After over a year I’ve realized that since moving back into my WP site that I never placed maps in the map menu. Whoops. So, it’s time to change that and a good place to start is with the largest of my maps. It’s also the gateway to the others.
Tremjara. Long, long ago I thought of it as Ontyre, but Tremjara is a continent on Ontyre. Although there have many versions over the years, the basic shape has endured since the beginning twenty years ago. It’s been so long that I don’t remember drawing the original shape. I do, though, remember some of my reasoning at the time.
Basically, when Tremjara was conceived, my primary purpose was for the nation of Carrdia to be isolated and near the center of the continent. Thus, it’s surrounded by mountains on three sides. I’m not going to go on about Tremjara’s evolution. I did that a year ago. My purpose here is more to share the map in a map location. Please, though, keep in mind that this is a low resolution version.
If you’d like some size perspective, the land area of Pannulus is about the size of Germany and Carrdia is about the size of France.
Since I don’t have anything new to say about the making of the map I thought I’d compare my present day perspective with that of twenty years ago. What I don’t mean is the map’s quality. If you read the other post, or have done so already, then you’ll know that this version is far more detailed than the original. My intent here is about how I use it now as compared to my intentions at the time.
When the map was made, my writing aspirations were more epic in nature. I was consumed with the nations and empires that once occupied the continent. I visualized the rise and fall of each, and of great armies marching.
Then, my life changed, I changed, and years passed. A lot of years. The present version was created beginning in 2015.
All those grand ideas and historical perspectives now reside in the back of my mind (and in a large notebook). They still serve me, but as valuable historical background. Those epic tales also aren’t the stories I ended up telling. Well, not exactly. After all, I have utilized much of the continent for my storytelling.
My first Ontyre short story, Gryphon Gray, was historical and set in Mythwyll in southwestern Tremjara. That story possesses a tenuous link to the novel I drafted in May, Following the Essence Stone.
Riparia’s 5-book series (plus its prequel and Torment Surfacing) occurs in Carrdia, for the most part. Even so, there are adventures that take her beyond its borders in central Tremjara. That includes from the Japharo Barrens in the south to the Colossus Range in the north.
I’ve written countless short stories (Taking Flight, for instance), novellas, and a handful of novels in Pannulus off the eastern coast. Pannulus is also conducting a military occupation on a portion of the Klyndor Peninsula to the north to help protect it from Draskrith. Not that they don’t have enough of their own internal problems (that is the focus of most of the Pannulus tales).
My purpose in shaping Tremjara twenty years ago was to isolate Carrdia from much of the rest of the continent. My bigger purpose, though, was to shape the worldbuilding so I could tell any story in a fantasy setting. I accomplished that.
Actually, I exceeded expectations. I can sit and gaze at this map, or any of the others, and imagine the plot for countless stories. When I look, I see the place, then the people, then the story. I have many sources of inspiration, but few compare to the maps. I couldn’t have asked for more than that.
Christina Anne Hawthorne 