An Inquisition Intolerable

The adventurer stepped down to the floor, checked his map, and made an addition. On it was proof, to those who understood, of the challenges behind him. There was not a room or passage recorded there which had not some danger from an arsenal of traps, sentinels, and possessive spirits.
Even crossing the entrance was a triumph never before achieved in all the centuries over which the bold, curious, and greedy sought hints to the location of the fabled vault sunk in the earth by a king of whom nothing still was known save for the wondrousness of his possessions. How deep the vault went and what was its extent, none knew, but he presumed when he entered a chamber with no other exit in any direction that he had reached the ultimate point.
A jumble of materials in the center stirred and coalesced into a great face which began to speak.
"The final trial for the seeker of my master's treasure is a riddle. Listen well, for but once will I ask it."
"A riddle? Never mind."
The adventurer ascended forthwith, reversed his journey, and sold his maps to someone willing to put up with that sort of nonsense.
Finis

Mapmaking Tip

Draw it in crayon so people will assume your niece did it and not be too critical or think much about distances.

Mapmaking Dos and Don'ts

DON'T: Put in an ocean.
DO: Put in a star ocean. Space is where it's at, buddies.

Fantasy Map Tip

Before you start sketching out the plates and wind patterns of your world, ask yourself this: "Does this world even have this junk?" Advice about fantasy maps always starts with denying the fantasy part, which is sometimes desirable but not always.

Frequently Asked Questions in a Parallel Dimension

Q. Can sand magic control time?
A. Can cartographers control geology?
Q. They can in this parallel dimension.

An Unreasonable Feud

Once upon a time, a feud developed between two mapmakers. Professional jealousy is a terrible thing, and those mapmakers, Parvo and Foleri were their names, happened to be cousins as well. "Avoid your enemy and avoid your grudge," they say, but their family tree tripped them up when they tried to follow that plan.
They competed, and over the years, the city where they lived gained a reputation for beautiful maps. Their fellow citizens, to their shame, engaged in schemes to deepen their acrimony instead of striving to reconcile them, as good neighbors ought. Parvo labeled rivers, Foleri labeled streams. Foleri included a legend and scale, Parvo wrote names in different colors, sizes, and typefaces with the result that every feature could be understood at a glance from across the largest room.
Except, of course, for the dining hall of the ducal residence. Foleri decorated that with a map of the entire world, for he had been given the commission for that. He invited Parvo to view it, and while his map filled a wall, his pride filled the rest. "You have depicted a world. Very well, and yet I will surpass you in this way. My next map will be a world."
Foleri laughed at him and said Parvo had lost his mind, and perhaps he had. He went home, and he worked, and he worked, and he worked, and he made our world, which we call Parva. He invited Foleri to view it, who refused to concede anything even then. "Very fine, for a bare ball. Where is the sun? Where is the moon? You have no sense."
Foleri returned home and worked on maps of his own, and he made the sun, the moons (because he saw no reason to stop at one), and all the stars. That is why we call heaven the Folerium.
As to what happened between them after that, or what their world and heaven are called, I am not a liar enough to pretend knowledge, for everything I have told you is true.
Finis

Whole Word Reformation

"It isn't going to stay for long, right?"
"I don't know, seems like it's settling pretty good in to me. Weather looks to stay fine, too. No reason to move, no reason in the world."
"I can't draw something like that."
Indeed, who dared attempt to transmute crude paper and ink into the dignity of that lizard which graced what men used to call Melmark with a few thousand yards of luxurious scales? Melmark could be called nothing but Lizardmark after that by anyone with sense. Whether the mobile topographical feature was the creation of some mad wizard, an ancient relict who lived since the world began and just came up for a vacation, or the first of the new generation of monster lizards finally reaching their growth potential which had been hampered by malnutrition until the agricultural revolution, it inarguably altered the landscape and merited a response from the government's office of cartography and surveying.
"Draw an outline and call it New Ridge."
"I'm going with Monster Ridge. Is this what you figured you'd be doing as a cartographer?"
"Well, I only got hired because of the Great Rending after Demon God Hellbreaker was split into five parts by the courageous heroes we all know, so yeah, more or less."
"I think maps are neat."
"Yeah."
The colossal lizard's tongue flicked though its eyes never opened. Perhaps it dreamed of whatever its kind thought neat. Such leisure as that the cartographers lacked, seeing as they had to look over an inland sea that was the aftermath of a wizard's slaying that very month.
Finis