A Puzzling Map

A quick hark back to the previous month's prop making.  I wanted a combined treasure items and puzzle for the players in our D&D game so I came up with this puzzle.

Its supposed to be made from squares of gold, but I needed something lighter (and cheaper).

I used two squares of foam board with the card peeled back.  I drew the map shape onto one of them and then cut it out.  I began using a hot wire cutter, but it broke so I had to finish off with a sharp craft knife.  The hot wire cutter did a better job though and there is quite an undercut on some of the pieces cut with a knife.

Then it was a simple matter to glue everything together before cutting the individual squares apart.

Finally an undercoat followed by successive layers of bronze, brass and gold paints, then the detail added.

If you're interested the map shows the Empire of Y'hog at its peak, and it has a few arcane properties, thus I can give some historical information to the players.

It didn't take them too long to work out, though it took rather longer for them to identify where it was (the land forms have changed somewhat since it was made).  The players thought it was great fun.