| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Markustay |
Posted - 07 Dec 2012 : 04:40:16
Western Heartlands Map. Please give feedback. If you see anything at all that looks off, let me know. I am trying a 'softer' look, but I don't want the labels to be too washed-out, so let me know what you think about that as well.
EDIT: Updated version.
This would be considered a 'players Map' - it contains only settlements, geographic features, and other locales that would be considered 'common knowledge'. A DMs Map will be forthcoming. It is almost entirely 1e/2e terrain, but some new roads and settlements (and even a couple of rivers) were given in 3e, and so these were added as well (and I used my best judgement where new features could not be presented precisely the same way on the older map setup). All settlements are canon - if you have any questions please ask.
This is v1.0 - I plan to tidy quite a few things up, but I wanted folks to have something useable in the meantime. I am not sure about labeling roads - hopefully I will be able to fit at least the major ones on the DMs Map (unless I get feedback to the contrary). I am also hoping to get some names for a few things that don't have any, so expect several updates. The final version will include a map key. |
| 30 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Markustay |
Posted - 28 Mar 2013 : 04:34:02
Actually, I am aware of his passing. What I wasn't aware of is that he was the artist who's style I emulate.
We have a (sadly) under-posted in thread about it. |
| Brian R. James |
Posted - 27 Mar 2013 : 15:52:27
I'm not sure if you're aware of this Markus, but Dennis Kauth, the cartographer of the 3E FRCS map of Faerûn, recently passed away.
http://randomwizard.blogspot.com/2013/03/in-memory-of-dennis-kauth.html
For what it's worth I greatly appreciate your Realms maps and I imagine Dennis would be happy to know that his style lives on in every map you release. |
| PaulBestwick |
Posted - 27 Mar 2013 : 00:19:53
I hope you get back to it Markus, because I for one want to see a map containing Impiltur in th ewest and the Sunrise mountains in the East and the Wizards Reach in the South the Icerim mountains in the North. I am thinking I might just have to have such a map professionally printed for my own use.
Hears hoping you get back to it in the future. Just ignore time zones and references to planet size. That stuff is mildly interesting, but a good map fires up the imagination much more. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 16 Mar 2013 : 14:05:27
Not really. Sorry.
Whats-his-face kinda knocked the wind out of my sails for purely FR maps for awhile. I do mean to get back to it, but getting attacked for something you do to help the community (something that is supposed to be 'just for fun') does that to you.
Sadly, thats the uglier side of the 'FR fanbase'. I'll try to have something in the next few weeks. |
| PaulBestwick |
Posted - 14 Mar 2013 : 23:31:14
Markus, how goes the work on the Eastern Heartlands? Any updates to share? |
| Markustay |
Posted - 09 Feb 2013 : 00:59:58
Yeah, Golarion's a BIG place (too big, if you ask me - I squished everything within 'walking distance' for my new campaign).
The only thing I couldn't keep 'to scale' from PF (and elswhere) was Varisia, but after studying the campaign maps of Varisia I realized most of it was 'wastelands', and that the majority of the important sites were all near the coast. It would have actually worked better as Mulhorand or the Utter East, but as I said I wanted to keep everything within 'striking distance' for my players (there are I think 5 adventure paths for Varisia!)
Thay is more like Cheliax now... but its still Thay. Dark and brooding, but with more imperial aspirations then magical ones. I have a lot of plots revolving around Thay - they have their fingers in everything. |
| Dalor Darden |
Posted - 09 Feb 2013 : 00:31:47
I hadn't realized Absalom's island was that size compared to other places in the Forgotten Realms! |
| Markustay |
Posted - 09 Feb 2013 : 00:21:23
Because he asked for it...
quote:
Originally posted by Dalor Darden
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay
Yup - if I ever get my PCs down to Sespech I will be shamelessly looting all of this.
@Dalor - wait until you see what I've done with 'your' Ixinos. Its now part of the Kingdom of Alvalon (which is based around Absalom from PF, which I shoe-horned into that part of the Inner sea... one Inner Sea is as good as any other). 
