Design Diary: Mapping Hemelin

Hello Secret Door Club!

This month we've been working on a map of the full Hemelin continent! Niels posted a progress post of this almost two years ago, and we've now reached a point in our world building where we feel confident we can create a true, detailed map of the continent.

We started off with the initial map sketch:

We felt this layout was a bit cramped; we wanted more space to explore, and in particular more space for expansive wilderness. So Niels started again to look for a bigger continent. This time the sketch is in color because it gives a bitter impression of the placement and spread of different biomes.

We thought the shape of the content was too scattered and too "open"; we wanted a lore solid shape to make it feel larger. Niels also wanted Druaria to be a much smaller place. The "Dread Wastes" is widening as a concept and being divided into multiple new areas, each with a distinct biome, and deserving of their own name.

Now the map has just about all the elements we want it to have, but we're not sure about their placements yet. We move around different areas and biomes until we reach a configuration that has both a pleasant shape, better reflects our world lore, and creates a nice balance of dangerous places and safe havens.

A good example of this is the new placement of the cloud islands. Before it was a place shrouded in permanent mist, but it didn't have a good reason to be. Now the cloud islands are shrouded in mist created by the boiling sea, which boils due to lava flows from the dread wastes.

A large part of creating a map is considering how each area relates to the other and creating biomes that make sense. They don't have to be realistic - this is a fantasy world where fantastical things happen - but there always has to be a reason for a place to be the way it is.

To create the final sketch we sat down together to review all the names on the map, so you will see a lot of name changes in this iteration. 

The final map will still have a few names and places that are different from this sketch, but we think the shape of the continent is probably going to stay more or less the same.

We hope you enjoyed this preview! The finished map will be published as February's Quest Pack.

Thank you for joining the Secret Door Club! Join our discord server to get the most out of your Secret Door Cub subscription -- Niels is always sharing updates in the Secret Door Club channel 👀

Cheers,
- Niels