I labeled 2023 the “Year of Contradictions” when I wrote my traditional end of year post to sum up and scout ahead. This very much carried over into 2024 that started with high hopes of seeing some of my long-term projects producing some content. I was soon brought sown to earth by software bugs, especially in World Machine preventing me from effectively using it to create large terrain. I remember it hitting me just as I was preparing to go to Lake Geneva for almost two weeks of convention fun.
My convention schedule is bouncing back again after the pandemic hiatus. Three Conventions this year, and at least two in 2025. The limitation is manly budget constraints, my income has, thanks to you guys, been very steady and enough to cover my existing happily mapping away but doesn't cover going to Conventions. It is thanks to invitations to attend conventions as a special guest or help organizing it, keeping the cost low that makes it possible for me to go. Conventions are fantastic for networking, meeting new and old friends, be inspired, and hopefully inspire others.
The beginning of 2024 was very much software driven frustrations. From bugs like the Tile Importer bug on World Machine, the key update to Gaea 2 is still on the horizon, to the long grind of hard work to get good at a new type of software. Teaching myself QGIS went into high gear when I forced myself to go from reading the maula and doing tutorials to sit down and do data entry and convert my Flanaess and Hepmonaland maps to proper GIS based maps, and somehow keeping them looking good.
This took many hundreds of hours of painstaking data entry and style setup. Having a thousand symbols that all needed to be programmed to appear at the right size using the right tags, took another few hundred hours. Now that is mostly done, for the digital maps, the print maps will require an adjustment of things like labels and symbol sizes, which will require a lot of time again. I’m happy to do it, it is meditative and gives the perfectionist part of me simple targets to strive for.
Thankfully Stephen, the guy behind World Machine came out swinging this fall with a string of updates to WM4 fixing my issues and adding more functionality, so now I’m stoked and ready to go into production mode. This is so rewarding, having worked for years trying to learn new tools and master the ones you already know, to have them perform new tricks.
My World Machine journey started fifteen years ago, and it took around 5 years to get reasonably good at using it to create some decent maps, including Southlands for Kobold Press. Still not convinced it was good enough for me to tackle Greyhawk again in earnest. I did a lot of test maps, of Walworth Isle, Ratik and Lendore Isle. The results were from bad to decent, and the render times where abysmally long due to lack of computing power and RAM.
A few years ago, World Machine got all the features I needed to do the job, and with my new computer I finally had the computing power, RAM and so fast SSD storage that effectively made my memory reach into the tera-bites. I was in terrain creation heaven for a year, working on Shield Lands, the whole country at “porta-potty” resolution. Then came the bugs and setbacks causing me to have to rethink my whole approach, wait for a WM fix or a Gaea 2 update or give up my detail level. I found workarounds that gave me inferior results, which I didn’t want to have to fall back on.
I kept working in QGIS in the meantime and got a lot done while waiting, so in the end it was maybe a good distraction that made me got the GIS map conversion done in 2024. It feels great when you get to publish new stuff that is better than the previous version, and with the new GIS based maps they are a significant improvement, I think.
In 2024 I feel like it is necessary to talk a bit about AI, and how it might impact what I do going forward. AI has invaded our discourse, grabbing attention, content and offers questionable returns. It can be both highly useful and also, like most new technology, alter or even end people's careers.
For me AI will be both a positive and a treat, it is already great for generating NPC portraits and some concepts for heraldry to help me get started. For my line of work, it’s not the commonly used image or text generation that will be on most useful, it is specialist AI that paired with procedural tech, can arguments things that are near impossible (or very computational) to do today. Like apply proper geological features like elevation, erosion and even flora in real time to a landscape as it is being edited. This will mean I can do things orders of magnitude faster with better results. In a bit more distant future anyone who wants to will be able to create a detailed world without much training, changing my role to inspire others rather that providing the results.
Storage is a key part here, our worldbuilding craze will soon use up vast amounts of data as we create our own versions of fantasy worlds to host our games in. Creating and maintaining tools and standards for that will be a logical future step for my career, when you no longer need me to create the maps for you. I'm trying to figure out how to best go about doing that to stay ahead of the curve and hopefully be able to continue to do this for some time more.
