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T O P I C    R E V I E W
Zeromaru X Posted - 08 Apr 2017 : 00:00:05
Hi, fellow scribes.

I'm working on a map of the Old Empires for my campaign. Because I'm still choosing the region I will set my campaign (the candidates are Laerakond, Neverwinter and the surrounding area, and, obviously, the Old Empires), and the Old Empires seem to be more attractive the more I read about them. The stuff is that I want to play in the current Realms, so post-Sundering 2.0. That means a lot of stuff is left in the air for the regions that are not the North or the Sword Coast.

So, I taking some artistic licenses with my map, "fusing" elements from both, 3.x and 4e maps. However I have a pair of doubts and I will appreciate any suggestions you can give me about it.

1. The SCAG says that the level of the Sea of Fallen Stars returned to its pre-Spellplague state. That means that a lot of the coast along it have changed (are more to the interior of the continent). Its logical to assume that those changes also apply to the Alamber Sea?

2. Much of the lands in Chessenta and Unther were destroyed or drowned in the cataclysms that followed the Spellplague. An island (the Ship of the Gods) even disappeared. Its logical to reverse those changes to their 3.x state? Or should I just change the coast lines and leave any major geographical change as it was? What about the Gulf of Luirien? Its logical to assume that the Eastern Shaar was returned? I don't think so, but I'm not sure about this.

3. How much of the 4e areas should I left intact in the post-Sundering Old Empires? For Instance, Akanûl. The SCAG puts Airspur in Chessenta, regardless of the inconsistencies this brought to the canon. Also, should I leave Messemprar as a drowned city, or "recover" that part of land? (this would mean more territories for Unther).

For that matter, should Akanûl be counted as a nation of the Old Empires area? (I intend to leave Akanûl as a separate state from Chessenta, just for consistency reasons).

4. Its a good idea to revive/relocate High Imaskar in the Plains of Purple Dust? We know they fled there after the Mulhorandi called their gods, and we know that Skyclave was a flying/mobile city (as per the novels of the Brotherhood of the Griffon), they could just relocate it in whatever place they want.

Or should I better left the Imaskari as a few, nation-less cities in that desert?

Thanks in advance for your input (?)
23   L A T E S T    R E P L I E S    (Newest First)
Zeromaru X Posted - 15 Jul 2017 : 12:30:31
I've made a little modification to my map: just remade a few parts to be more akin to the 1e map (thanks to Markustay, who gave me a really beautiful 1e map). Tymanther, Murghôm and Akanûl, on the other hand, are more like their 4e versions (that is more close to canon, as Ash Lake is mentioned in the SCAG).

Here you go, Old Empires 1491, v.3
http://imgur.com/QRv7UyH

EDIT:
v.3.2
I've made a few changes to the Ash and Lance lakes so that they look more like lakes. This means the River Alamber becomes more prominent.
http://i.imgur.com/SMyhd5n.png
Zeromaru X Posted - 03 Jun 2017 : 09:35:13
I'm glad those maps are of use to you,

And yeah, the Old Empires region is just great in the post-Sundering world.
DiscerningDM Posted - 28 May 2017 : 18:56:06
Zero, these are great.

I'm kicking off a Brotherhood of the Griffon campaign in the modern old empires. These maps are great. The new setting is just amazing for having adventures, the whole region is just a powder keg of religious warfare about to break out.
Zeromaru X Posted - 13 May 2017 : 08:47:37
Thanks. However, this map was done thanks to Markustay's help (I bothered him to help me with some details, lol).
Cyrinishad Posted - 11 May 2017 : 14:00:57
Well done Zeromaru. Keep up the Cartography.
sleyvas Posted - 11 May 2017 : 12:51:11
quote:
Originally posted by Markustay

For anyone interested, I just reposted my Old Empires Map over on DeviantART. Its really out-of-date now, because the terrain went back to the 1e/2e layout, but hopefully someone may still find it useful.



Hmmm, I just realized, whenever I made my version in campaign cartographer, I used yours as my base for the coastline and to kind of place the city's general locations. I generally take a snip with snippingtool and paste it in, place my borders, then delete the actual picture. I do really like yours and Handsome Rob's maps.
xaeyruudh Posted - 11 May 2017 : 06:06:46
Thanks for sharing your maps, nice work. It's great to see what other peeps are doing/interpreting.
Markustay Posted - 11 May 2017 : 04:38:59
I used to have a slew of unlabeled maps. I took them all down awhile back when I had a bit of a meltdown.

