Some Strange Fantasy Maps

Drenai MapThe world of science fiction and fantasy is an excellent place to find strange maps, and few are stranger than the Drenai map posted here. David Gemmell’s Drenai series has prompted a number of fans to map the world depicted in the novels. Most are rather straightforward pictures of the author’s fantasy realm. One amateur cartographer, however, decided to map the world on the basis of the Earth analogues of the various societies portrayed in the series. To do this, he has smashed together the British Isles, France, North Africa, Iberia, Mongolia, Korea, and eastern China. Such a maneuver is odd enough, but the really bizarre feature is the doubling of eastern China. Note how the southeastern subcontinent is formed by two mirror images.

Tetrakon MapMaps used in fantasy game-playing can be quite intricate and sophisticated. Cartographers working in this genre, however, can also get carried away. The political map of Tetrakon posted here is impressively large, as can be gathered from the detail that I have also posted. The map looks fairly realistic at first glance, owing in part to fractal geometry; the use of self-similar patterns allows geographical features to remain distinct as one zooms in on any particular place. The problem is that in the real world, many coastlines are relatively smooth Tetrakon Map detailand straight. As a result, the Tetrakon map has a jarring appearance, as all of the land/sea patterns here are much the same.