The data standards, and its creation are one key bit, visualization another, and robust tools for interaction and record keeping a third. Open standards and open licensing are also key to creating and maintaining a thriving and resilient community for dedicated gamers who want to develop, host and run their own campaigns in a detailed and visual way. The geographic and other visual parts need to work together with, Rules, campaign data and character records, all accessible online.
This will be difficult to pull off, but thankfully most of the building blocks are already available, or soon will be. Data standards like markdown, DEM, OBJ, PNG, and even game engines like Unreal, are now becoming standards in their own right. I'm trying my best to navigate this evolving field, while working on the new generation of Greyhawk maps. Trying to make all of what I create fit into a multi-usable ecosystem of TTRPG world building standards that can then be used in future VTT's.
After two decades of almost no official published Greyhawk material, our beloved setting is back in the spotlight again. As part of the 50-year anniversary of D&D, it is an obvious choice to dust of Greyhawk again for a new audience. This is wonderful thing which hopefully keeps Greyhawk alive and in use for another 50 years. Our job as long-time Greyhawk fans are now to be welcoming to all newcomers and try our best to make them feel at home and, inform and guide them, and most importantly inspire them to start liking the setting as much as we are. In time they will be as immersed as we are and contribute to the community spirit by coming up with new cool stuff that will make all our games mor fun. My content is already in half a dozen Greyhawk products on DM’s Guild, which I’m very proud of. More products are in the making, including a series of Melf’s Guides published by Luke Gygax that I’m part of the team working on.
If you want to use any of my stuff on DM’s guild, just send me a message and I’ll (most likely) send you a confirmation back allowing you to do so. I want to keep the option to say no, it is not something I plan to use, but I want to keep the option just in case.
I have decided to keep publishing my Greyhawk content using CC 4.0 -by –nc – sa license. This means you have to right to use, alter and share my content as long as you state where it is originally from and you keep using the same license. If you want to use it commercially, which thanks to the DM’s Guild option, now is an option, please reach out to me, and in most cases I will grant you that right, for free.
I managed to post almost once a week during 2024 which is an OK rate, and with a bit of glut at the end to prop up the results 😊. The number of members have nearly doubled to a bit over 800 (with a bit over half paying members) which are amazing, thank you all for your support!
Next year I plan to re-structure my tiers, to simplify things and make it more understandable and fairer. A free tier that will function more like a newsletter you can sign up to for free and stay notified of what I’m doing. A low tier that will include early-access to all published maps and other content. A mid-tier that will give you early access to things like geopackages, World Machine files and other source material long before they will be shared. A top tier for those who want to support me more, in return they will get special mentioned on published maps and I might post some early concepts and other sneak peaks now and then to the top tier patreons as well.
My plan is to make the tiers $2, $5 and $10 per month. Everyone on the $1 tier will be grandfathered into the $2 tier and continue to pay $1 as long as you choose to support me. I hope this is fair and a bit more understandable. A base $2 tier for all the content, a 5$ tier for extra source material, and a $10 for those who want to be one of my top supporters.
In 2024 I started to collaborate with Noble Dwarf: https://www.nobledwarf.com/collections/anna-meyer who have prints of my maps and heraldry. I haven’t promoted it much, since the maps haven’t been designed for print, but this is going to change in 2025. A new series of maps designed to be printed will come, and when they are ready I will start promoting Noble Dwarf as the place to go to have my map printed. I don’t get a commission (or earn anything) on the map and heraldry prints, but there is an option to tip me at check out if you so like. There is some merch, like T-shirts, mugs etc with my logo on as well, which I do get a bit of a commission on. A new line of HawkTales FRP stuff will be added as well in the future.
The 1:2,000,000 Digital Flanaess GIS series maps will be published in full early 2025 covering all of the Flanaess and Hepmonaland, this is my inaugural use of GIS and its been going well so far with some of my best works ever.
A new series of test maps covering Shield Lands will come this spring. Just like I did with the Flanaess map, I’m going to experiment a bit to get your feedback on what works best. The goal this time is to set a standard for regional and local maps in 2D and 3D. What scales, layout, symbology and labeling work best for this type of maps.
An Oerth GIS base map is under development. This is the next step in my Oerth Reference project. I’ve got most of the coastlines done, now it’s onto highlands, ocean depth, and lakes and rivers. This is just a simple vector map that I will use as a reference in World Machine and Gaea when creating the terrain. This will also be a very useful map as a base for spread, and heat maps, historic overviews and the like.
