I Made a Map!

I've made versions of this same map several times. The same coastline with islands dotted alongside, leaving the Southeastern world as an unimportant mystery. The focus here is on the woods, the sea, and the mountains. There are people here, but they are sparse and distant.

I've never been much for drawing, and of course the scale is terrible. I've got a little legend there showing that a centimeter is about 25km (American translation: 5/16" is about 18ish miles - that's a ballpark). Anyways, this area is massive, especially for people traveling through forests and snow on foot.

I've started putting together some ideas for who the people that live in these places are, but nothing too concrete yet. I generally don't like worldbuilding-in-advance like this. Normally, I prefer to pick one setting, create my characters, and see what they do. But with my minis all boxed up at the moment, I'm working backwards.

I think the next thing I do will be to name a few people, give them roles or stories in the region, and decide on who the first people/warband I want to play will be. I'm still pretty vague on the "bad guys" in this setting. I want it to be low fantasy with minimal supernatural elements that are visible, but I want those supernatural elements to be very keenly felt by the people in this world. That may mean the majority of encounters are between humans - so who are the bad humans? Or the misunderstood humans?

Here's a bit of the worldbuilding that I've put together so far:

The 'Karthlands' are nominally a province of The Empire, but are so far to the north that the great empire puts little emphasis on this relationship. Karth pays no taxes as tribute and has access to trade in the empire, but must protect its own roads, manage threats from the northern wastes, and send soldiers should war break out. Otherwise, the Lords of Karth make their own laws and govern their sparsely populated lands as they see fit.

Within the defacto province are several towns and villages that all govern autonomously, with Karth being the largest. Stonefell Isle being the second largest but quite barren, and Grenfell Isle being barely inhabited at all. Camp Elum dwells further to the south, in reach of other imperial states. Elum is the trading settlement of the region, and has few permanent inhabitants, but is a bustling place with merchants and vendors traveling through - an in between place where north and south meet.

Aside from these permanent settlements, the Karthwoods are full of tiny homesteads, filled with brave folk who work the lands, weather the winters, and defend themselves in the darkness.

To the north of the Karthwoods lie the Crags - steep peaked mountains footed by narrow gorges. A beautiful and deadly landscape to traverse, but a sight all Karthlanders revere. There are some who choose to dwell here, but they are few and often fugitives from the settled lands. These mountain folk have been known to raid down into the homesteads of the Karthwoods when things get dire.

Beyond the Crags are the waste. An aptly named swathe of ice that goes on to the end of the world. None dwell here, save for the odd hardy beast, but there are secrets here that remain well hidden in the cold embrace of ice...