The Cartothèque

From the moment i first picked up an atlas at school, cartography has been a persistent and particular fascination of mine. It is the gateway to the world, the closest i’ll ever get to taking in the terrain of so many far-away lands for myself — either because i have but a century in this life and only so much money to spend, or because they never existed in the first place.

I’m not much for drawing, and can never make the time to practise. In writing i always mourn the inevitable dulling that occurs when one squeezes the vivid world of the imagination through the black lead of a pencil. Mapmaking, thus, is my chief artistic outlet, and i can only hope you enjoy the samples i’ve put forward here. Thank you for visiting.

Legend (naturally)

	Our timeline	Counterfactual
Raster
Vector
Not mine

🖱️︎ Click on a map to open it in full size.

Looking at the Big Sky: Mars in 32 AA / 2080 CE

This was meant to be a quick raster-based map i could knock out in a couple days to get to “the fun part” of the further future… reality conspired against me after switching from Windows to Linux and losing Paint.net, alas.

Looking at the Big Sky: The World in 2025

I was trying to go for an “uncanny valley OTL” feeling with this one — where it’s almost recognisable, but not quite the world as we know it.

Paganism in England and Wales

After switching to Linux and finding the raster image editing situation absolutely dire, and always having wanted to pick some skills up, i’ve been trying to learn vector mapmaking. Here’s an early attempt.

England’s most spoken languages other than English

Pomeranian and neighbouring languages

This was to go with an old conlang of mine — really must revive it one of these days…

Earth in 2022 (for Overheaven)

I’d been in a creative slump since the pandemic started, but this map, with its glorious attention to detail, optimistic tone, and ridiculously long lore doc gave me the kick up the bum to start worldbuilding again.

Indigocraft Railways

I have served as the “rail dictator” for a succession of creative Minecraft servers and, as part of my duties, also make maps for the traveller’s benefit.