Maps for "Halbgott", a Fantasy Novel
Every Fantasy novel needs a map. Some have even two!
I was approached by German fantasy author Neo Helm to illustrate the maps for his debut novel "Halbgott" (engl. "Demi-God"): The County of Mooringen is the setting where most of the story takes place, a border region of one of the world's smaller kingdoms, verging on the edge of the Cursed Forest, where manhunting Elves and even more sinister forces dwell.
The second map shows the wider world, the continents Amyr and Karega, their capitals, important port cities, mountain ranges, the icy north and the seas between.
The ever-shifting frontier between civilization and the wilderness, also present in the county of Mooringen.
Loving the aesthetics of medievalish maps that are the cornerstones of every classic fantasy setting, I could not resist to add little details that bring the setting to life. Those little illuminations also tell a lot about how the inhabitants (and therefore the fictional authors of those maps) think about the world they live in. From the Cursed Forest ("Verfluchter Wald") where the arrow-ridden coat-of-arms marks the end of the king's authority over the valiant amazon warrior heroine fighting a mountain creature to the far-away seas (of course) filled with the most fantastic marine horrors a bookish mapmaker could imagine.