I do plan to do the whole of Faerûn very shortly - just trying to finish-up the Nentir Vale conversion map. I also have a small update of my Shaareach map I will release in the next day or so. I was working on that yesterday and got sidetracked (I'm my mother's caregiver and she has a LOT of appointments this week). Thats in the old 3e style, and except for some very rare updates like that one, everything else will be in my newer style, which is close to what I am doing in the Nentir Vale map. I unfortunately never finished 'stripping' all the text out of the 3e Faerûn map, but I had most of it done and had released areas of it in the past. I don't have most of those anymore, I'm afraid. When I release the new maps, the plan is to do them in layered PDF's, so if you turn all the layers off you can print them out blank.

I really enjoyed the 3e style - now the 'old' style. But its its dated, and you can't do certain things with it (like show overlapping terrain). I'm afraid the last 'hurrah' for me with that style is the weird Halruaa/Returned Abeir conversion I did a few months back, and thats only because I was able to use some older maps of mine for most of it.
Lucifer_Drake Posted - 10 May 2017 : 22:18:39
Markustay will you being doing any update FR maps based on 5e? Will thy be in the 3rd edition style od most of your previous maps? Do you have any unlabeled versions of the whole "Core" FR map? Just curious, I follow you on Deviant art & only saw a few unlabeled maps.
Markustay Posted - 14 Apr 2017 : 18:44:43
For anyone interested, I just reposted my Old Empires Map over on DeviantART. Its really out-of-date now, because the terrain went back to the 1e/2e layout, but hopefully someone may still find it useful.
sleyvas Posted - 12 Apr 2017 : 21:42:12
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X

Akanax existed in 4e. It was ruin, though. Seems the city of Pandrik was made by the survivors of Akanax. But it ruins persisted, nonetheless.

If we go by your idea of those cities being translated to Abeir instead, I guess they will unite, as Pandrik is inhabited by the descendants of the Akanaxian of old. As you say, they are relatives.

BTW, if you are accepting ideas from the LFR, New Breen seems to be located in a earthmote (and we know that earthmotes in Akanûl still work, unlike the other in the rest of the Realms). Below it, is a port city named Lower Breen, that maybe is the replacement of the town that was there before. And there is a city named Deepspur in the Akanapeaks, halfway between Lower and New Breens and Airspur. And in the forests of the south, there is an elven community named Wildhome (that is considered to be between the boundaries of Akanûl)



Yeah, on the akanax thing, the question becomes the ones who transferred to Abeir... did they die there or live? just because things come back doesn't mean that they come back as they existed. If akanax survived (i.e. Shyr didn't come in and kill them), then when it "returns" I see them aligning with Pandrick. I guess another option we could find is "akanax" returning, but its filled with genasi from Abeir who are likely to either ally with Akanul OR decide that Akanul is full of traitors OR just don't give a damn about akanul but attack Pandrick/chessenta. Not sure what works best, though I lean more towards the Akanax/Pandrick making an alliance and there being a "reborn Chessenta" that's a warrior culture.

On the Breen stuff, I know next to nothing about the place other than its name. I wish there were an icon I could use to show earthmotes. Maybe there is and I need to look. But Akanul won't be anything I really get into detailing. My focus will be on the tharch of Peleveran and then some info on how it relates to surrounding areas (including the red mineral forest of Shyr which I'll need to detail). The rest will come for 4e/5e lore.

Hmmm, I do like the idea of the elven community you mention. Since Chondath and the Chondalwood was an area of spellplague, we could assume that some of it transferred to Abeir as well. We could have a very strong culture of just becoming adults amongst those elves.

BTW, one of the things I'm writing up is this concept that right at the beginning of the transfer to Abeir, many of the cultures throughout the world had this cooperative dreamcasting happen that "summoned" the sun and moon gods over. Afterwards, its noted that these spellcasters are extremely potent sexually for say the next ten years (as in they either get pregnant or make their partners pregnant quite easily) and often produce twins. Thus, why I say that the Chondalwood could come back with this massive amount of younger elves, if they didn't lose many to attrition and instead grew their culture.
Zeromaru X Posted - 12 Apr 2017 : 09:04:48
I guess Sleyvas uses Campaign Cartographer 3. My maps are handmade, because I suck with map tools.

EDIT:
As per Kanzen's suggestion, I've been researching the 1e/2e maps. And it seems that in 1e/2e the distance between cities and landmarks was more... bigger?

