Nate Mangion

Elyden roadmap 2022

Added 2022-02-20 11:37:46 +0000 UTC

A bit late for this (we’re almost 1/6th of the way through the new year already!) but better late than never!

This year, I really want to make a push to get a few long ‘gestating’ projects done, including the Encyclopaedia Elyden and the Atlas Elyden. I’ll touch upon both below.

The Enyclopaedia Elyden

Well, me ever calling this project done isn’t exactly fair as the Encyclopaedia is something that will constantly be added to as I come up with new lore, locations, people, organisations and groups for the world of Elyden.

But… I want to finally have something I can present to patrons who are interested in the world, even if only in a pdf format.

So I've been hard at work the past few months trying to get the close-to-800,000 word document formatted, edited and proofread, which are time-consuming tasks and quite tedious.

I’m doing it alphabetically and am currently almost finished with the letter-T and expect to be done with the bulk of it in a month or two at most.

The document is fully hyperlinked, with abbreviations that can be used to search for any specific category you might be looking for, be it geography, history, religion, technology, organisations, etc.

There are still many inconsistencies with style that need to be standardised across the document, as well as spelling mistakes, entries that are missing hyperlinks, and other minor issues, but I’m confident with the progress I’m making on it.

Once this iteration of the atlas is finished, I am thinking of getting a copy printed for myself and looking into checking on prices for getting it printed in bulk to see if it's feasible to offer it for sale either through crowdfunding or directly from the Elyden site.

As I mentioned earlier, the encyclopaedia will be a living document that I will be adding to all the time. My idea is that once the present version is uploaded to Patreon, exclusive to patrons and possibly for sale on my site to non-patrons, I will upload an updated version whenever there are any substantial changes, for instance after a new map is made and with corrections, updates, and additions to existing entries.

The Atlas Elyden

This one is a bit more involved than the encyclopaedia.

The Atlas Elyden was never intended to be an actual thing - it was a name I gave to an in-world atlas that the maps I was making would have been found in - anyone in Elyden who came across a copy of the atlas would see the same maps that I was creating and sharing.

As the number of maps increased I found myself working on specific areas of the world, and it soon became a conscious choice to map all the areas around the Inner Sea. As that area became more fleshed out I started looking to other more distant regions and started thinking about actually making the Atlas Elyden.

Much like the Encyclopaedia, this will be a living document - one that I periodically update as I create more content.

To bring all these maps together into a document is more than just collecting them into a PDF. Atlases have a particular structure - starting with a key (legend), then moving on to generic world maps that detail things like religions, languages, politics, resources, etc. before moving on to detailing continents and particular geographical or political areas within those continents.

This means I had to come up with a list of maps and pages I need to add before I can declare the Atlas Elyden ‘ready’. Some of those details are:

Contents List: every reference book needs a good contents list. Of course, this can’t be completed until all the rest of the contents are finalised, but the atlas will have a clear contents list. If I ever make a printed version of the atlas I intend the endpages to have a reference showing a world map, with overlaid rectangles and page numbers, similar to the ‘Where’s Where in Elyden’ post. This will also be available in the eventual PDF version, whether or not its printed.
Thematic maps: maps showing populations, demographics, languages, religions, resources etc. I have made a few of these, such as the climate, daylight hours, and timezones maps, but I would need a lot more before I could feel comfortable claiming this collection of maps was really an atlas. So I’ll be adding many of these types of maps over the coming months, focusing on the heart of Elyden - the Inner Sea, Arid Tryptich, Sea of Lethea, Dark Sea and the Surrach regions of the world.
Region maps: the bulk of the atlas, and what most of you are used to seeing. I am updating all the completed maps to make them more presentable and unifying the look across the near-100 maps. In the case of older maps, I’m reading some of the topography to be as detailed as the more recent maps. I’ll be standardising many of the details, which have evolved over the years I’ve been making them. Other maps need more labels and features added. Some older maps with dead space will have new inset text and art added to them to make better use of space.
Art: I want to include as much of the art that I’ve commissioned for the Elyden project into the atlas as possible. I’ve already shared much of this art, edited into atlas pages, providing some lore and context to key ideas and themes of the world. I’m continuing to work with Dominique Van Velsen and Russell Marks to make more artwork for the atlas to help fill out the pages.
Appendix: the appendix will contain the collected nation fact boxes, re-edited and formatted for the atlas. These will have page numbers allowing ease of reference back to the map pages in the atlas.
Index: the biggie. I had started making an index years ago, but gave up when I realised it was a futile exercise until I had a concrete list of what maps will feature in the atlas. Now that I have an idea of what’s going to be atlas I can start working on this - every city, location, and geographical feature that is mentioned on any of the maps will appear in the index, alongside grid numbers/letters and the page number where the main entry appears within the atlas. This will take a long time to get finished, and it’s something that I’ve already started working on now. Funnily enough, this is the part of the atlas I’m most looking forward to seeing completed. There’s something about a complete and comprehensive index for my fantasy atlas that will make me feel as though I have finally made a full fantasy atlas.

I'm working on a page layout for the atlas, which is dictating what the next series of maps will be. Here is a rough layout of what I have planned. Entries marked in an asterisk still need to be made.

Each of the entries below is a 2-page spread:

Endpage*

Contents*

KEY

WORLD MAP*