Share man!
Thats very rough - I haven't even re-done the mountains in the FR style yet.
Those five islands (two taken from Golarion) make up the kingdom of Alvalon; its actually more of a republic. The main island really only controls the one above it, Ilighon and Ixinos are self-geoverned, and Wavecrest has only recently been occupied (by a fortified keep with personel fro all three of the other a main islands). The Thayans tried to establish a base there, so they had to boot them out and now fortify the place against it happening again (Wavecrest is a fairly inhospitable, barren island). This is when the other Islands formed into a republic, for mutual protection against foreign powers.
Thats the Hold of the Sea Prince NW of them there, lifted directly from Greyhawk. They recently captured Lenchford from the Impilturans and renamed it Port Toli (I moved Turmish South, so that is Impiltur on the north coast of the Vilhon reach).
The other 'odd citiies' you see on the end of the Aglarondan Peninsula is where I shoe=horned in parts of Varisia (also from Golarion). Just above Aglarond is The Sword Coast (which you can see on my other "Misbegotten Realms" maps.
I plan to do an entire campaign for the finished map over at the Piazza (since it has moved so far away from FR canon I figured that site was better for a project like this). The map was originally only a reference for myself - if it proves popular I am going to use a completely different style to do each individual region (something similar to what I did on my Anchorome WIP). |
| Neil |
Posted - 16 Jan 2013 : 05:07:21
I really liked playing in the Utter East. There were a lot of interesting places to travel to, and our GM gave it a very exotic feel. Because you don't get a lot of overland travel there (the mountains and jungles form a barrier to Kara-Tur and the civilized centre of Zakhara is far from the land connections to the rest of the continent), it felt like we were Indiana Jones in Temple of Doom, only with swords and magic and long-forgotten secrets of ancient lore. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 15 Jan 2013 : 23:48:16
You know what I consider a good day? When I find not one, but TWO new settlements in the Realms. 
Fiddler's Pass, in the Troll Hills, and Lopi, on the border of the Utter East and Zakhara. The first is insignificant (tiny village), but the second one is a Yakmen city with a navy and everything! Faerûn gets an obscure 'cameo' - The Yakmen sometimes take slaves from 'the barbarians of the north'. There was even a map! (of Yakmen territory, not the city)
Thats what the Realms needs - more Yakmen! |
| daarkknight |
Posted - 04 Jan 2013 : 14:29:23
Guess I should dig out my old FRIA disks and load it up onto this laptop of mine... |
| Markustay |
Posted - 03 Jan 2013 : 14:01:30
Its the same one, and its located on the canon FRIA maps.
They didn't bury Talembar in Ebenfar, they buried him in Indoria (which became the Fields of the Dead) in a cairn, where he died fighting goblins (Crypt of the Shadowking, pgs. 159-160)
Why that author (Mark Anthony) decided to place a civilization on the 'unlivable' High Moor is beyond me. {shrugs}
EDIT: From other sources (some canon, others not-so-much) I have pieced-together a fairly large, overall area where the Talfir came from, and Ebenfar ruled over most of them at some point. My assumption here is that the Shadowking built his Fortress-city (capital) on the High Moor on-purpose, both to keep unwanted intrusions out, and his minions in. The High Moor itself was within his massive kingdom, but not the kingdom.
*Edited to include source. One of my New Years resolutions is to be more thorough with my note-taking. |
| daarkknight |
Posted - 03 Jan 2013 : 04:15:25
Question for you...
I noticed the location of Ebenfar in the south central High Moor. Now, I know that there was a kingdom of Ebenfar that was located in the Fields of the Dead. What I am wondering if a - what is your source for this location of Ebenfar, and b - are these two instances of Ebenfar associated with each other. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 30 Dec 2012 : 19:00:35
An Update of the Western Heartlands.
