#map maker

[theoasiswinds]

Still doing fun little doodles so yay Astarion with my two little adventure buddies. . .

Can you imagine, Astarion's Pub? that would be an interesting place to visit

[dragonkid11]

The Lancer Map Creation Tool by Interpoint Station is a program that lets you create complex yet readable battlefields in minutes, featuring a random generator to generate a map in seconds as well as assets integration to create your own terrain asset and biome.

[scotianostra]

Robert Gordon of Straloch was born at Kinnundy in Aberdeenshire, on the 14th September, 1580 and is said to have been the first graduate of Marischal College.

Gordon is often named as “ The man who literally put Scotland on the map “

Robert Gordon of Starloch is one of those clever Scots that are described as Poly maths,  at one time or another he was a mathematician, poet, superb musician, composer,  essayist, geographer, historian and antiquarian, and above all, a cartographer who devised what is still one of the most beautiful and popular books of maps of Scotland, the Theatrum Scotiae.It is due his skills I am honouring him  a rather lengthy biography.

Robert was the younger son of Sir John Gordon of Pitlurg near Ellon in Aberdeenshire, a knight who was loyal to James VI, who asked him to provide a no-doubt expensive horse for his royal wedding. Gordon was certainly well-connected – Robert’s mother was Isabel Forbes, daughter of the 7th Lord Forbes.

Gordon’s private education meant he learned Latin in childhood – was followed by his matriculation as one of the first, if not the very first, students of Marischal College, forerunner of Aberdeen University. He completed his studies at the University of Paris before returning to Scotland in 1600 on the death of his father.

As landed gentry he was able to devote his time to continuing his studies and taught himself geography, which would come in handy in his future career, while he began to write and gather music to play on his beloved lute.

In 1608, he married Catherine, daughter of Alexander Irvine of Lenturk, and they had a large family – nine sons and six daughters in all. Soon after his marriage he bought the estate of Straloch in Aberdeenshire, and in 1619 he became a very wealthy man when his elder brother John died childless, leaving the Pitlurg estate to Robert.

Now he was able to indulge his love of history and especially geography, then a rudimentary science. In fact, he practically invented proper map-making in Scotland, based on extensive topographical measurements that he largely made himself.

At the time of Gordon’s birth it was believed that there were just three maps of Scotland in the whole kingdom, and their inaccuracy was well-known. James VI encouraged the map-making of Timothy Pont, a graduate of St Andrews University who has a good claim to be Scotland’s first serious cartographer as he made dozens of maps of various parts of Scotland in the 1590s before he became a minister of the Kirk in Caithness where he died in 1614.

The geographer Sir James Balfour would later ensure that Pont’s maps were published, but by the 1620s, Robert Gordon was beginning to produce much more accurate maps with his scientific methods.

He also found time to compose poetry and music pieces, leading to the publication of his musical masterwork, “Ane playing booke for the Lute, wherein are contained many currents and other musical things, Musica mentis medicina moestae”, which was printed in Aberdeen in 1627.

In 1641, King Charles I was asked to pay for an atlas of Scotland by the famous map publishers Blaeus of Amsterdam. Gordon was by then the best and best-known map-maker in Scotland.

Charles wrote to him: “Having lately seen certain charts of divers shires of this our ancient kingdom, sent here from Amsterdam, to be corrected and helpit in the defects thereof, and being informed of your sufficiency in that art, and of your love both to learning and to the credit of your nation; we have therefore thought fit hereby, earnestly to entreat you to take so much pains as to revise the said charts, and to help them in such things as you find deficient there until, that they may be sent back by the direction of our chancellor to Holland.”

Flattery will get you everywhere, especially royal flattery, and Gordon duly embarked on his life’s greatest work, the Theatrum Scotiae. It wasn’t just the 46 beautiful and accurate maps that made Theatrum a magnificent publication, but also the many notes on the history and antiquities that accompanied the maps – scholars would rely on them for ages afterwards.

Charles I was so concerned about the work being finished that he arranged for the Scottish Parliament to give Gordon exemption from taxes, while his family were granted freedom from military duties – a major concession in those troubled times. From the outset it was seen as a work of national importance – all Church of Scotland ministers were asked to assist Gordon with local details.

Finished in 1648, Theatrum Scotiae was an immediate sensation and would have two further editions.

Gordon also wrote histories in Latin and exchanged views with the leading scholars of the day on everything from the life of John Knox to the history of the Gordon family. It was in the family vault at New Machar that he was buried in August 1661.

Though a neglected figure now, in his lifetime Robert Gordon was recognised as a great scholar and was famous enough to have his portrait painted by George Jamesone. His grandson, also Robert Gordon, became a wealthy philanthropist and it is he whose name is borne by Aberdeen’s “other” university.

The second pic is “A New Mapp of Scotland According to Gordon of Straloch”

[murder-me-with-ink]

Commission for my dearest and lovely @theoasiswinds and her oc the Mapmaker who NEVER get lost! Trust her!!

[alex-frostwalker]

Fresh Day! [Full Run]

[moon-sky-sun-earth-ocean-stars]

Tales of Xadia characters-Needa

Name: Needa Pronounce: They/them Kingdom: Katolis Profession: Map maker Information: Needa has spent many nights near a candle and an inkwell, trying to create maps of improved trade routes for sailors. They decided to go to a journey of their own with the help of one of their acquaintances.

[jakattax]

One of my hobbies is map making and I’ll be involved with a production of She Kills Monsters in July a very d&d themed play.

Script called for a map so I did it!

Look out for the little classic d&d themed Easter eggs I chucked in there and bonus points for the runic translation 👀

[radioactivetoad]

Development screenshots from Fallout Van Buren, featuring the map editor