What would this Australia be like, specifically the eastern part? And wouldn't the great mountain plateau in the west act as a pump, drawing winds and rain from the ocean and increasing the monsoons' reach further south?

A map from the atlas of my campaign setting, Elyden

One of the largest and most important trade-routes in Elyden, the Nacre Road has dominated life in Southern Sammaea since its origins in 500 RM.

It stretches for over 12,000-miles across Southern Sammaea, linking the city of Hamma in the far west to Bhal Zhariah in the east, passing through the nations of Ammesh, Habot, Phyrr, Maenmist, Northern Simbara, Akanthra, Idaphon, Khar Nadul, Hanna, Qaralam, Shezaliah, and Zhariah, and allows the relatively easy flow of trade from west to east.

The road is named after the now-largely dead nacre trade along the northern shore of the Sea of Ammash and originated in around 500 RM as a route travelled by Mehmuthi nomads, some of whom went on to become merchants, travelling in caravans hauled by great beasts.

Trade along the Road is not uniform and it passes across plains, hills, forests and mountains alike, with some caravans relying on pack-beasts and others using land ships or crawling ambulants. Caravanserais are spaced at deliberate intervals, typically one to two days’ travel apart at most, forming a secondary infrastructure of fortified inns, counting-houses, wells, and Lazanist shrines. Some are little more than enclosed courtyards with cisterns and watchtowers, while others, such as Avenar and Prasinia, have swollen into great cities with enclosed markets, bonded warehouses, and League courts.

Larger cities along the route maintain segregated trade districts where foreign merchants reside under charter, their goods taxed, inspected, and sealed. Entire urban quarters exist solely to service the needs of merchants, including mechanics for vehicle repairs, beast-hospices, rope-makers, scribal offices, and currency exchanges amongst others.

Matted-armoured guards, often called Road Wardens, travel with convoys and are licensed to bear heavy weapons across borders. Ledger-Keepers accompany major caravans, maintaining bonded accounts recognised from Ammesh to Zhariah. Pass-Sealers inspect cargo for contraband at national frontiers, while Oath-Witnesses certify contracts in multiple jurisdictions. In contested regions, entire companies of artillery crews are retained privately to escort landships through unstable territories.

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Map created in Photoshop, with the help using G. Projector.

A tutorial for my method can be found here.

You can find a key to the map here.

This is for the alternate history I have been writing for the last 2 years called "The Long Springtime"

WIP: Update 1. Giant (50x50in) hand-rendered mixed media map of an entire New England city.

Media:
Ohuhu Alcohol Markers (Honolulu B)
Faber Castell Polychromos
Sakura Gelly Roll
Staedtler pigment liner

I welcome any and all advice on how to improve my coloring, just please don’t be too mean 🤣❤️

map i made

Lol gng

https://www.deviantart.com/planjanusza/art/Amarillo-ENG-1370201710

Reposted because there was a mistake in the coloring

Black borders show recognized de jure boundaries, while colors fill in de facto zones of control.

January 1, 1960: The Cold War

On the night of July 29th, 1946, Bermuda, the USA's largest naval hub in the ongoing Atlantic War, was obliterated in a nuclear blast. In the following months, the United States entered negotiations of surrender with the Axis Powers, those chiefly being France, Poland, and Ukraine.

At this point, all major opposition to the Axis, those nations including the US, Britain, and Germany, had been quelled. The USSR had been pushed past Moscow, the United States subdued, and the European powers occupied.

In Asia, the Japanese Socialist Republic continued its struggle against the anti-communist Chinese alliance who had banded together to fight Comintern influence. With the Soviet Union fracturing in the west, pro-Japanese officials fled to Vladivostok, establishing a Japanese-backed regime, effectively acknowledging Japan as the leader of the Communist World.

The late 1940s saw the beginning of a great change in the global world order. Axis forces swept through Africa, entrenching themselves in an endless war. The governments of Germany and Britain were reorganized while ethnic and political minorities faced slavery or death.

The United States saw chaos during this time as well. The 1920s had been a time of great stagnation for the country, this of course only worsened by the Great Depression. Washington's handling of the crisis led to presidential resignations, assassinations, and two emergency elections. 

By the late 1930s, the country had entered an era of slow re-stabilization. Isolationist foreign policy grew increasingly popular, culminating in the 1940 election and America's refusal to aid Britain and Germany against the French and their fascist bloc.

1943 saw the nation abruptly thrown into a war with the Axis as France began attacking American forces in the Atlantic. The unprepared nation eventually lost the war, suffering the atomic bombing of Washington. Immediately after, the government was scattered. The president faced assassination. The country saw further shifts towards both far-right and far-left politics, echoing the crisis of the early 1930s.

In 1950, Japanese and Soviet scientists perfected the country's own atom bomb, placing the country alongside France as a global superpower.

The 1950s saw French forces in the Congo, East Africa, and Southern Africa face off against natives and the Portuguese Empire as well as remnants of British and German forces. 

The United States developed atomic weaponry in 1956. Due to the chaos internally, the new government in New York was forced to abandon much of the country, leasing the South to a new autonomous government governed by a big tent of Dixiecrats, pragmatic Southern separatists, republicans, and populists. The Great Plains and Rocky Mountains regions saw military occupation while New England, Texas, California, Cascadia, and (interestingly,) Montana effectively seceded from the Union.

Back in 1942, the French government had allowed the creation of a paramilitary organization known as the Milice Français to assist the French military in its efforts against resistance. While initially entirely subservient to the government, the Milice soon started to act independently.

After the war, the organization moved with efficient cruelty while aiding esoteric and mysticist secret societies in France and abroad, chiefly in Germany and the Ukraine. The organization also funded Mahdist Islamist groups in French Africa with the intention of spreading societal collapse, which they believed necessary in order to purify the world entirely.

It's now January 1st, 1960. The world celebrates the beginning of a brand new decade with bated breath, anxiously watching the world slowly head in the direction of a (possibly nuclear) third world war.

Le Patron (the Leader) of France fades into sickness, refusing to appoint a successor, while mad generals in Paris prepare to tear down the mask of civility that the fascist bloc had worn for so many years before the world stage.

The pragmatists close to Le Patron seek to push the country away from collapse by seeking better relations with the capitalist world while reactionaries and parts of the Milice seek to create an environment of total war in order to keep the country in a state of  security and public order as ordinary people continue to serve the government in naïve hopes of peace.

Tensions between Japanese and American-backed forces in Asia, Oceania, Africa, and South America rise while societal collapse draws nearer to New York.

Japan finds itself at the crossroads between different economic and political strategies as hardline communists seek to sway the moderates in power away from market socialism.