Not sure if I caught all the corrections yet - just tweaking the heck out of it right now. This is very basic - I haven't played with the layers at all (so everything is showing and none of the text has been faded yet). |
| daarkknight |
Posted - 30 Dec 2012 : 14:02:41
Wow. I completely missed that road/trail thing, and I've been staring at this map hard the last couple of days.
But it does bring up a question I have, and now it's time to start a new topic. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 30 Dec 2012 : 04:07:32
Thanks for the heads-up.
I just noticed 2 minutes ago (while working on that map) that the trail going past Darkhold turns into a regular road as it passes the swamp. Damned Zhents paving a highway to Azoun's front door!
I was going to do just a couple of quick corrections (stuff people have pointed out and a few others), but I decided to first do the extension of the map, and also add-in many of the locales I had previously hidden (as I said earlier, it really doesn't make much sense to hide them). Hopefully I will have it done in a couple of days; Amn's looking pretty sweet.
I still have a story to write before the 1st... me and my procrastination...  |
| daarkknight |
Posted - 30 Dec 2012 : 03:30:29
Markus,
I just noticed on your Western Heartlands/North map that you have Espar in Cormyr as Esper. As much as I've looked at this map for fun, it took me researching caravan routes from Cormyr to Baldur's Gate to notice this. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 29 Dec 2012 : 21:22:05
Ah, okay... so it was already too big so I won't worry about it. Thanks. |
| rjfras |
Posted - 29 Dec 2012 : 21:18:55
the names of the forests, mountains, bodies of water were easy to read as was the name of Waterdeep, but all the smaller locations with the smaller font were really hard to read on a 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper when printed out, at least to me... |
| Markustay |
Posted - 29 Dec 2012 : 20:37:35
Hmmm, good point.
If I don't have to worry about keeping the proportions scaled to a typical sheet of paper, that would help. I realize that many more people are 'computer savvy' today then just five years ago, so I may be over-thinking things.
And yes, I was talking about the map of the North, which is actually a map of the Western Heartlands (and Islands). Its sister-map is simply called 'Eastern Heartlands' - I even confuse myself when I go looking for a particular file.  |
| rjfras |
Posted - 29 Dec 2012 : 18:03:31
when you say the map of the NW, do you mean the map of the North on page one or the eastern heartlands here on page 2?
I can print one out and see, but i hardly ever print your maps out otherwise. I use them on the computer and post them in our gaming forum or directly into our virtual gaming table.
I'm wondering in this day and age, how many people actually print maps like this out for their games or use rather then using some form of electronic media to view them. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 29 Dec 2012 : 15:38:21
I guess I made my posts so long I killed my own thread.
"Death by Boredom" LOL
Has anyone tried to print out the map of the NW? I scaled it to fit an 8½ × 11 piece of paper perfectly, but now I'm thinking that was a useless gesture. I was wondering if people can still read everything if its printed out that way? My eyes aren't what they used to be so I won't judge for myself.
The problem I am having now is that I don't like the way the next segment falls out - I loose the southern and eastern edges of Thay. I could shift everything south for this one (which would also help in the north - I have too much 'blank area' showing up there), but that still wouldn't help with the problem to the east (and it would also mean the two halves of the Heartlands won't lineup perfectly). If I increase the area covered of this map I would have to go back and increase the size of the first one, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, unless I am crossing a legibility line with people printing these out.
If its already a problem (reading the text), then its a problem I don't have to worry about creating. Weird, I know. On the bright side, more of Amn and slightly more Cormyr gets shown on the newer version. I think in the end, when all is said and done, I will cut the entire thing into perfect 8½ × 11 (portrait) pieces and have them hosted here at the keep (for folks who aren't really savvy at doing those things themselves). That would allow someone to print-out just what they needed, or the entire map and tape it all together (and it should be about the same size as the one that came in Dragon Magazine). I did something similar with my original Silver Marches map.
Decisions, decisions... {scratches head} |
| Markustay |
Posted - 28 Dec 2012 : 16:05:25
This was an edit to the above post, but it got over-long...
