recall, my mapping skills can be charitably described as “terrible”.)

With that in mind, I changed the “five ideas” portion of my daily work challenge to “five ideas or some mapping”. This has given me the time to work on my basic map of Solonor Island. Behold:

(This took me ages)

More importantly, this tweak has given me the time to also design the art direction and contract for Tommi Salama so he can get cracking with a proper version of my scrawl.

I’m hoping Tommi will have something for me by the end of the month. By then, I plan to have a basic version of the Nemeton village map to send over to Tommi. In this way, I can make slow and steady progress not only on the actual design words but also on the project’s cartography.

As soon as I have Tommi’s version of Solonor island I’ll share it here.

And here's the relevant part of the art order:

This art order is for a full-page portrait-orientation map of Solonor Island.

Solonor Island lies about half a mile from the mainland and is connected to the mainland via a tidal causeway.

Here is the description of Solonor Island from the current draft of Citadel on the Wilderlands:

Linked to the mainland by St. Cuthbert’s Crossing, this tidal island is humanity’s largest enclave on the Skeleton Coast. Roughly three miles long and a half-mile wide at its widest point, almost 1,200 souls call Solonor home. Much of its coastline comprises high cliffs pockmarked by sheltered, inaccessible coves. Two settlements, the village of Nemeton and the small town of Bleakhaven, along with various scattered homesteads, dot the island. Both Nemeton and Bleakhaven stand at the only two points on the island suitable as a harbour.

Got a Question?

Leave it in the comments below, and I’ll do my best to answer it or check out the citadel’s FAQ:

Citadel on the Wilderlands: The FAQ

Since I started working on the Citadel on the Wilderlands I’ve received a constant dribble of questions about the project. I thought it wise, therefore, to create an FAQ.

The GameatoryCreighton Broadhurst

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Creighton Broadhurst is the Publisher of Useful Items at Raging Swan Press. He lives on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity. He is not planning to voyage far.