Well, to be honest the map making follows more the "fantasy novel" approach to what's shown and not shown.
It's also because these continents are BIG...(see Oorstemoth example below)
In books, the details on maps tend to fade off at the edges and then in volume 3 or 4 the map magically gets bigger, even though what was in the blank lands was "known" to people.
Although I point out, as you said the "Here there be dragons" quality of real medieval maps where the cartographer just sort of made things up because they didn't know what was in a region.
The only real, truly, blank regions are down near the bottom (and I notice a bit in the far North East.
And that's really the style of fantasy novels that don't expand the map until the story extends.
I didn't put much down in the South East because it's going to get covered up by the legend, and the story doesn't go there yet. The bottom edge in the Southwest is purposefully left blank, because there is stuff down there that most people don't know about and won't until Book II when that region actually gets people visiting it. It's also in "dramatic flux" cities might move for plot development and I don't want to nail them down quite yet.
---Now, as for "wilderness" regions that have plants but no cities??
Those are literally what they appear, there are no "human majority" cities there. There are members of the body politic in those regions, and they have maps of trails/roads/cities, but they generally don't share them outside their community.
Also this map is not all that detailed, and the cities you see, even the small ones, are actually very good sized. There are lots of villages and hamlets you don't see. Each square is basically 100 miles on a side, or 10,000 square miles (about the size of New Hampshire)
So Oorstemoth is about 700 miles N/S and 600 miles E/W, so 420,000 square miles. Which gives Oorstemoth a total land area bigger than Texas, but smaller than Alaska.
Maou asked about where the non-human races are, so I'll answer that here:
1) The Mogradin Association, north of The Council States is about 80%+ made up of Modgriensofarthgonosefren (Dwarves)
2) On Eton, the Vizenheim Empire was also dwarven and was in the Eastern mountain range, Vizenheim mountain is straight south along the coast from Gizzor Del. Gone now, but there are some Modgriensofarthgonosefren villages in the area, but aren't on the map.
3) The Modgriensofarthgonosefren also have several mountain strongholds between the Council States and Oorstemoth (anywhere near volcanoes is a good bet)
4) Gnomes also have several mountain strongholds, as do Goblins and Ogres and some Giants. Some Orcs as well...although there are Orcs all over the place, including nomads on the plains. The Aetos arealso in the mountainous regions. Particularly on the mountain islands between the continents.
5) In the South west, in that very weird swampy region? Lots of I'iskatha
6) Elves are most often found in the woods, or mountain regions in areas without a lot of human cities.
7) Centaurs are in wooded and plains...actually more the plains.
8) There are Satyrs in several different forest regions, generally not near Elves. (who find the Satyrs boorish and primitive barbarians) I note that the pub that Elrose and Trisfelt meet is near a good sized Satyr village/grove.
9) Several desert regions also have I'iskatha
The Gleg'ren are thought to mainly be in the shallower regions of the ocean, the Sea Elves have numerous small islands that are too small for this map.
Edited by user Saturday, May 17, 2014 10:36:16 PM(UTC)
| Reason: Not specified