Let it never be said I shy from impossible tasks. Nay, I chase them—preferably with ink-stained fingers and a flask of orchardwine. The Nine Kingdoms, so-called, are not nine by accident. They are the last scraps of sanity clinging to the hem of a world that shifts when you're not looking. And yet, we must look. We must map. We must name the edges of the storm if we ever hope to outwit it.
So here it is: my latest attempt to chart the unchartable. In full color, no less, with a parchment variant for those who believe antiquity lends authority. If you’ve the courage—and the curiosity—see the world as I’ve dared to draw it. Just don’t blame me if it’s changed by the time you look up again.
—Cartographer Emeritus of the Tenth Chair (self-appointed)
About This Map
The swirling cloud cover marks the regions affected by the Shifts—those ever-changing pockets of borrowed reality where terrain, weather, and even the laws of nature may differ wildly from one day to the next. Though the shapes remain familiar, the contents within are anything but stable.
The Nine Kingdoms, shown in clear detail, occupy the Stable Zones—the only regions where civilization can endure.
Click the map to view a high-resolution version (4K) and explore this region of Necsis in greater detail.
About the Parchment Edition
This version of the map contains the same details as the full-color rendering, but has been styled to resemble a hand-drawn parchment chart—aged tones, inked lines, and subtle texture evoke the maps you might find in a scholar’s satchel or pinned to a war-room wall.
It was designed with print in mind and reproduces beautifully even in grayscale, making it ideal for inclusion within the book itself.
Click the map below to view a high-resolution version (4K) and study the finer strokes of its craftsmanship.
Author’s Note: A Map Forty Years in the Making
I first created Necsis—or perhaps it first forced itself into my head—nearly forty years ago, while I was still in high school.
The only computers I had access to back then were an Apple IIe or one of the early Texas Instruments machines—probably a TI-99/4A, though I couldn’t swar to it. So, my first map of the Nine Kingdoms was hand-drawn across twelve sheets of hex paper, assembled into a single whole with Scotch tape. Unfolding it and laying it out across the floor felt pretty epic, let me tell you.
Unfortunately, that original map vanished somewhere along the way. I like to imagine it still exists—tucked in a forgotten drawer, waiting to resurface and fetch a pretty penny at auction. An author can dream. It’s what we do, right?
Over the years, I tried to recreate the map using various software but never quite managed to get it across the finish line. Then, earlier this year, when I completed the manuscript for The Forbidden Tower, I knew I had no choice. An epic fantasy novel requires an epic fantasy map. Thanks to Inkarnate, I was finally able to bring it to life—what you see on this page.
The greatest challenge was depicting the Shifts. On my original hand-drawn map, they were just empty hexes. That worked fine for plotting, but Inkarnate doesn’t support transparency beneath water—so if a Shift region was supposed to be an ocean, there was no easy way to show it as both empty and wet.
My first workaround was to overlay dark shapes across the Shift zones. Technically functional. Visually? Utterly boring.
Eventually, I landed on the idea of using cloud cover instead—soft, swirling layers that obscure just enough to imply the volatility beneath. It worked so well that I rewrote a scene in the book to match it.
The parchment version came first, created specifically for the grayscale limitations of print. Later, while building the website, I rebuilt the entire map in full color for digital use. That gave me a chance to explore terrain through richer palettes—something not possible in the book version. This became my “hero map,” and yes, I have a 3.81 GB version that can be printed up to twelve feet across.
It’s going to look fantastic at MisCon. Or anywhere else Necsis makes landfall.
Remarkably, the final version is true to what I drew all those years ago. Some names have changed (Drakerath was originally Morgoth), and I’ve since added a sea to the lower edge of Wester. But otherwise? It’s still the same world that sprang into my mind when I was just a teenager—finally rendered with the detail it always deserved.