The Calmiríë Chthonic Railway

It’s been a while since I gave you folks a map, so here, I’m giving you folks a map:

Should you find yourself needing to find a way around the central region of the capital, this should come in rather handy.

On another note, and one less relevant to writing, our 3D printer here at Chez Author chose this last week to break on us, and since it’s a fairly key part of our business that funds, y’know, mortgages and other key writing supplies, we’re gonna need another one. And in this highly inopportune time of economic and coronavirus brouhaha, this means that I am once more resorting to shameless blegging.

So please, if you can, toss a coin to your author. And if you can’t, please reshare. Every tiny bit helps!

(Hell, I may even throw in a 3D-printed esteyn by way of thanks.)

The Worlds Revealed

Posted by Associated Worlds

In partial apology for the lack of artwork thus far, I bring you a map of the Associated Worlds, constellation by constellation!

[The Associated Worlds]

(Click through for the full version. Caution: it’s a big image, 3049 x 3030.)

Key-wise, gold constellations represent the Imperial Core and Fringe, blue the mainstream Associated Worlds, purple the Expansion Regions, and green the Periphery. Red constellations represent the off-the-edge-of-the-map places, namely the Leviathan Consciousness and the connected constellations of the Voniensa Republic. Thin lines are interconstellation stargate connections; thick lines are special high-capacity arterials.

The major connected sets of those are the Worlds’ major trade routes: in green, the Lethíäza Trade Spine; in red, the Mercantile Corridor; and a rough circle in black at the edge of the major Worlds, except where it shares a link with the Spine between “58” and the Azure Fade, the Circumferential, or Golden Band.

I’ve annotated the approximate locations of the major powers, and also (in small text) of a few minor powers that have been mentioned and about which there might be curiosity.

(Oh, and when it comes to those constellations currently numbered – the aforementioned “58”, “E76”, and “P13”, et. al.? Apart from a couple of potential spoilers, that’s my innovation space/creative breathing room. Pay no attention to the Doylist explanation behind the curtain.)

On Cartography

Posted by Associated Worlds

But first, merry rebirth-of-the-solar-deity day to one and all.

So, let’s see.

So far as maps of worlds go, such as one might be able to make biomes out of…

…well, this may take a little while. For values of little while equal to “I have a map of Eliéra that’s over ten years old and which is almost entirely wrong…

A world bearing little or no resemblance to Upperside Eliéra.

…and the maps of everywhere else are even worse.”

So before I even think about that, it’s time to redraw all the maps. Which I am working on, starting with this one. But let’s just say for now that we won’t be talking about planet surfaces any time soon.

But I am busy putting together the definitive data on the Lumenna-Súnáris System above the atmospheres, which I might have for you tonight if everything goes comically well, or tomorrow if it doesn’t.

And on we go.