Cats + Cartography is a series where I post a map I’ve made along with a picture of our cat.
Semyadon (Seed Home) is a setting map I made shortly after moving to Calgary in 2018. I was breaking in a brand new notebook and pack of micron pens and wanted to try my hand at making a fantasy setting from scratch (mostly).I was playing a lot of Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds at the time and I was enamored with the idea of a small island sandbox similar to PUBG’s Erangel: a 6 kilometre across area dotted with settlements, a few towns, one big city, and a variety of unique locales. Most fantasy roleplaying game settings are sprawling and vast, but tend to be pretty empty. Erangel by contrast is filled with stuff, and was a big reminder of just how much you can have going on in a 6km area.
From that came Seed Home, an idea for a small sandbox surrounded by a maelstrom of storms, dotted with ancient storm-shelter like structures underground.
One day I might return to it.Our cat Delilah helped a lot during its development…by which I mean she sat on my notebook a lot.
