Atlas Elyden #17 - Ahrishen, Virahan & Baatan

Here's the next map in the Atlas Elyden series. Slowly but surely I'm filling out the lands around the Inner Sea :)

You can find an updated key to the map here.

This is the low-res version available to everyone.  Become a Patron at the Acolyte tier for access to my back catalogue of High-res, PSD and textless maps.

This is available to use as per the CC licence on the image itself

You'll note that there is no PDF for Encyclopaedia entries as the Encyclopaedia Elyden is now available to all patrons to view - the post is stickied on my Patreon, and patrons at any tier (even as little as $1 month) have access to it. The PDF is a living document and will be updated monthly as I add content to it. You can find it here.

This map details 3 regions with a close history - Ahrishen, Virahan and Baatan (from right to left, respectively). The seas of Elyden are slowly retreating, and this is one of the areas hit hard by the advancing coastline - so the map includes an inset map showing what the coastline looked like 1,000 years ago.

This is one of the busier maps that I;ve created for this project and, going back and looking at my earlier output, I;ve realised that I;m just adding more labels and areas per graticule than I was before - which explains why the maps are taking longer, as it's the labelling that takes up the most time. I'm wondering if I should tone down the labelling to get more maps finished (I can always add labels later, which is already the case), or should I get the maps as finished as posisble before posting them? I'm thinking of the former - getting them presentable, and then updating as them as required by my worldbuilding. What do you think?

Here's a breif description of the region depicted:

Ahrishen as we know it has existed for less than 250-years, though the region has a long history going back millennia, to the dawn of the Fifth Age. Until a thousand years ago the region bordered the Sea of Pyrea, an extension of the Sea of Propontis that allowed merchant and fishing fleets to ply their trade of the eastern Inner Sea, but the slow retreat of the Inner Sea saw the Sea of Pyrea dwindle, leaving behind a flat expanse of wetlands and saltpans in its wake. This destroyed the economy and way of life that had sustained the region for centuries. The region crumbled into disparate townships and no-less than a dozen separate states that struggled to survive in their changed world. Piracy and slave-raids from Korachan did not help the situation much, either.

This state lasted until the arrival of the so-called Child-Prince, an unageing infant of prodigious supranatural ability, who managed to unify the region in 3763 RM, supplanting an ancient sky-based religion with worship of its own unchanging form. Though its fleets were no-more, the region came to be dominated instead by the river Aresh, which flows for over 2,500 miles west, feeding already rich soils with nutrients due to its yearly flooding. This has led to the region’s adoption of farming of a pastoral and arable nature. Rich cities thrive along the floodplains of this river, each surrounded by dykes and canals that defend against flooding. Between cities live gigantic herds of wildlife, relatively untouched by mortal interference.

The Ahrisheni people have a reputation for hard-work and the land is known far-and-wide for its beauty, which is even recognised by the Korachani empire. Living on the doorstep of Korachan has seen Ahrishen fend off many crusades and incursions into its land, though it’s wet coastline makes invasion from the sea difficult.

Remember you can get exclusives (like PSDs, texless, and high-res versions of the map on my Patreon.