My Cobbled Together Setting Map and Stuff.

[RevTurkey]

Hi y'all.

I've been bimbling about, cobbling together a setting for some of my games.
Using a variety of sources: Lesserton, Barrowmaze, Larm, Imagine Magazine and my own head.
The first map is roughly 10 miles per hex (although that may change) North is up

I know it probably is full of mistakes (Two Troll Woods! Ha ha, well now I have the North and Southern Troll Woods)
Just thought I'd share it for the heck of it. All the empty spaces will be filled as the game develops etc.
If it is impossible in nature...well luckily...it must just be magic!

The land is loosely a sort of Fantasy Medieval England. With a king ruling through his council of mages and advisors.
I am thinking it was discovered by a group of adventurers led by the explorer 'Severest Pit'.
Build on the ruins of an ancient civilisation (aren't they all)
..the land was arrived at through a magic gate created by the founder of the soon to be Pelinore school of wizardry..The Wynd (as in wind up...a spire with a path weaving to the top).
I might even have this portal still active so that when the group become powerful enough they might be sent back through to the 'old' world, whatever that might be.

Some of the locations are names of characters from previous adventures that me and my players had

It is only small and mainly unexplored as it has only been settled in the past 100 years or so.
It is only my starting off point anyway. Never done this before.

[Raven_Crowking]

I currently live in Toronto, Ontario. In Ontario, there is also a Paris and a London.

When I lived in California, I used to drive past the turn-off to Ontario to get to work.

Two Troll Woods doesn't strain my suspension of disbelief in the least. Within the context of DCC's "small world", the people living near one Troll Wood probably don't even know the other exists.

RC

[RevTurkey]

Nuts eh?

I know it sounds quite vanilla but if my amp is already on ten where do I go when I want more? Ha ha I just have to put a 'Stonehenge' type location in now.

This setting is going to double up for some Labyrinth lord games (for when I can't get enough players that I think DCC needs) and also for placement of the DCC modules and my own creations. At least until maybe Goodman Games offer a setting. I have most of the things on the map fully detailed using stuff I have or bought, just changing a few names and key details.

I also just got 'The Dungeon Alphabet', 'The Tome Of Adveture Design' and 'Random Esoteric Creature Generator' pdfs at the suggestion of people on these forums. They all look very useful but the Dungeon Alphabet is my fave! Love it.

[RevTurkey]

I have got most of it ready.
Not done the towers or fort/castles yet but will when needed.
Also not done the island town of Dogsthorpe.
Smaller villages and Hamlets are dotted around and along the main rivers and roads but not listed. The setting was once the home of an ancient civilisation and so contains countless ruins and underground burial tombs and dungeons. Not to mention the caves in the hills and mountains etc....in other words...adventure locales
Many foul beasts and creatures live in the wilds away from the bright lights of the towns.
To the far north around Mount Rotten lives Orkin and Goblin tribes. Not organised enough to venture south to cause trouble, warring among themselves....for now!

As I said...The land was discovered by the explorer 'Severest Pit' and his band of extraordinary adventurers...travelling through a magic gate they discovered this land. They then set about building the large town/small city of Pelinore from the ruined settlements there..both to protect entry back into their world and also as a staging post for exploration! The highwisard of the group founded the school of magic and others set out to find homes within the wilderness...these places becoming the foundations for what towns and settlements exist now.

Many people braved the portal. In the mountains they befriended Dwarves. In the hills they met the Halflings. In the Forests lived the Elves! Never before had these races encountered the ambitious creatures that came through the portal....Humans! In the north they met the less friendly Orkin tribes.

Eventually after the Highwisard's passing, his magic failed and the portal closed. That was 100 years ago. The explorers have now become a small nation, blending in with the other races, struggling to survive in this new land.

Burghalter is the main trading post with the Halflings of the 'Burg' nearby in the hills.
Talhalter, the trading post with the dwarves of the East. Over and throughout the 'Tal' mines.
The Castle of lake Frost and surrounding town is the main elven settlement of the Great Forest.
Lesserton is the most northerly town. So close to Orkin lands that rumour of blood taint abound.
Darkmoor is a human coastal settlement. A gathering point for those will the urge to explore.
Nahlroot...again mainly human.
Gragmire quarry is another Human settlement.

Or some cobblers along those lines.
It is enough to get a game going anyway. Village....Dungeon....you are in a fantasy world etc.

