Working on Morocco

Description of Moroccan Political Fragmentation

For the first half of the 17th century and then some, Morocco was in a pretty dismal state. Here's my game world wiki writeup about what was going on there:

The Saadi Dynasty has ruled over Morocco since 1510, but since the death of the sultan Ahmad al-Mansur in 1603, feuding amongst al-Mansur's descendants has led to the crumbling of centralized power. The resulting internal strife seems certain to spell the dynasty's doom. The current sultan, Mohammed esh Sheikh es Seghir, has been unable to restore the Saadis to greatness; by now, it controls only a swathe of land stretching from Fez to Marrakesh. Elsewhere in the realm, the power vacuum created after al-Mansur's death has allowed regional strongmen and factions opposed to the dynasty to break away from the sultanate's control.

Numerous key ports on the Mediterranean, including Tangier, Ceuta, and Melilla, are held by the Spanish and the Portuguese -- who are at war with each other.

The northern lands surrounding several Moroccan and foreign-owned ports constitute the Emirate of Gharb, under the control of the Arab warlord Khadir Ghailan, a skilled political and military leader known for raiding foreign ports and rejecting all alliances. In northeastern Morocco's Emirate of Jbala, another powerful figure holds sway: Sheikh Arass, a Berber chieftain and sufi marabout (religious leader) who claims descent from the Prophet Muhammad. From his base near Ouezzane, Sheikh Arass has established a semi-independent state, often coming into conflict with Ghailan and occasionally allying with the Spanish to maintain his power.

Much of eastern Morocco is controlled by the Alaouite family, who, like the Saadis, can legitimately claim descent from the Prophet Mohammed; as such, they seek to overthrow the Saadis and rule in their stead. The Alaouites' lands make up the Emirate of Tafilalt; they are led by the Emir, Sidi Muhammad, and his half-brother Al-Rashid. The family has been expanding their hold for decades, and at some points have even controlled the capital, Marrakesh. Sidi Muhammad has annexed most of the Dra'a region and part of the Emirate of Tuat, and even conquered the distant Ottoman city of Oujda. Alaouite forces are reportedly already on the march to take the rest of Tuat, which would strengthen their hold on central Morocco.

Even in central Morocco, where Saadi control is strongest, the dynasty must still contend with two rebellious orders of religious sufis. The larger of these is the Dila Brotherhood, who follow the teachings of the 15th-century saint al-Jazuli. Their domain is the Bilad al-Dila. They are based in the Middle Atlas mountains, deploy their own diplomats to foreign powers, and maintain a sizable Berber army. Like the Alaouites, the Dila aim to replace the reigning dynasty, which makes the two groups bitter enemies.

Meanwhile, the marabout Abu Hassan al-Samlali controls the southwestern Sous region, also called the Bilad al-Illigh. The Illigh Brotherhood profits from the Sous sugar industry and controls access to important trans-Saharan trade routes that stretch over the Dra'a Plateau; they also have the backing of local Berber clans.

Finally, at the mouth of the Bou Regreg river in the northwest, the twin towns of Sali and Rabat form a notorious stronghold for Barbary pirates. Nearly 25 years ago, they declared themselves the independent Republic of Sali. Though this upstart realm is truly tiny, its pirates continually menace merchant vessels all along the Moroccan coastline and in the western Mediterranean. The Dila Brotherhood claims to have subdued the Republic, but the true strength of the Brotherhood's hold over these corsairs is unclear.

Relearning Mapmaking

You may have seen my partial Canary Islands map (since updated to include a settlement on Palma, in the northwest.) That was made with Photopea, a free Photoshop clone used from the web browser. However, Photopea creates raster images, which has several disadvantages for my D&D work:

1. There's a limit to how far you can zoom a raster image before it gets blurry.
2. At an overall image size which keeps text legible, an image can be rather heavyweight, even when optimized for the web.
3. A raster image is just a big blob of pixel data, for which there are no straightforward, scalable ways to associate sections of the image with links, pop-ups, hover effects, or other elements of interactive web media.

The solution, as you may be aware, is to design my maps as vector images, also called SVGs. Accordingly, I've started learning a vector graphics editing program called Affinity Designer. My first baby steps toward a map of western Morocco, circa 1651, can be seen here.