The diagrams on this page demonstrate, I believe, the value that there was in my collaboration with Ben Harte. They represent my initial concepts for Osrakum, and though they have many of the same features that are to be found in the Osrakum of the books, they lack refinement.

A point of interest might be that in a very early draft of what was to become The Chosen, it was these maps which represented Osrakum and thus much of the narrative took a quite different path through the space.

The first diagram shows the caldera. My ignorance at this time of volcanic geology meant that I imagined the caldera as being a bowl which was silted up at its edges. So that, the Chosen at that point inhabited estates that covered the slopes running down to the lake. It is this land which is shown by a series of concentric contours.

The inset diagrams show the Canyon of the Three Gates (Great Passage) which meanders rather than running according to ring fractures. The 'Pomegranate Court' is a circular hollow in the caldera wall for which Ben could find no plausible explanation.

The second diagram shows the Isle which I conceived very much as a rocky island. My attempt to have its from reflect its volcanic origins is shown the Plain of Thrones and the circular, partially submerged crater at the bottom right. (A structure which was to develop into the Ydenrim.) However, my concept was scuppered by the inability to explain the origins of the various peaks - with particular importance, the 'Sky Mountain' that was to become the Pillar of Heaven.

In the early version of The Chosen, this island was covered in a continuous palace structure that later became the Labyrinth.

The events that occur in the Yden were played out in the scrubby, near-desert of the southwest plain.