Late last week and into the weekend, I spent a great deal of time sketching the map for the Empire of the Blue Sands. This land and its people are mentioned briefly in Frendyl Krune and the Stone Princess, but have been in development for quite a few years. Since beginning the most recent and final iteration of The Soulbound Curse, I've spent time working through what lands beyond the Amüli Kingdom (later, the Amüli Republic) might look like, what differences their peoples may have compared to the Amüli Kingdom, the various cultures, and the reasons behind those cultures' existence.
While some peoples of various lands, such as the Isle of Forfeited Souls and the Empire of the Blue Sands, have maintained their physical similarities to post-Transition amüli, others have not. Those I'll expand upon later, of course.
The Empire of the Blue Sands is quite different from the Amüli Kingdom in a number of respects. First and foremost, it is, of course, an empire. A single ruler, in this case--and forever and for always within the empire--an empress, oversees and maintains all of the city-states beneath her control. These city-states range from the border of the Avdenahvin (which one can see crosses the borders between the maps of the Amüli Kingdom and the Empire of the Blue Sands below) to the Peaks of Eleiandae to the east.
Unlike the Amüli Kingdom, the empire is comprised of city-states that agree with one another on a single platform: religion. No matter the disagreements between the individual city-states on other subjects, religion unifies the empire in a way that the Amüli Kingdom can never be brought together. It also should be noted that the Empire of the Blue Sands is a great deal larger in land mass than the Amüli Kingdom, but because of Venaeyn's Blessing, the amount of useful land is minimized quite a bit, and the empire has a smaller population than the Amüli Kingdom.
When developing the empire, I had to keep all of this in mind. I had to think about what the subsequent and prior rulers would have called various city-states and how that would have impacted the growth of the empire as a whole. As I named parts of the empire--specifically, cities--I didn't second-guess the words that came to mind. Sometimes I do, but in this case, I let the city-state names simply come to me, and it seems to have worked well.
As for the titles of geographical locations, those I named after great heroes of the empire. Venaeyn is the first of Vilboyen's lovers (if you haven't read Frendyl Krune and the Snake Across the Sea, I suggest you do so if you would like to learn more about Vilboyen), the woman he deemed his only true love. There's more of a story there, but I'll wait a bit before revealing anything more about Venaeyn. ;)
In the case of Maltalik's Expanse, the Sanctuary of Elmyk, and the Peaks of Eleiandae, these are all places named after heroes and heroines of a time long past. Every single one of these figures are mentioned in the Doctrine of Our Lady of the Blue Sands and holds some significance to the rise of the empire and the role religion played in its dawning.
Not every developmental stage is the same for the various lands of Inrugia. For the Isle of Forfeited Souls (Frendyl Krune and the Snake Across the Sea and Frendyl Krune and the Stone Princess), I wrote the book first, exploring the geography and cultures first-hand through Frendyl's eyes, and later created the map based off of the book's descriptions.
There's a lot more to discuss about the Empire of the Blue Sands, and some of it will be revealed in Axis of the Soul as the serial novel continues. Keep an eye out for a new part every Monday!
There are many other lands on the amüli homeworld to explore, and about 1/6 of the landmass has been revealed at this point. I look forward to exposing more of Inrugia as new stories unfold.
How do you create countries, empires or kingdoms? What's your favorite method of developing maps and cultures? Let me know in the comments below!
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