E. Paige Burks
- Aug 11, 2020
- 4 min read

Building Your World With Maps

I thought it would be fun to revisit an old blog post from like 2016! It's fun to see how things have changed!!!

Maps are hard. Especially for people like me who have trouble visualizing what the heck even goes on a map. My most basic map of Gexalatia, from years ago looks like this:

Awesome, right? (It’s okay to say no!)

Gexalatia has come a long way since its early days. Now it looks slightly better, like this:

Definitely starting to be flushed out a bit.

Since then, I've redone the map (digitally!) and now it looks like this:

Now we're really cooking with gas! :D

So what should your map have on it?

1. The easiest place to start was the countries.

So the overall land/continent is called Gexalatia. So far Gexalatia consists of Ymber to the north and Siccita to the south. Once I decided that, building around the two countries wasn’t too difficult. (Since then, I've added in Fornax to the west, and I'm looking forward to expanding more in the future!)

2. Every country obviously needs a capitol city!

For me, the capitol cities are Regius Carmen in Ymber and Celo Cavus in Siccita. I chose to put them at opposite ends of the map for no real reason. That’s just sorta where they ended up. (Also, the capitol of Fornax is Forn. It's nestled in the mountains like Regius Carmen.)

3. Next you gotta add some landscaping.

I decided I wanted Regius Carmen to be encased in mountains, and the royal city is even built into the side of one, making it a great fortress. Enemy soldiers only have three ways to get to Regius Carmen: funnel through a mountain pass, try to make landfall by boat through the bay, or fly over the mountains with dragons. None of these would do much to intimidate Regius Carmen or its citizens, especially since the bay is heavily policed by Ymber soldiers and the country that supplies Siccita with dragons (the creation of Fornax!) is on strike.

For Celo Cavus in Siccita, I decided that it would be bordered on the western side by mountains and be surrounded by open plains. (On the most recent map, the city sits out on the plains, but my reasoning still stands. It's probably pretty easy to defend with dragons on flat ground.) I’m not a military strategist by any means, but I figure it’s hard to attack someone if they can see you coming. And of course, to the north is forest and a pretty large river that runs from the Coracinus Mountains (left-hand side) to the bay (right-hand side). Siccita also has the benefit of being the aggressor. They have Ymber pushed well within their bounds of their country, so the risk of attack on Celo Cavus is pretty minimal during the events of Return to Royalty.

4. Add some character to your map.

So once I added the countries and the cities, my map was looking pretty sparse. This allowed me to decide where I would put rivers and forests and mountains. This also gave me opportunities to really explore the people who live in these regions. So far I’ve really nailed down Ymber, since that’s where most of the action in the series will take place, but I plan to expand on Siccita as well.

In Ymber, from left of the map to the right, we have the northern Coracinus Mountains, where the Limen is hidden, the Abjure forest, the Plains of Aduro, the Forest of the Aife, the Forcia Mountains (now renamed Tercastle Peaks), and the Bay of Antiquus. A wall was built in between Ymber and Siccita during the reign of King Paries to keep enemy soldiers in Siccita and protect Ymber from their attack. It has only one opening along the main road, called the Custos Obduros, which are watchtowers. Anyone who comes to Ymber from Siccita must pass through the Custos to enter, unless they come by water (or by dragon, which we have seen with the Pangere entering Ymber this way. Obviously this creates security issues, but that's not something I plan to address any time soon as it doesn't necessarily relate to the story yet. But it may be something I explore in the future...Perhaps the Pangere will help Ymber create a dragon-force!)

In Siccita, I have so far only mapped the ruins of Dirvo. Before Ymber and Siccita split in two, Dirvo was the capitol city of Gexalatia. Dirvo will feature in book two (now three! As the story has evolved, some of the details were rearranged) of the series, when Nyx takes an unwilling trip there (no spoilers!). The river that runs through Siccita is called the Eluvios, and I picture it like the Grand Canyon, wide and deep. I’m not sure about the forest yet.

Then, in the Coracinus Mountains and to the west, not on the map, is the country of Fornax. Fornax is where dragons are bred. Fornax will also be featured in book two as Nyx and Jet meet some new friends…or enemies…. (We've definitely met them now!)

So that’s all I can say for now, but hopefully this was helpful! Of course, I’m also learning the difference between estates, manors, provinces, etc. There’s so much to building a world! It can get overwhelming, so take your time and let it fill itself out as you go!