The City of Greyhawk is in early stages of research and development. Tackling the Gem of the Flanaess is a must for me, and now I have the tools and the skills to do it so the time has come to get into it. In 2024 I will start out by scheduling a few hours of research and sketching each week. Hopefully actual mapping can start in earnest in 2026, and lead to early results by the end of the year and a version ready to be shown at Gary Con 2027. It depends mainly on how efficient I can be at Photoshop editing which is the current bottleneck.
There are ways to work smarter and I will try my best at figuring this out in 2025 on my Shield Lands and its surroundings which are my test area for this. As my GIS work have proved, once I have an established workflow I can become a lot more effective and improve the quality and work faster at the same time.
This is something I always wanted to do but didn’t think I could do, but now I’m skilled enough at doodling in various graphic tool to make things that have become very popular. It is also very helpful for my inspiration and adventure and worldbuilding. I want to expand to all sorts of signage and other forms of symbols.
Mile markers, religious symbols and more are on my to do list, as well as fonts to be able to use them in other programs.
Now that the initial data for all the Flanaess and Hepmonaland are done its time to start my Sources and Reference project. The goal is to have a searchable database with all the names on my maps, with a short list of where to find more information and a mentioning where it originates from.
I plan to use Notion for this, so it can be accessed on the web, perhaps a downloadable Excel version as well. I’m thinking of using categories like Published (for TSR & WotC stuff), LG (for Living Greyhawk material), 3rd (for third party stuff), Fan (for fan created stuff) and MeyerHawk for my own stuff. This way I can add all my places to the same database, to be able to find them all in one place, and filter as you like.
I test Notion page will be set up in spring to start ironing out the kinks. This is something I might need help with getting it set up right and help with data entry, depending on how much of it can be automated.
Streaming is something I’m slowly getting used to, and enjoy more and more, so I plan to keep doing it regularly in 2025. Being a co-host on Jay’s LordGosumba channel is a great way of doing outreach, staying in touch with the community and having fun doing it. This will continue with me as a co-host of Legends & Lore on Wednedays and Gabbin on Sundays. Devoting Friday evenings to my own Twitch streams is something I want to develop, properly using more of Twitch functions.
I’m going to do streams that are more prepared and structured as a tutorial to show things like how to use my geopackages in QGIS to create your own Greyhawk maps. They can then be posted to YouTube as a reference. Other topics might be interesting as well, please reach out with ideas!
Discord and Zoom have a lot of potential that I have not used much yet, to use for workshops with voice, video and screenshare capabilities. This is something I plan to start with for Patreon members. I know that some many of you have great skills, and that way we can learn from each other.
MeyerHawk are the label I will use on maps and other lore content that are my personal take on Greyhawk to not confuse it with the maps and other stuff that are made to reference published stuff and things established in the community. Some of my stuff will over time be ready for the public version of the map, but I will publish a series MeyerHawk maps made using GIS depicting my take on the World of Greyhawk. This will concentrate on the areas I have developed for my own games, like the Shield Lands and Rel Deven areas, but other areas might come as well. Once the data changes are made, I can just re-use the styles from the public maps, and it will be fairly straight forward to publish personal versions.
My House Rules project grew to become a whole rule set, loosely based on 5E. This is something I have felt a growing need to do for over a decade, but it took a long time to overcome the fear of entering a field I very much see myself as an amateur. It is a lot of fun and working with this stuff every day has given me time to understand and study it enough to make me dare to start.
I ran 18 playtest sessions and convention games this year using a very early “alpha build” of the rules. I’ve learned a lot from all of you who participated, thank you so much. An updated more complete version of the game is emerging from this, I just finished the Skill System. It has 4 Base Skills: Athletics, Influence, Insight and Tinker. You can specialize and gain expertise in things like Stealth, Tracking and much more if you want to become really good at something.
A new round of playtests will start next week, with more information coming soon.
Thank You!!!
This would be much less fun, much less useful, and not possible without your support. Thank you all for making it possible for me to spend this much time and dedication to mapping and exploring Greyhawk.
I wish you a Happy New Year and a great 2025!