I think I figured-out awhile ago that there must have been (at least) two tearfalls in the same region - the initial one (described in Great Glacier that happened just over a century ago... two centuries now), and a second (less profound) one that happened at the start of 1e (described in the 2e PGttFR). I figure the first one happened around 1300 DR (The Year of the Starfall) and second around 1344 (The Year of the Moonfall).*
So the first one happens, things begin to melt quickly and the bogs are formed. The enormity of the impact causes localized tectonic upheaval, which leads to on-going geothermal activity. Nar tribes begin emigrating into the region, and after 50 years Melegaunt shows up and does Shade-stuff, and then a century later another (lesser) tearfall occurs, causing another section of glacier (slightly further east) to melt, forming the Sea of Frozen Tears (which actually makes some sense, given the name). The Lich-King Zhengyi is released and begins to rebuild his power-base, and a few years later he has Castle Perilous constructed on the shores of the (temporary) sea.
By the time the official Campaign begins in 1356 DR the lake has already mostly re-frozen into a treacherous field of crusty ice and pitfalls.
When Telos landed back on Toril at the start of the Spellplague, the path of the impact came from the North (by NE), passing over the frozen slush of the old lake and forming the new Sea of Frozen Tears (because of the intense heat radiating form the object as it entered the atmosphere). This event was witness by Jamzbreon, Sage of the reclusive snow elves, and recorded in his Amazing Sites of the Great Glacier (re-published in Waterdeep under the tile, Crap, I Can't Feel My Toes!). 
*One might also wonder at all these tearfalls in the same vicinity, and wonder who, what, and why this is happening. It almost seems as if someone wants the Great Glacier melted. Its a good, open-ended adventure hook. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 28 Dec 2012 : 14:19:50
Locales that overlap existing locales are not shown - I may include all of that stuff on the 'extra material' map.
@Brian - I reduced the bogs (although the idea is that it isn't so much a swamp/marsh, but rather a 'squishy' intermittent wetlands, with an indeterminate border), but I discovered a secondary problem which leads to the illusion my bogs are so much bigger (it is about 30 miles wider, but yours go further south - this is due to the distortion of the 3e maps). The real problem is your Vassa is smaller then mine (double entendre intended ).
My Vassa is nearly 200 miles wide (and follows the underlying 2e FR9 maps outline), whereas yours is closer to 150 miles wide. Ergo, even though my bogs are bigger, I still have far more 'non-bogland' in my Vassa. The lakes on the Shley map are significantly smaller though - I had accounted that to the glacier melting having slowed down post-plague, but perhaps I should split the difference somewhat (the canon lakes on the FR9 are pretty massive, but we could just say that map was from a time period soon after Vassa was 'released' from the northern ice, and therefor much more wet. Even though the lakes are smaller, the bogs extended all the way to the mountains; this made sense with the 3e map layout, but not so much with the 1e/2e layout.
My assumption with that is going to be that Vassa's original topography slowly increased in altitude as one went toward the mountains (which is how it usually works), and the bogs were further from them 'in the past'. During the Spellplague there was much in the way of tectonic upheaval and a large portion of the plateau between the river and mountains collapsed, causing the bogs to drain into that new lowland region. This, in turn, means the lakes would have reduced in size, which works out perfectly. 
I had some questions in your thread, and to those I would like to add: Which locales/settlements on that map would have been around in 4e? I know Moortown was a ruin (and I assume it was resettled after the arrival of the Warlock Knights), but there are a couple of others (Avang? Kond?) I'm not sure about.
quote:
Originally posted by Brian R. James
The Sea of Tears should be depicted north of Vaasa in the area of the Great Glacier. It was mentioned in the original gray boxed set, but never appeared on a map until 4E.
You wouldn't happen to have a page number for this? I assumed that was a Faerûnian name for one of the already-existing large lakes on the Glacier (just like how several mountain ranges have different names).
