Aetrimonde

If this post is taking a while to load, or you have a large chunk of whitespace in it, not to worry! It’s because today’s post features a map of Aetrimonde, in what may be overly high resolution.

It’s going to be a short post today, although I’ll mention a few pieces of worldbuilding that I’ve worked into the map:

• Perhaps most noticeable is the in-world title of the map, marking it as the product of the cartographers Everson, Courtland, and Wye, of the City of Waystone, in the Kingdom of Waystone. This is not some amateurish map, no: it’s the work of professional cartographers successful enough to have established premises, and who offer a guarantee of accuracy (the “Bonded” in “Bonded Cartographers.”)
• Also of note is the compass rose in the bottom-left corner, and the two latitude-longitude lines extending from it: these are the equator and the Waystone Meridian, marking 0 degrees of latitude and longitude, respectively. If it’s becoming apparent that the City of Waystone is important to cartography, good! Waystone is Aetrimonde’s largest mercantile and naval power, and Aetrimonde’s map-makers adopted the Waystone Meridian as their longitudinal datum because the most accurate charts were commissioned by Waystone’s Admiralty.
• Finally, I’ll point out the evocative names of the major bodies of water on this map: The Storm-Wracked and Restless Seas, the Gulf of Lost Hopes, and Stormbreak Bay. Aetrimonde’s oceans are rough and risky to sail, and they got names reflecting that. Aetrimonde’s jet streams travel the same direction as Earth’s (west-to-east), and most storms travel the same direction. The west coast of the continent is battered by storms, with Stormbreak Bay being a rare safe body of water, shielded by the island to its west. The Restless Sea is likewise shielded by the bulk of the continent, but still occasionally gets hit by bad storms out of the east…and the Gulf of Lost Hopes is named for the many voyages that successfully navigated the southern cape, let down their guard, and were struck by a freak storm that crossed overland.

Now, is this the extent of the world of Aetrimonde? Definitely not: there’s the entire southern hemisphere and the opposite side of the northern still uncharted. It’s tricky to sail out that far from shore…but Aetrimonde’s naval technology continues to improve, and if a GM wants to invent another continent and run a campaign centered on an expedition into the unknown, more power to them!