Algea is a stone’s throw away from The Frozen Abyss, with only a narrow strait separating the two.  That’s strange indeed, considering most of Algea is temperate, but it could likely be attributed to the magic that abounds in both locations.  To be fair, the northernmost parts of The Frozen Abyss aren’t exactly all that frozen anyway, at least for some parts of the year.  Algea is also home to a lot of forest and mountains, with both nearly filling up the continent alongside some hills.

Beyond the gods, we know that Algea also is home to at least dwarves and gnomes, and we’ve seen at least one of them as she appears in the Quantum Quest tabletop game.  We’ll have a bit more to explore in the future, I’m sure, as we expand in all directions.  For right now, Gnoemi Barnes will be our closest look into the continent.

Well, that about does it.  With this final parchment version, we are pretty much officially done looking at the maps that the very talented Kaelon Fullmer created for us, and we’ve got the entirety of the world in play.  But, that’s not to say that there isn’t more to see—both on Tellest, and beyond.  In the weeks to come, we’re going to be taking deeper dives into the world, adding a little more color, and seeing some of the things that are going on there.  Keep your eyes peeled!

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You’ll see in the map that there are a few places close to Aeratul and Algea that have a bit more of a presence to them.  This shows as hills and cliffs, and while that may seem a little uninhabitable, it’s actually the part of the Frozen Abyss that is most hospitable to the known races.  That’s because beyond these regions, the Frozen Abyss descends hundreds of feet into the bitter cold unknown.  Amidst blustery weather, it’s hard for anyone to see beyond the cliffs, and very few people on record have ever ventured below and returned.

Of course, because the Frozen Abyss is so inhospitable, there’s not a lot of people who are there, and those who are aren’t the most scrupulous people.  South of Aeratul, the area serves as a sanctuary for the exiled—note quite a prison, but certainly no country club either.  It’s the one place where it is considered in poor taste to collect a bounty on someone’s head.  And that’s besides the fact that it is difficult to get there, and filled with all sorts of dangers.

As always, we wrap up with the parchment version of the land.  In this case, the map is spread out fairly wide, because the Frozen Abyss covers so much of the lower part of the planet.  They’re not hurting from global warming on Tellest, so this combination of land and ice is expansive indeed.  This is the penultimate map that we’re showing off, which of course means in just a few short weeks, you’ll see the final map that we commissioned through Kay Fulmer.  That’s not to say we aren’t planning on collaborating with him again, but we’ve got to build up our budget again first.  In any case, we’ve still got lots of other maps to show off over the next few months… They’ll just be in a different style.  See you soon!

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Compared to some of the other continents, Tarson is pretty normal in its appearance.  There’s forests and hills and mountains, and even with the demons in the region, no crazy fire and brimstone to speak of (yet, perhaps).  Beyond demons, Tarson is known for its gates to the underworld, as well as being rich in minerals and gemstones.  Even with the small amount of mountains that are present, they are positively brimming with treasure.

Tarson is close to the continent of Saveon, and the two continents have been embroiled in a war for a long while.  While Jaxom’s seat of power is in the northern country of Karnath, he has expanded his empire to Saveon somewhat.  Many of the people of Saveon have been conscripted into his army, and they’ve helped him to fight the demons that threaten that part of Tellest.

As always, we close on the parchment version of our map.  There’s only a few more, and then we’re going to start to loop back around and show you some of the cool things you’ll see in the Tellest World Anvil versions of the map, which are a bit more interactive.  For now, keep your eyes peeled for the next Ralaris map that’s on the way!

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Erenea also has a series of smaller islands between the two larger ones which are constantly embroiled in conflict.  The big continent, meanwhile, is mostly stable, with the area broken up among three kingdoms.  The smaller, western island is mostly governed by one, meanwhile.

One of the things that’s peculiar about Erenea is the amount of mountains that we have.  Additionally, these are coastal mountains, the volume of which we don’t typically see in any other continent of Tellest.  While there are other places that have rarer minerals, the greatest amount of them come from Erenea, which has been able to solidify itself as a very mercantile force to be reckoned with.

