Mapmaker(s): thehippo8
Number of Territories: Undecided
Special Features:Conditional borders and objective
What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: I've spent the last day learning about this place. It's larger than England and Wales put together but only has 4 million odd people. It's one of the most interesting, desperate and sad yet wonderful places that I've learned about. The Country developed out of the Pagan Kingdom after its fall to the Mongols. From 1886 to 1948 it was a British colony until it gained independence. During World War II it came under Japanese and Thai occupation but won independence through negotiation. In 1950 the Chinese invaded and the Burmese fought them back, taking control of the country. hereafter Burma has not let go of its grip and it has been controlled in a very real and dreadful way ever since. Now it is exploitated in every sense from its minerals, to the displacement of its people and through the infiltration of drug lords who are allowed to ply their evil trade through corruption and fear. In short, all a bit scary.
The people themselves, however, are very resiliant and won't let all this get them down. They have a mixed religion (a kind of animist Budhism) and believe strongly in amulets, tattoos and the nine sacred jewels. All these things protect them and ultimately Burma will rue the day it was so aweful. But that's another story. Here's an example of typical tattoos:iimg]http://s3.amazonaws.com/cw-thoughts/617221/original.jpg[/img]
Anyway, rather than dwell on all the nonsense and bad (cause that really isn't going to get anyone anywhere), I'd like to develop a map where you hunt for the nine jewels and put together an amulet. The jewels will be scattered around the country. Get the region in which the jewel is hidden and you activate the jewel which connects to the amulet. Get all 9 jewels, activate the amulet and protect Shan State from all evil! A kind of international effort to protect Shan State.
Okay, a bit of a work in progress but that's why its in ideas. Comments anyone?
Map Image: Here's a general map of Shan State in case you want to know what it looks like.
- Click image to enlarge.
I was also thinking it would be good to work into this the Shan State flag:
