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stratomunchkin — Moonfall and the Seven Realms of Man
Published: 2013-12-24 11:34:43 +0000 UTC; Views: 6043; Favourites: 65; Downloads: 0
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Description
Well, time for an update. I've reworked much of the coloration as well as parts of the geography, added custom icons et. al. Not completely done yet, but for superior to the original, IMO.* * *
An arid world, its people have named it "Moonfall" after the cataclysmic event that created the world as they know it some two thousand years ago. Much of its past is shrouded in mystery and myth, with mighty ruins strewn across the planet's surface (and scattered below its red sands), echos of an age of power and wonder long gone. A shift of the planetary axis and massive tectonic faults - courtesy of the near extinction event - have led to the formation of a peculiar geography, leaving the world de facto cut in two, with treacherous winds, vast and deadly deserts and dangerous salt seas sealing off much of the southern hemisphere.
But as the North slowly claws its way back into the industrial age with the advent of steam engines and the construction of the Great Iron Road endangering the Taranian Empire's trade monopolies, daring adventurers and explorers and caravans, armed with state-of-the-art breechloaders and unafraid of barbarians and Moonfall's deadly fauna begin to pull back the curtains over the unexplored lands...
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Comments: 35
This is awesome! The amount of misteries and stories that this world holds is uncountable!
(And I really like that enormous rift that is breaking apart the continent)
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Thank you!
I'll one day do a remake of the map, or rather a series of maps.
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Lots of nasty and/or valuable stuff.
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Coming from you as one of my favorite map makers I take that as a great compliment!
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This is gorgeous, and a very cool concept! I'd gladly read any book series based in this world, play any game in it, or what any movie of it.
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Thank you. I'm glad you like it.
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This is Mars! But it's axis is inverted; very cool. I really like the layout and the illustration style.
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I hate it when people know their cartography. 
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Ha ha, you can't fool me. It looks great, though!
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Thanks, though it feels like a neverending WIP. I keep changing things, adding things... *sigh*
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The best projects are those that feel like they're never going to end, though. 
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Thanks! I'll do my best.
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May I ask, what's the Pillars of Heaven? Those look the most interesting to me on the map
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They are atmospheric converters. As they were probably the most heavily defended and structurally solid constructions on the planet they survived the cataclysm largely intact. Converter 2 failed and partially exploded six hundred and seventy-four years after Moonfall due to a cascading failure in its autonomous maintenance systems. That - and the fact that Converters 1 and 3 basically run on auxiliary power - is responsible for the slowly deteriorating conditions on Moonfall.
The change is too miniscule to recognize it during one human life time. But if you put someone from 800 A.M. into the setting of 2015 A.M. he would feel it right away: the change in weather patterns and rain frequency, the tiniest shift in atmospheric pressure and oxygen quantity...
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Well, that's certainly not good!
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This is the first map that has legitimately impressed me in a long time. Well done!
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Thank you for the praise, and for the fav.
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I think I see the wreckage of domed cities in the blight.
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Your eyes do not betray you.
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So, from what I understand, the path of bones is a twin monorail line. This makes me incredibly curious as to what sort of technological level the Compact is, as The Hive is the only domed city that appears to be occupied.
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Your observation is half correct in so far as that the Path of Bones *used to be* a maglev rail line. Around 2,000 years ago, that is. Nowadays it's just a long row of strange, sun-bleached pillars leading into a seemingly never-ending red desert. Nobody knows what its original purpose was. The knowledge of the technology behind it simply has long since been lost.
As for the Hive: it's populated, and quite heavily so (it's easily the most populous place south of the Blasted Lands), but aside from its nigh indestructible construction material the people who live by and large there possess no higher level of technology than their northern brethren. I say 'by and large' as there are of course technological remains there, too, that simply are no longer understood. Some places will have 'house ghosts/spirits' (basically, home caretaker holograms), others will have electrical light, etc. Then there's the half-broken dome that got the place its name: the armorplast has been washed dull and bone-white over the centuries by the elements, but it's still more than tough enough to hold the thousands of homes that cling to its steep insides like honeycombs.
There's of course a big "but" in all of this, namely that there is much functioning technology left lying around if you are courageous - or desperate - enough to go looking for it. You can't dig a sewer beneath the Hive without breaching into one of the tunnels that are part of the original domed city's architecture. And nobody knows how deep those go, and what you can find there. People do have a habit of entering them and not coming out again... The same is true for the broken domed cities and most other known and unknown ruins of the pre-cataclysm past.
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Ah. I was hopeful of a tiny enclave of people still clinging to that colonial-era knowledge and skillset, sort of holding it for themselves.
Still, colonial regression of this type is a large part of my own storylines, as nations that have built their way back up strive against rivals in the shadow of a past that is visible, yet untouchable by most...
I wonder what sort of technologies an adventurous sort would encounter in the domes yet to be scavenged. Vehicles? Weaponry, perhaps even the means to learn how to use these technologies?
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Depends. Salvaging larger pieces of technology - leaving aside things like mainframes and stationary machinery whose functions won't be easily (if ever) discerned even by scholars - would largely hinge on them having survived Moonfall and the years directly after it in working and sheltered condition. Even if you stumble across a hovercar in a sealed garage two levels under ground (might have been on ground level at the time of the cataclysm) there's no guarantee that its batteries won't have discharged over time. Avoid that, however, and we get to the greater problem, especially if we're talking personal transportation: it would have been coded to its owner by means of what is basically a (genetic) fingerprint system. Ironically, you might have more luck getting a military vehicle to run. That is, if you get around its defenses first...
By and large, however, everything you can dig from a pre-Moonfall site and can somewhat easily discern the use of will be worth its weight in gold. A combat knife? It'll never go dull, never rust, never break even against the largest pressure you can imagine. Because it's 30th Century material science against 19th Century one.
Sealed medical patches are basically magic to you as an adventurer as their single-use nanites will cure even the gravest wounds, going so far as re-initiating the growth of lost limbs.
A flexitab (extendable tablet computer) with intact hardware? Wanted to store conversations, record millions of pictures and hours of films, keep track of your appointments - and have access to a GPS-based map more accurate than anything any cartographer has access to? Because now you can.
Actual weapons? Civilian and law enforcement ones in working conditions might be hard to get by, as in most cases you would have to infiltrate a vault or ruined dome - and upon Moonfall most of those would have automatically reverted to a defensive stance. That means to get to armories etc. there's a large chance you would have to deal with automated caretaker systems who would see you as hostile invaders. Now, if you were to shut those down, or even better, reset them, you might not only gain access to those civilian-grade armories, but also, if you're lucky, to terminals where you could learn about some of those technologies.
Sealed military bunkers and the like? Lets just say I wouldn't go there, not unless I had gained lots of knowledge of what descending into catacombs and domes and installations running on pre-Moonfall technology entails...
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That would be correct. I haven't fully developed the backstory yet, but the short of it is that a war erupted that wrecked known space. "Moonfall" became what it is when during that war a large asteroid orbiting the planet changed course and broke up on atmospheric entry, giving the planet the shotgun treatment.
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Makes sense. It'd be nice though to see the rest of the 'verse.
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Thanks! Hope you'll like the finished piece.
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