Cartographer's Guild

The Cartographer's Guild is a committee of T'vaqi mapmakers responsible for the creation of Attu Archipelago maps. The Cartographer's Guild is credited with designing T'vaqi's first accurately scaled map of the world, which would later be produced and distributed nationwide. The Cartographer's Guild has retained a consistent audience since its inception due to the gradual calming of uncharted islands.

Establishment

The Cartographer's Guild was founded in 30 PC shortly after the T'vaqi Grand Calming. After the first T'vaqi expeditions were sent out to explore the seas, advertisements on the QAT radio network publicized the guild as a community for those interested in mapping the world. In-person meetings of the Guild are rare; communications mostly occur via radio, while designs are sent to other members in the mail. This asynchronous structure allowed the Guild to recruit members from across the nation. Several members of the group were graduates or students of the High Institute of the Arts. The Cartographer's Guild does not print, market, or sell its designs; funding for the group is provided by continued royalties earned from the distribution of Guild-designed maps printed and sold by larger companies.

The First

The First, c. 30 PC. Solid lines mark known borders; dotted lines mark theorized borders; dotted red lines and circles mark expedition paths; dotted gray lines ending with a stop mark failed expeditions.

The First is an affectionate nickname within the Cartographer's Guild for the first map of the world produced by the group, released on 4-5 30 PC. The Guild reached the height of its notoriety shortly after its production, and for many in T'vaqi The First was their first true exposure to the scale of the Archipelago. While designing the map, the Cartographer's Guild was primarily focused on ensuring that the map was scaled correctly; land and storm borders, which had only been tentatively explored at the time, were roughly drawn and often speculative. During the map's creation, members of the Cartographer's Guild hypothesized that the islands of Faltir, Tietero, Akaria, and possibly Nongba formed a single contiguous landmass, a detail which was included in The First's final rendition. Spyron was additionally theorized to be much larger than its actual size, and main island of the Isles of Joy was assumed to have been two islands instead of one. Distant observations of eastern Okrit were made by one expedition and added to the map, but its full extent could not be determined. Despite its numerous border discrepancies, The First was the most accurate and expansive map of its kind, and its design was quickly sold to a printing company for a large sum of money and a small cut of sales. Nearly all world maps sold in T'vaqi are derived from The First in some manner.