GIANT Monster Origin and Distribution Map

The Æon Encyclopædia Company has been "wizarding America's unchallenged source of knowledge since 1852" [sic--it folded in 1940]. During the 20th c., shamanic prolepsis in Intermagus's shielded Yakutsk Deep-2 facility seems to indicate a common ancestry for the major therianthropic epigenetic groups, in Africa and/or the Levant; see also the Siberian Geographical Society's proceedings, the Baring-Gould Center's Levant expeditions, and the Chicago and London Magical Geographic Societies' ill-fated joint trip to the Afar Depression. Based on St. Christopher Cyrene School, Moscow College of Theurgy; Benin Institute of Mysteries; Colegio de la Transfiguración, Universidad Mágica de México, Mexico City; L'Académie Magi-naturelle, Paris and Bordeaux; the DNA+ Project, Magical University of Austin, Tex., and Strixis College, Philadelphia (yes, I based these all on real institutions--try'n guess 'em!).

Technicalities: I was mostly inspired by the Century Atlas, the crown jewel of my antique book collection. I just obtained an equirectangular world map with terrain shading but without topographical colors, and fed that into G.Projector, then cleaned up the coastlines. The typeface is DeVinne (a big 19th-c. font, also used in Shepherd's Historical Atlas), with Akzidenz for the mountains. The infoboxes' language is appropriately old-timey--just imagine Teddy Roosevelt requesting this map from America's mage community via a talking portrait of Paschal Beverly Randolph! The overall project was inspired by John Crowley's notions of Appalachian werewolves.

I took my previous distribution maps and worked backward--language families for the therianthropes, contagion for the vampires (plus White Wolf literature putting them in Irem), and paleology for the sasquatches. The therianthropes are more connected to ethnicity (seeming to originate in various language groups' Urheimaten): the lines show the constant pumping motions that generate waves of migration large and small. The therianthropes common today are thus the ones tied to the groups who drove/took advantage of the Neolithic Revolution: OTOH, the Atlantean lineages spread more through intermarriage and the woodwoses' movements were lined up with the Bond climatic events. I started with a weretiger war against the rakshasa blood-drinkers, then had to combine it with the Ramayana since my dates lined up with Epic India. There's no less than five battles, each of them apocalyptic-level, so there's gonna be a lot of magi-archeology in South India.

Any suggestions, stylistic tips, corrections welcome! The original is completely editable. Related maps here, here, here, and here.