[Flexi]

Love the map! I agree with you in that it is just right for a starting point.
I also love the little (giant!) lobster at the bottom of the map!

[RevTurkey]

Hey thanks Flexi!

The lobster was meant to be shellfishing....but now.....it just has to be a monster of the deep!

Especially after I watched a rerelease of Jaws at the cinema today

I will probably throw all my other weird portal ideas in the junk box at the back of my head for now and just treat this as a very loose map for exploration. I have all the major towns ready with maps, npcs and keys etc. I think I will just botch it together depending on where the games take us.

'Severest Pit' is just an anagram of my name, that's why I went with that.

[finarvyn]

1. I really love the map. How did you make it?

2. I did a copy-paste of parts of your post and am hoping to organize it a little based on towns and history and whatnot, so feel free to continue posting your thoughts and ideas. I could create a lot of this myself, but it's your concept and it's fun to have your world fleshed out to fit with your map.

Nice work!

[RevTurkey]

Hi Finarvyn, thanks, glad you like it

I made the map with this cool online programme called Hexographer. Found it the other day and this was my first attempt with it. Really good and free to use too. You can upgrade and get more out of it but for making a simple map like mine it is perfect.

So far my locations:

The main one...a small city is Pelinore.
Here is the map I pinched:

http://www.fantasymapmaker.com/wp-conte ... egetrs.png

Pelinore is the name of the world setting created and published within 'Imagine' magazine. It focused on a huge city type affair. It had great flavour and some interesting locations. What I have done is take those locations and place them in the above mentioned map to create a small city and named it Pelinore because, well, I like the name.

Here is a link to a posting of said material:

http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2008 ... linore.php

Nahlroot is my renaming of 'Larm'. I liked the idea of this village at the start of a river called it's root. I was reading a book by Patrick Rothfuss and Nahlroot is a drug in that. I like Larm and was thinking of tagging on Barrowmaze next to it.

Gragmire Quarry is a town I found on some map competition site. It has a good little map and an interesting story behind it. Figured I'd pinch it. Here is a link:

http://www.fantasymapmaker.com/gragmoor ... pelletier/

Darkmoor, Talhalter and Burghalter are all part of the Pelinore material. I like that halter could mean trading post and that could let me weave the Dwarves and Halfling sites into the setting. I like the idea of this setting's Shire being called 'the Burg' and the dwarves from the 'Mines of Tal'...that could be some type of Moria place maybe. Darkmoor just sounds like it has to be a place for adventure!

Dogsthorpe is one of my old characters, a wee Goblin fellow. I thought I'd name a town after him. At the moment I have the information on Malforten from the Rising Knight module for Castles & Crusades:

http://www.trolllord.com/downloads/pdfs/knight.pdf

Up in the north I have 'Lesserton & Mor' a pdf I bought from Rpgnow. It's pretty good. I will be changing a bit of the backstory and toning down a few elements but on the whole it has a good town and some help for building a ruined city site which I will cobble together with the aid of the three books I bought...the Dungeon Alphabet, Tome Of Adventure Design and Esoteric Creature Generator.

All this material is just going to be used as a starting block to help make sure I have some information to get things rolling. I like seeing towns and places develop through play as new npcs appear from thin air when needed for whatever adventure is afoot!

I am thinking of renaming the setting 'the Kingdom of Pelinore' for my players benefit. It sounds a bit more grand maybe?

Anyhow. Do what you want with it Fin', very happy to have somebody of your experience and knowledge even interested. I know bugger all about this DMing lark really. I have only been running games in the past couple of years consistently. I ran some Ad&D years ago that was garbage. I ran some Earthdawn which went great for a short while. What got me into having a proper go was the much maligned D&D 4th Edition! We enjoyed it. I felt it was a bit too rigid after a while though. Then I bought ALL the Pathfinder stuff only to give it my friend after the sheer volume of stuff to read got on top of me. After a few trial games (Hackmaster..we loved but that initiative count got on our nerves) we settled for Hellfrost using the Savage Worlds rules. Brilliant. Paul 'Wiggy' Wade - Williams is bloody marvelous. We have had a completely fantastic time playing our versions of the published modules. They and the setting books have taught me a great deal about adventure design and being a Dm. Seriously...he is an awesome talent. Anyway...with that campaign in it's last weeks it'll be onto new pastures. DCC awaits!

