The lighter green landmass is known as the Jewel and the darker regions to the south are just a small part of a massive continent called the Titan's Ring.
Note that north is oriented to the left, and east to the top.
The lighter blue area in the north is frozen ocean, the grey areas are mountains, and the white areas are large mountains. The light blue splotches on the landmass are lakes. One pixel represents 25 square miles, and the Jewel's climate ranges from frozen tundra in the north to more Mediterranean on its southern coast. The climate and geography of this world don't necessarily make any sense, but that is intentional (and it is definitely not a planet/globe, rather it's something more like a magically occuring realm/plane). For example, the Ring is so large that it has ice at its northern edge (the Jewel), its southern edge, as well as a huge band of ice that goes down the middle from east to west. Additionally, years are counted as 400 days long and seasons are irregular à la George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. Just like in ASOIAF, both summers and winters in this world can last many years at a time.
The year is 1099, and it is the fourth month of autumn after a six year summer, one of the longest this century. Everyone from the richest king to the poorest serf knows that likely means a winter at least as long. A world on the edge of a long winter is a world on the edge of chaos. There will inevitably not be enough food. People will starve, people will fight, and people will die. Monsters and beasts will attack closer to towns and cities out of desperation for food. Winter will bring disease, war, and the worst out of everyone. Everyone knows these things, and everyone knows they have at most around six more months to prepare (springs and autumns are never longer than around a year, and years have ten months with forty days each). Everyone is in unspoken (well, and spoken) recognition of the horrors to come in the next few years.
The process of making this map began with this map generation tool that was made by someone at the University of Copenhagen: https://topps.diku.dk/torbenm/maps.msp
I was able to generate a map I immediately loved, so I didn't have to do much more than colouring over it to give a simpler look, making some small tweaks to the coastline, and adding details like the ice, compass rose, and scale. I also made a version of the map showing different biomes, and I'm currently working on a political map but I need to do a lot more thinking and writing before I can finish that. These pixelated maps are simple to make so they are good for my own reference, but I'll definitely want to either make or commission a more detailed and more medieval-fantasy-looking map at some point in the future. This version is also slightly cropped. My main reference map shows about 500 miles more to the south and about 300 more to the east, as well as having more details, but this one is just focused in on the Jewel.
I don't have much else to say on the map or this world yet because I'm still in the early stages of figuring out the story, please do ask me some questions if anything comes to mind! Answering questions is always the easiest way to worldbuild, I've found.
