tlbd: amatuer cartography

 

Fig 1.: The Map of Asaneel, featuring the Tisgan Alps. The Nyrni Sea is the the left of Ritzia and Palai.

Fig 2.: The Map of Akensoya, featuring the Valley of the Sun

 

 

 

I originally had no plans to even design a map for The Last Black Dragon, but that was because the scale of the original story was much smaller and vaguer, TLBD was conceived as a quaint, traditional Western fantasy, in the vein of Tolkien's Shire. In fact the original name for Garni (which is still on the first draft of O'Children) was called Garneyville! This was swapped around, early in first draft writing when I named Marko Beratta and for some reason got incredibly attached to his name even though it was so phonetically different to Aron's name and suddenly Garni was in a country called Aradia and was inspired by Italy and the Mediterranean rather than some vague, drab, British country town. It also changed Aron's background, orginally I hadn't concieved the Aron would be ethnically different to Marko, he was just blond but since I was so attached to his name and didn't want to re-name him, I had to think up the Havri's and give them a reason for being the monarchs of Aradia. 

 

All these little things ended up making Caysa, Aron and Marko stronger characters over all.  

 

This choice to make Aradia a Mediterranean-inspired setting hugely opened up the scope of the world, allowing for the creation of Akensoya-- since I'm pea-brained, I obviously plagerised the real world continents of Africa and Europe when designing the world--  with African and North-African inspirations. Actually, it was serendipitous because by crafting up Asaneel and Akensoya, I was able to solidify the religion and mythology of TLBD, which became a huge personal theme for Caysa and gave the story a final end point in the Valley of the Sun (Faha U Kan).

 

I wish I had the talent and ability to put the maps into the book but unfortunately my impatience took over and the maps were left to the wayside as I went through editing  and cover design. 

 

Ah well, all's well that end's well.