The return of the D&D campaign: This time it's potatoes

[Raid]

Heh, I don't want to ask any fiction questions if you haven't locked that down yet, just the more general stuff. How big a landmass are we looking at here, or how long would it take to travel across it on horseback (assuming horses or similar creatures are the transport of choice)? Is this the entire known world or part of a larger one?

Honestly I applaud the amount of effort that must go in to designing worlds like these.

[Wrathbone]

Each hex is 10 miles, which means as a rough estimate it's something like 1000 miles from top to bottom. A day's travel is around 25-30 miles, so to go from the far west of Velath to the top of the Sanctified Lands would probably take a couple of months at a standard pace. The intent was to have a landmass that you can't waltz across in a day but isn't so vast as to make traveling to any part of it infeasible. I'm also intending for there not to be as many time-sensitive events going on at any given time, so that distant exploration is a possibility.

I think I'll likely produce some more zoomed in and detailed maps for each region, as it would make sense for there to be many more smaller settlements and landmarks than are shown on this map.

Honestly I applaud the amount of effort that must go in to designing worlds like these.

Map-making and world building doesn't feel like effort to me as it's pure fun. Some people paint, I like making maps.

[Mantis]

Yeah its fun just playing with the software. I used Dungeondraft for all the maps in the current campaign (Wonderdraft for the world and continent maps) and I think ended up making about 70 of them in the end.

I pretty much did the same thing for my world map Pete, just created the shape of the continents and threw a few names in and then came up with the story from there. Once I'd come up with the origin story of the world in its current form I just filled in bits of the history and current events for the main factions and left a lot unknown to fill in during any future campaigns I run. Make your world map as big a resolution as you can handle is my tip; makes it easier to extract zoomed in sections without having to replicate anything in a new file.

[Wrathbone]

I think I went for the max size in Wonderdraft, but I output to a reduced size jpg for this. When zoomed in in Wonderdraft it does start to look a bit blurry though, so I may still make some separate regional maps.

Is this the entire known world or part of a larger one?

Just realised I didn't answer this. It's part of a larger world. There is a continent to the east which trades with this one and there are other continents I haven't thought about much yet (definitely one which has some obscure narrative relevance I'll not go into yet). Most people on Galania wouldn't give other continents much thought outside of stories and speculation, and most long-distance exploration would likely be via magical means rather than seafaring (other than the eastern trade route, which is by sea).

[Mantis]

Do you already have a juicy backstory conjured up for the Deadlands and the Rift? I've got some similarly coloured terrain on my world map. Something about just making the land black clearly denotes it being a grim place.

[Wrathbone]

I don't have all the details yet, but it's 100% along the lines of "bad shit went down" at some point a long time ago. The Rift is a gargantuan canyon believed to be man-made, with two fortified bridges across it to allow for excursions but prevent anything bad coming through. It's very much a similar situation to the Wall in Game of Thrones.

[Wrathbone]

I've been updating the map for Galania, along with a version that has colour-coded regions to show formal borders:

Regular version - https://drive.google.com/file/d/10wB1u- ... sp=sharing

With regions - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZVGfsZ ... sp=sharing

Apologies for the huge image sizes, but I want to retain the detail when zoomed in.

Regions are as follows:

White - The Sanctified Lands, the isolated and protected home of the Elves.

Red - Rexandor, an expansionist empire with its eyes on Aldania.

Green - Aldania, the Last True Kingdom of Galania.

Purple - The Bastion Kingdom, now a kingdom only in name and ruled by an allegiance of city states.

Yellow - Velath, a magocracy ruled by a Conclave of powerful individuals using magic to further their agendas.

Blue - Esterland Republic, a hotbed of beauracracy and philosophy mired by corruption.

Other locations (i.e. the islands and the Deadlands) have no formal nations.

[Sly Boots]

I've been updating the map for Galania, along with a version that has colour-coded regions to show formal borders:

Regular version - https://drive.google.com/file/d/10wB1u- ... sp=sharing

With regions - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZVGfsZ ... sp=sharing

Apologies for the huge image sizes, but I want to retain the detail when zoomed in.

Regions are as follows:

White - The Sanctified Lands, the isolated and protected home of the Elves.

Red - Rexandor, an expansionist empire with its eyes on Aldania.

Green - Aldania, the Last True Kingdom of Galania.

Purple - The Bastion Kingdom, now a kingdom only in name and ruled by an allegiance of city states.

Yellow - Velath, a magocracy ruled by a Conclave of powerful individuals using magic to further their agendas.

Blue - Esterland Republic, a hotbed of beauracracy and philosophy mired by corruption.

Other locations (i.e. the islands and the Deadlands) have no formal nations.

Map looks nice, I'll look forward to teleporting to random parts of it

[Sly Boots]

And something else... I held off posting this in the films thread as it's going to be massively niche, but I figure if anyone on the forum will appreciate it, it's our D&D collective.

Last night I watched a film on Prime called Gamers: Dorkness Rising... it's a little indie film about a group of tabletop players, and it's actually a lot of fun. The acting is mainly wooden, the budget looks to be basically nil, but you can tell the people who wrote it have played D&D. It's quite funny in a lot of parts, but nerdy (there's a recurring theme around the bard character that had me chuckling out loud each time it happened, but I won't spoil it beyond that).

It doesn't start in a particularly promising way, but gets better... give it 30 minutes at least, hopefully you're into it by then.

[Wrathbone]

Yeah, I watched one of the Gamers films a few years ago, quite enjoyed it! I think they made a few of them.

[Sly Boots]

Yeah, I watched one of the Gamers films a few years ago, quite enjoyed it! I think they made a few of them.

Great... if you've seen one previously and liked it, deffo check out the one on Prime. I looked and they've made a few others, but none seem to be available on Prime currently.