So I've had this game I played since I was a kid in middle school. Long story short, I read Lord of the Rings, and when the initial sheer enjoyment of the story wore off, I got into using MSPaint to make maps of fantasy worlds and creating stories in my own head where they had their own grand tales and history. Fast forward into my adult years, and I think if I'm going to put in the effort of telling a story of any worth, I may as well see if other people like it.

So if anyone sees this, It's a map for a single continent in a world I haven't really thought of a name of yet. It's weird, I have story ideas and characters in mind, but the place they live is another story. I guess that's part of working from the ground up.

Anyway, with that bit about the Lord of the Rings in mind, I should mention this isn't supposed to be some giant mythic story. Think of it more as simple stories and tales in a world with a unified history, where seemingly inconsequential actions of a character in one story can effect another set, say, a hundred years later.

Main character's friend in story 1 plants a tree sprout. In another story, a branch from that tree snaps, falls, and kills the father of a main character in story 2, causing him to be adopted by by a group of monks, and maybe by ill-chance, he gets put under the tutelage of the one guy in the monastery who got into reading those books that got banned in story 1.

That sort of thing.

For now, I'm thinking something simple, a tale of a merchant traveling with his son through the different parts of the continent shown above (hopefully by that point I have a better model) and having a series of misadventures along the way. Seems like a good chance to build the world, introduce the cultures, and develop what...for lack of a better term, I want it to feel like, in terms of being lighthearted or dark, cynical or idealistic.

If any writers, especially fantasy ones see this, any advice would be appreciated. For now, posting the map and later the place names seems like a way of forcing myself to actually start rather than just putting it off.

Also thinking that later pieces showing particular locations might be done in watercolor rather than this, I think we can all agree the above standard might be decent for a starting point, but not as a map or illustration of the final product, however long it takes to form that.