For instance, in the 3e. map, the Sharawood is relatively closer to Azulduth. In the 2e map, the Sharawood is way south of Azulduth. I mean, maybe miles way south...

I guess my map would need some editing, after all...
BARDOBARBAROS Posted - 12 Apr 2017 : 08:13:13
Great jobs !!! What map too do you use?
Zeromaru X Posted - 11 Apr 2017 : 22:49:09
Akanax existed in 4e. It was ruin, though. Seems the city of Pandrik was made by the survivors of Akanax. But it ruins persisted, nonetheless.

If we go by your idea of those cities being translated to Abeir instead, I guess they will unite, as Pandrik is inhabited by the descendants of the Akanaxian of old. As you say, they are relatives.

BTW, if you are accepting ideas from the LFR, New Breen seems to be located in a earthmote (and we know that earthmotes in Akanûl still work, unlike the other in the rest of the Realms). Below it, is a port city named Lower Breen, that maybe is the replacement of the town that was there before. And there is a city named Deepspur in the Akanapeaks, halfway between Lower and New Breens and Airspur. And in the forests of the south, there is an elven community named Wildhome (that is considered to be between the boundaries of Akanûl)
sleyvas Posted - 11 Apr 2017 : 18:12:19
quote:
Originally posted by Zeromaru X

The issue with your placement of Airspur is the river that is mentioned in the Airspur article (Dragon 377), the Akanawater (that flows from the Akanapeaks), that crosses the city. That means that the big gulf in the map is not the same chasm where Airspur is located.

BTW, I forgot to add this river to the map...


PD. I find curious that nearly all names in Akanûl begin with "Aka" or "Akana"... xD



True, I should narrow that gap behind the city to be more of a river coming out of the mountains. I should also show a waterfall just before the city. I think CC3+ has a picture of a waterfall.... hmmm, not just the water itself, but if I turn a geyser on its side... yeah, that kind of works. BTW, remind me to beat whoever at CC3+ decided to separate the border of land from the land itself, such that moving it requires a 2 step process.

Hmmm, and since things we're supposed to return back from Abeir, let's return back Hlath and Akanax, but both as ruins. Why? Hlath works as a small village with a ruined Thayan enclave in it (that has a malfunctioning portal, fill it with some kind of nastiness for Akanul to deal with)... and Akanax was basically replaced by Pandrick which is a smaller city in the 4e era.... or we could have Akanax come back strong, and the two cities unite as warrior cities to bring back the Chessentan warrior ideal(they're probably full of relatives anyway). Which is better (ruins or healthy)?

Oh, and for the hell of it, throw in some forest that grew up over the past century, but show the area around Hlath had a lot of logging. The lumberjacks went wild without the emerald enclave breathing down their necks.

Oh, and just to throw out the modified picture

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8CYc8h_6sg8VkJvay1seXFHbjA/view?usp=sharing

Zeromaru X Posted - 11 Apr 2017 : 01:46:49
The issue with your placement of Airspur is the river that is mentioned in the Airspur article (Dragon 377), the Akanawater (that flows from the Akanapeaks), that crosses the city. That means that the big gulf in the map is not the same chasm where Airspur is located.

BTW, I forgot to add this river to the map...


PD. I find curious that nearly all names in Akanûl begin with "Aka" or "Akana"... xD
sleyvas Posted - 10 Apr 2017 : 17:22:15
Ah, I see the map now. Thank you for the stealing the red mineral forest of Shyr. At a glance, we're kind of similar, and I plan on putting a disclaimer in what I put up on DMs Guild along the lines of saying "the world has changed in the past year, and cartographers are going mad trying to document all of the changes. As a result, any maps in this product should be taken as a best attempt rather than solid fact. Also, cities are shown with a rough view of their architecture that is in place to give a rough feel through imagery. Actual city layouts will vary drastically."

Anyway, I figured I'd share screen captures of my own for feedback/ideas. I'm using Campaign Cartographer 3+ (because I suck at doing this stuff from scratch). If you'd like a copy of the actual campaign cartographer file, I'll be happy to provide it as well, as I plan on putting both JPEG's and the editable files in my offering, so that people can make their own changes without it being a major issue. Below are links to the screen captures. The one thing I note is that I left off Lance Lake. I'll also note, some of my idea have changed since I last worked on this (the idea of leaving akanax in Abeir for instance. Oh, and I'll also note, I specifically show airspur as being on two sides of a chasm because that's how its portrayed in 4e.