[RevTurkey]

A couple of things I am pondering...

I think the Ancient ruins should be from the human ancestors from the settlers distant past.
Maybe they came here also centuries ago and something went wrong and wiped them out?

Is this a remote part of the settlers original world or is it a new planet or is it the Hollow Earth?

Language issues... What might be nice is that players will finally have to make proper use of Comprehend Languages and Read Magic in a game to decipher the script and symbols of the ancients.

Gods and Patrons...the same between the two worlds/continents? The same but called different names by the different races seems a good way to go.

Hmmm

I have also decided that a large community of Elves must inhabit the northern Alfpine Forest and that is why the Orkin tribes haven't been able to invade southward.

[finarvyn]

1. You have just exposed one of my deepest secrets on how to create cool fantasy campaigns: borrow places from other worlds and put 'em in my new one.

I've never been to Paris, but I have a mental image of what it probably is like and what the people may be like. I use this concept in making a world.

If I take a place like The Lonely Mountain from The Hobbit and put it in my world, my players assume that there is probably a dragon with treasure there. I don't have to give them a prompt (which would have been another detail for me to keep straight in my own mind) and the players have this "yeah, I think I've heard of this place" feeling because they have heard of it. Of course, I may shuffle around details a little so they don't know too much, but by taking a bunch of familiar places and putting them into a world I make the whole world seem more familiar. I could generate a list of places and sprinkle them on a map and create a "new" campaign in almost no time at all.

How about this as a stream-of-consiousness list: Ravenloft, Free City of Greyhawk, Mines of Moria, The Shire, Helm's Deep, Mirkwood, Camelot, Melnibone, Cimmeria, Lankhmar. I created the list as fast as I could type it, and combined with a map I could have players in a "world" in no time.

2. You may want to avoid "Kingdom of Pelinore" as the name of your campaign.

I'm vaguely familar with the Pelinore setting as portrayed in the Imagine articles and others may be as well. I like the idea of tossing Pelinore in as another city (as per my comments above) but giving the campaign its own name makes it more personal to you.

If I want to "play Blackmoor" I go to Dave's setting and maps and start with his work as my base. If I want a generic campaign to have a place called Blackmoor I feel like I can borrow ideas without having to commit to the entire campaign setting.

Just my two coppers. Knowing how the magician does his tricks doesn't make them any less spectacular to me.

[RevTurkey]

My players won't know about Pelinore or really care....but yes see what you are saying

I have done a bit more work on the map, throwing in a few references and places. Saltmarsh, Caldwell, the Ghost Tower, Homlett, Caves of Quasqueron, the Hill etc. We never ever played modules when we were younger so I can use all that stuff freely and my players won't roll their eyes

Done more than enough anyway to get the game started!

[finarvyn]

The other cool side-effect of placing names of places that match modules (Hommlett, Caldwell, etc.) is that you already know what module to run them through.

"Visiting Hommlett? Let's see ... where has T1 wandered off to?"

[Evil Genius Prime]

Hi there. I'm assuming you used HexMapper to create your world map. I use it as well. I noticed your tiles are way more colorful than what is included in the program. Is there anyway you could send me a copy of your tileset to install in mine?

[RevTurkey]

Hello Evil Genius,

I used an online programme called Hexographer:

http://www.hexographer.com/

It can do much more than I used but I just wanted a basic hex map.

As to colour...just the default settings. Maybe if your programme makes the tiles a bit dull just convert to a .jpg or similar and run it through something like Photoshop Elements or a cheap picture editor...up the colour saturation levels etc.. Just a thought

[RevTurkey]

For anyone interested, this is where I am up to.

[ragboy]

Figured I'd pinch it.

This is pretty much my approach to all rpg development -- at least for home games. Why not use what's there -- especially if, like me, you have several shelves groaning under the weight of RPG supplements that you're probably never going to use completely. And an entire Internet's worth of guys that will draw maps for you much better than you'd ever be able to scratch out on your own. That's why I love Hexographer, as well. You get to keep the ideas and outsource the work of actually drawing the dang thing to a computer!

Hellfrost using the Savage Worlds rules. Brilliant. Paul 'Wiggy' Wade - Williams is bloody marvelous.

Savage Worlds is one of my alltime favorite systems and Wiggy IS Savage Worlds..

Love the map and the methodology.