Putting together the main poster map for the World of Calidar has been a major project. On the one hand there was a long learning curve for Thorfinn Tait, the project’s Master Cartographer, to handle the array of software generating the map’s terrain detail, color, and texture. On the other hand, work quality had to be high because this map is the one from which most others will derive. The structure of the Calidar series calls for each book focusing on a particular area of the world, like the original Princess Ark episodes in Dragon Magazine twenty years ago. The starting point is the Great Caldera, Calidar’s “Known World.” It features ten realms, although some of them include vassal powers that could be treated separately. The main source map must therefore be detailed, exciting, and as perfectly rendered as possible for close-up work. Here are a few sample images that will give you an idea of what went into this map.
I'm about to begin work on map labels for the Great Caldera poster map. The map itself is practically complete, thanks to Thorfinn Tait's tenacious efforts. Coming up with hundreds of unique, cool-sounding, and evocative map labels is usually a thankless, fastidious, if not mind-numbing process. I probably will generate many of the tags myself, but I thought I'd extend an invitation to anyone willing to pitch in. If you're interested, pick one of the realms, as defined below, and organize labels as shown at the end of this message. You can post them as comments here or on the original discussion thread (for the sake of feedback and such). Please don't kill yourself with hundreds of names. Keep your list to a manageable length. There is no guarantee I'll use all your suggestions (or use them without modification), but they will certainly help. I included a few below to give you some ideas of where I'm going with the various nations, etymologically or as far as their approximate ethnic consonances are concerned.
Meryath: all done! (But you already knew that, didn't you?) These are mostly Polynesian in style with Greco-Byzantine influences. 
Ellyrium: pseudo-Greek-Byzantine, with some Romanian influence (more or less in Karameikos style if you will) -- Teosopolis, Teosion, Hadradas, Hurion, Lamazu, Rasku, Arathon, Taitu, Lammathu, Mormion, Bellerion, Antas, Nervion, Gynaion, Arthenion, Trithon, Locathas, Minothas, Aranion, Basilion, Elyrikos, Antiatis, Temenopolis, Thrakesian, Helioklios, Erebos, etc. Many of these came from Meryath's early map and got moved since then to Ellyrium proper. So I do have a head start here.