Chessenta - Unther - Akanul - zoomed out

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8CYc8h_6sg8UEUxSDVKMW5XOUk/view?usp=sharing

Shaar - United Tharch of Peleveran - zoomed out

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8CYc8h_6sg8eU5vTW5ESVlYSms/view?usp=sharing

Peleveran - closer- more detail

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8CYc8h_6sg8SWJsNy1LeC1Jakk/view?usp=sharing

Chessenta - closer - more detail

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8CYc8h_6sg8U3IzRXFuZXBQYTA/view?usp=sharing

Threskel - Western Chessenta - closer - more detail

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8CYc8h_6sg8YlQxSDkyblliUW8/view?usp=sharing
KanzenAU Posted - 10 Apr 2017 : 15:51:29
Awesome, nice work!
Zeromaru X Posted - 10 Apr 2017 : 13:06:18
sorry, it would be available know...

EDIT:
Sure, I can release a v.2 with canon-only stuff... the only thing bugging would be the region that used to be the Underchasm, that has no canon equivalent in 5e.

However, beyond what I've mentioned a few posts earlier, the rest of the map is canon.

EDIT 2:
Here you go. A v.2, 100% canon.

http://i.imgur.com/4xes0d8.png

EDIT 3:

... typo. Edited.

As a bonus, the political map. 100% canon, as well.

http://i.imgur.com/ZcfRmlK.png
KanzenAU Posted - 10 Apr 2017 : 13:01:47
The map isn't showing up for me.

I've been very wary of using the squished 3e/4e maps, as the current maps go back to the 1e/2e layout. Of course, the 3e/4e maps are still important to reference for sites etc, as the 5e maps differ between preferring the changed 3e/4e maps or the original site - though they mostly prefer the more recent source. I had to deal with this a lot in my North map, as the Silver Marches got particularly smooshed by the 3e squidging, and in 5e they broadened the area again and made it a hybrid of the older and newer maps.

I guess the main point I would make is that it might be better to go with the 1e/2e layout, and try to put the 3e/4e sites into that. That said, I have no idea what map inconsistencies, if any, there were between editions in the area you're looking at. I don't got no idea about that part of the world.

Looking forward to see what you produce!

Edit:
Also, a request: if you make this available, please consider making a canon-only version! It's nothing against what you've done, it's just I never use maps with fanon in them.
Zeromaru X Posted - 10 Apr 2017 : 07:47:30
Sorry, I was editing some stuff. Try again.

EDIT:
A friend point me up a few things, the most relevant of that being a map of the region published in Dragon Mag. 358. So, the map has been updated accordingly.
Matrix Sorcica Posted - 10 Apr 2017 : 07:44:58
Page not found?
Zeromaru X Posted - 10 Apr 2017 : 07:24:44
Map finished. The final version differs a little from the preview I sent to Markustay because, as I said in another topic, the locations in the 4e map were weird... I ended using the 3e maps for the geographical layout and adapting it to the 4e layout.

Here is the map:

http://i.imgur.com/Xdgx9jM.png

This map is 99% canon, 1% fanon. The fanon areas are the Shaar Plains (formerly, the Underchasm, now an immense plain of rolling grasslands and nothingness for miles upon miles...), the Abeir Plains (an idea stolen from Sleyvas, a land of red plains from Abeir), Lake Rauthen (only the name, as this lake exist in the 4e map as an unnamed lake), and the Shyrwood (an idea stolen from Markustay, a forest of red trees from Abeir—Shyr is the equivalent continent to Faerûn in that world, hence the name). And some places from one of Markustay's map, that I cannot trace to official products, so I guess those are fanon as well (unless Markustay can confirm them as canon).

Also, I restored the Akanamere to its former glory, its diminished 4e self made me sad. You can say Ao restored it, because reasons. The location of the Palace of the Purple Emperor is ad hoc, as well. But, since the palace is mobile, I guess it doesn't matter were I put it. I just put it near the forest, because leaving poor old Empress Ususi in the desert seemed cruel..,

The rest is pure canon. Sources are the Old Empires and Lost Empires of Faerûn books, 2e, 3e and 4e official Faerûn maps (Markustay helped me with this, after I pestered him for help ), Brian R. James article about Chessenta (Dungeon 178), some novels, (Brimstone Angels series, Brotherhood of the Griffon first three novels, and Sword of the Gods: Spinner of Lies), and the 4e Living Forgotten Realms adventures set in Akanûl and Tymanther.

I'm wondering if I should share this in the DM's Guild...

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