Stellar Mapping for Fun

[LordHeru]

So sometimes I get the itch to stellar map and so in order to scratch that itch I do exactly that - I create star sectors or regions or even entire galaxies (or if I am in a fantasy mood cities, nations, continents, worlds). As I do the art I often come up with general ideas for sectors and regions and such. My hope is always to use the ideas for some sort of campaign, though often the images just stay in a file either physically or digitally till I think about them again.

With my mood turning to scifi again I looked up some of my old maps and, well, fell in love with them again.

I am going to share the maps since I think they might be something that others fine useful or interesting or just simply fun.

The first map to share is my Olympia Grand System - a seven-star solar system that I honestly really love working on.

The last two maps are of a great starry expanse known as Known Space. It is an spacefaring corridor some sixty thousand light-years long from core to rim and a thousand light years wide spinward and antispinward. 600 of that light years is open space full of habitable worlds organized into sectors and 400 ly is a barren, dangerous hostile storm ridden void that makes travel painful. The effect of this being humanity within the region is safe from the dark things that go bump outside the region - a fact made known because it is quite clear the region was artificially created millions of years ago.

I have other maps and stuff as well but these three are the ones I am focused on.

As a note please feel free to use this thread for either conversation on these images or also the posting of your own others so we could talk about them.

Later!

[Mateus Luz]

I was curious, but now you got my attention...

Unfortunately images are not loading. Check the URL please!

[LordHeru]

I was curious, but now you got my attention...

Unfortunately images are not loading. Check the URL please!

Thanks for the heads up. I'm trying to get it fixed. Its frustrating as it seems google wants to be difficult on letting me share it and this site won't let me do attachments. So yeah. ...

,,, Okay, I think I fixed it. The images should now be there. hehe

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Also to make this post fit in my goal for the thread, let me add another image. (I would have included it in the first post but somehow three + one is five in the site's mind so I can't.)

This image is of the sector that the Olympia Grand System might be in, if a storyteller wishes for the grand system have a sector of high interest and intense activity. Otherwise it is its own unique sector surrounded by a dense nebula that makes entrance and exit limited to only two points.

[Eldagusto]

Whoah Jesus I never though to make a giant map by connecting smaller Grid maps, Genius! I would probably loose the paper though. :P

[Mateus Luz]

Really nice, the entire idea is interesting. The idea is great, the size are awesome.

If you let me suggest one thing, make it digital. Not sure what kind of program to use, probably some vectorial art or cad to make it as detailed as wanted without leaving the huge proportions out of scale.

[LordHeru]

Really nice, the entire idea is interesting. The idea is great, the size are awesome.

If you let me suggest one thing, make it digital. Not sure what kind of program to use, probably some vectorial art or cad to make it as detailed as wanted without leaving the huge proportions out of scale.

Thanks for the comments, I appreciate them.

On the digital honestly I wish they were but this whole thing started with me being bored and wanting to do something and then reaching for some grid paper I then spent hours making maps, all the while having fun. I only stopped when the fun stopped which is why the maps don't go on towards infinite.

The sectors do not have system locations mapped for the same reason - I felt that it would be better to let that wait till I was using the sectors for something so that I didn't get stuck with locations that couldn't be changed.

[LordHeru]

Also to make this post fit in my goal for the thread, let me add another image. (I would have included it in the first post but somehow three + one is five in the site's mind so I can't.)

This image is of the sector that the Olympia Grand System might be in, if a storyteller wishes for the grand system have a sector of high interest and intense activity. Otherwise it is its own unique sector surrounded by a dense nebula that makes entrance and exit limited to only two points.

While its a double post I feel that in this case it should be fine.

First things, anyone else have maps they want to share and stuff. Just sayin this thread can be used for that.

Two, so I just had a moment of realization. The square in the center of the Verge is in my head the Olympia Grand System. Said system is located in a region with nine sectors.

This led me to realize I could call the area The Yggdrasil Verge and have its nine sectors be named after the nice worlds in Norse Mythology. Obviously, the sector that holds the Olympia Grand System is totally gonna be the Asgard Sector. The other sectors can be named as I find appropriate mythologial references to make the areas seem logical.

I could name the various systems after first Norse (and then say Greek and Roman and maybe Egyptian for exotic) heroes and legends and such. If one throws in the occassional location that breaks the naming scheme you have a story in and of itself there. ("Why was the New Alaska system named that way?")

PS. Sooooo yeah, I just 'realized' or really 'remembered' in my excitement of the realization of this idea that Olympus is Greek and not Norse, lol. That said, from say the point of a colonization fleet arriving in to a new region, I could seem them going 'its all cool, lets mix the myths' and such. Which works of course because the planets in the grand system are named for a mix of Greek, Roman, and Norse deities.