EDIT: Nevermind, found it (pg.86). Hmmmm... that short story about Melegaunt really screwed things up. My assumption here was that the initial melting of the glacier (caused by a tearfall described in both the 2e Player's Guide to the Forgotten Realms and the Great Glacier supplement) created a temporary 'sea', which eventually became the bogs (as the melting decreased and things leveled-off). This works well if you figure it happened in a 20-year period encompassing 1350-1370 DR, but not so much since Melegaunt was traipsing about where it shouldn't have been possible (at that time). Melegaunt creating the Iron tower before Castle Perilous really messes things up.
|
| BlackAce |
Posted - 28 Dec 2012 : 11:48:51
Excellent work as always, Mark. You're tempting me to break out my old Sword Coast map and finally finish it.
PS. might be worth adding the Rose Garden to the Battle of Bones as its billed as a well known landmark. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 28 Dec 2012 : 01:47:12
Thanks for the words of encouragement and thank you specifically Brian for all those great 'heads ups'.
The art style of the 3e maps (which I love, don't get me wrong) isn't the best for showing things like mountain passes and gorges, but I've been trying my best. I also dislike the size of the bogs, but those lakes are directly traced from the Vassa map beneath it. I guess I have to assume the bogs do not encompass the entire lakes region.
I've been re-tweaking the western (The North) map the past couple of days - I've changed my mind somewhat about presentation (I think far more 'features' should have been shown on what I've been calling the 'players map'). I realize that many 'dark' locales would be better known then half of those tiny hamlets. It seems kinda silly to me (in retrospect) to 'hide' adventure sites from folks when they've been available all along on other maps.
I think the second map will be just true dungeons (not just ruins), road names, temples, regional names, Monstrous locales, Underdark locales, and Undersea locales. So rather then being a 'DMs map', it will be more of a 'less used information' map (all stuff that is nice to have a reference for, but not stuff you need to know every time you look at the campaign map).
I may make it a CK exclusive as well. Still considering that. |
| Joebing |
Posted - 27 Dec 2012 : 21:26:45
Nice map, as usual Markustay! The collectables thing...well, that's a fight that is tough. My wife's ex lost his fight over $250K of sports-related stuff. Your word of advice is sound. Definitely get everything appraised and cataloged, even insured separately. Hope you can win this one! |
| Brian R. James |
Posted - 27 Dec 2012 : 18:33:10
Excellent work as always Markus. I do have a few comments/suggestions about the Moonsea North and Vaasa regions.
The Bottomless Bogs appears much too large. As you have it now it’s consuming greater than 50% of Vaasa. It should be about 1/4th the size.
The Clefts of Razack, the gorge that the Beaumaris cuts through Vaasa, should be represented. Though this feature first appeared on a 4E map, the gorge was not a result of the Spellplague and (it’s assumed) has always been there.
Similarly with Lake Longreach northwest of Thar. It’s always been there, just has not shown on any maps prior to now.
Same with Vercy Wood at the eastern end of The Ride. This woodland long ago protected the western flank of the lost kingdom of Barze.
As has already been mentioned, the Quivering Forest is missing along the Stojanow River north of Phlan.
The Sea of Tears should be depicted north of Vaasa in the area of the Great Glacier. It was mentioned in the original gray boxed set, but never appeared on a map until 4E. |
| Markustay |
Posted - 27 Dec 2012 : 17:41:49
Hmmmmm.. Old Sage helping Markustay finish a map. 
Aren't there some sort of cosmic rules in place that say our 'to do' lists can't overlap? We may break the space-time continuum. 
{Just kidding - any help is always appreciated}
EDIT: Just noticed the tag for Kythiss is missing (so don't bother pointing it out) on the southern tip of the Moonshaes. How can I have forgotten Hugz and Kythiss?
Okay... that was a truly awful pun.... |
| The Sage |
Posted - 27 Dec 2012 : 01:13:18
I've haven't looked over the updated maps in quite a while, but I'll try to do so before week's end. |
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