Here, we finally have the parchment version.  We’re getting down to the last few maps, after which I’ll start working on other versions of them.  Over on the Tellest World Anvil page, you can see some full color ones that integrate the cities of each continent.  Subscribers are able to see other things as well, such as artifacts and characters.  And when all those are done, I’ll be moving onto more personalized maps, such as for cities and towns, and maybe even battle maps.  Stay tuned!

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The map, done by Kay Fullmer of RalarisMaps, only focuses on those two main countries.  Skadavia is home to the gnomes of Felheim, including one of our characters from Quantum Quest, Berras Ames, the Lightbringer.  On the other hand, Japel Brae doesn’t have a lot of known races, because it is said to be haunted.  Only the bravest of folks venture to the islands that make up that chain.  Again, there’s a decent amount of “blank space” just dying to be taken over and united by someone else.  Perhaps Skadavia will expand, or another country will form.

Here, you can see what the map would like like without any borders or country presence.  It’s not too different from most maps, except that here, we don’t see many cities or anything of that nature.  It’s possible that there is a reason for that.  Maybe the mountains are somehow more hospitable than the wilderness.  And maybe we’ll find a way to explore that in the future.

In keeping with the way we have been doing things, we’re ending with the parchment version of the map.  Though Brittanea is a smaller part of Tellest, it still has a big part to play in its future.  I’m looking forward to when we can show off more about it, but in the meantime, keep your eyes peeled.  We’ve still got more continental maps coming.

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Numasa is the only archipelago continent that you’ll see in Tellest (for now, at least).  There are an assortment of smaller islands, with three larger ones making up the more hospitable regions.  Numasa sees a wide range of races there, from humans and elves, to kaja, kobolds, avarians and more.

Again, we haven’t spent too much time in Numasa yet, so more needs to be seen to adequately define what is there.  But at the very least, I know of five characters there who will band together to save life as they know it in Numasa.  I have a samurai-like kobold named Udo who is incredibly lucky, an avarian ex-pirate named Kazuri who can summon blades of wind to heave at her enemies, a powered human named Shiro who can create celestial glass out of thin air, and an as yet unseen additional two heroes who I’ll show off a little bit later.

Once more, you’ll see I created a parchment version of the map that was made, which came out looking great.  If you come on back in a few weeks we’ll have a new Tellest map ready to look forward to.  I hope you liked what you saw of Numasa!

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Let’s not waste too much time, and just jump right in!  This is the next map we’re looking at, Saveon.

So this first look shows us the various countries that you’ll see.  There’s some cities in the image as well, marked by little red dots.  And then anything not included in a red circle is untamed wilderness not belonging to any specific nation.

Here we have a cleaned up version of the continent with no overlay.  Saveon isn’t quite as large a continent as Lustra, but it’s perhaps more varied in its various biomes.  There’s deserts, savannah, even a volcanic wasteland!

And I also decided to keep things moving with the parchment versions that I’ve been playing with.

Just like with Lustra, I’ve got an Inkarnate map waiting in the wings as well.  You’ll see that one soon.

Saveon is a place that we’ve spent only a small amount of time, though I’m at least a little familiar with it because of the characters who hail from there.  We actually spent time with Kaiyonani and Talarus there.  And Lyla, Seeger and Retrus are from the northern part of the continent as well.  Finally, there’s a character I’ve been working on, The Desert Wraith, who is from there as well.  Perhaps we’ll see more of her soon.

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Anyway, let’s take a look at our second Kay Fullmer map, the continent of Lustra!

Here’s our first peek at everything, and it exists more for me, probably, behind the scenes.  We’ve spent some time in Lustra, so we knew where a few of the key points were, but Kay helped me figure out things like country borders, where cities might be, etc.

The version without lines over top or anything is a bit crisper.  You can see how vast and varied Lustra is, with its mountains, forests, deserts and more.  The big central mountain there is a place of pilgrimage, and one that was mentioned in Gaston’s introduction on this website.

Finally, I did my own little experiment, throwing the Lustra map onto some parchment for an old-timey feel.

I’ve also been working in Inkarnate, but that’s a map for another time.  Keep an eye out for that later!

I hope you liked sneaking a peek at Lustra.  We spent some time here in Versali-Virai and Lakmari, as well as in Aaron Canton’s recent short story release, Tale of the Lagano Priestess.  There’s more to come as always, so check back next week for another Tellest art feature!

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