(directionality indicated, scalable)
[Real World]--------->[Podium]-------->[put DaveG's map here]
^ | |
| v v
+<-----------------+<-------------------+
i wonder if cartography is going to be complicated or not? probably just walking around with quill, ink and map paper in your bag and selecting /draw map will do it, and then walking around to all the places will set a spine to the map, the initial roads. then once that happened, 10 minutes or so filling it in with locations, colours and stuff. perhaps the higher the level, the more locations and option you get? for example:
level 1 cartography: draw map.
level 3 cartograpy: draw map, locations.
level 9 cartography: draw map, locations, terrain types, Points of interest, npc locations, general info about the area.
perhaps at level 1 the map is quite crude, basic. at level 9 or whatever, the map is intricate, the writing perfect and the areas more exact to the map.
sorry for that long post, but i was just suggesting.