The village of Orrona is in many ways as unremarkable as villages can be, but even the most boring places have its quirks, horrors and other stories if you dig deep enough. In the case of Orrona it is literary true.
The story of what would become Orrona starts the same ways most places in this region, with the arrival of Flan explorers a bit over 4000 years ago. They came along the coast of Nyr Dyv and explored inland, and the estuary of the small Orron river most likely went unnoticed during the first phases of exploration. The mighty Veng to the west and the much smaller Sanstin River to the east both got a lot more interest and settlements sprung up along them.
The first one to settle at what would later become Orrona is long lost to history, but if someone inquisitive with enough divination skills would investigate this is the story they would find. A flan named Yerahu landed here around -3200 CY with a small group of family and followers. He was the younger brother of a regional lord and had just lost a power challenge and needed to settle somewhere else, far enough away and hard enough to find to give him time to start over and rebuild his life.
Yerahu settled on the little peninsula south of the modern village since it has a small hill with some small caves for extra protection. A small marina was built on the western side of peninsula hidden from view from the lake, and back then most of the area was covered in conifers making it hard to find Yerahu's settlement.
Over time it grew to become a village and it grew along side Selach that as situated at the mouth of the Sanstin, Yerahu pledge loyalty to the lord of Selach and life was beginning to perk up again for young Yerahu and his small band of followers. Yerahu's older brother found out that Lord Selach had a new henchman who must be his traitorous younger brother. He offered Lord Selach a truce and alliance if he delt with Yerahu, and sent him prof that he had done so. Lord Selach took him up on his offer and the first settlers of future Orrona met a quick but gruesome death. The head of Yerahu was sent away and lost to history, but his body and the others where unceremoniously dumped in the deepest cave on the peninsula.
The simple construction they made withered and almost disappeared. Left to this day are a couple of stone foundations, one two stores high that was a fortified tower that had a wooden floors and upper structure that are long gone. Two mooring stones along the shoreline on the western side can be found if you look among the dense reeds just under the water surface on the western side.
After the executions the peninsula got a bad reputation, was considered haunted and few people set foot on it except when it was time to execute someone, and rumors of hideous and particularly gruesome end for those who got executed over on the "Traitor's Cove" as the place became known in the region. After a century or so around a hundred people had been brought to their death and left to rot on the island. And its reputation grew and people kept away from it.
Then a new line of rulers took over Selach and the Traitor's Cove was no longer used and left to linger in silence. It did so for another few centuries before a infamous dragon took control of the lands. The Reign of Dragotha had come and she needed bones, lots of them. After she had killed or chased away everyone, she used her senses and ruthless determination to find and dig up every bone she could find. In -946 CY Dragotha found "Traitor's Cove" and after finding the bones laying around in the open she dug out the rest and took them with her. This might have been one of the few reasonably good deeds Dragotha has ever done. The hole she left is there to this day, and under 10 feet of soil soaked in dried blood are the bones (minus the skull) of Yerahu and his closest followers.
After Dragotha's demise a new order of things slowly came to be, the time of the Oeridians had come and in 52CY the first people from Selach, rebuilt and now named Delard after the new Oeridian lord who ruled there, came to explore. A road along the coast westward was in the plans and their mission was to find the best place to cross the river. They picked a spot on the bigger northern peninsula and that was the start of the Orrona that still, for the most part, stands.
Over the next century a village and a new economy slowly evolved around the bridge and river. At first the only inhabitants where the rivers guards and their dependents. Traffic was increasing and the peninsula offered both decent fishing and reasonably fertile lands, and Orrona grew into a kind of suburb to Delard a couple of miles away. It was too close for most travels to stop and seek shelter over night, at most a pint on the way was what possible to sell travelers. Delard had way more to offer, and was a safer place to stay over night. Auldet farther west became the next resting place where most travelers rested.
Its not noted down anywhere who made the first batch of peat smoked whitefish, but someone put a few of the small fish from the stream in the smoke from a peat fire and must have liked the result. It became a thing, and peat smoked whitefish became popular in the region being eaten as far away as Critwall, Axeport and towns miles inland. With demand came new innovations in production, from catching wild fish to farming them. A practice of farming insects took off, and the insects are used to feed the fish that are housed in closed off part of the Orron next to the village. Fish farming in now the major industry in Orrona, along with a bit of farming, and fishing in the river and along the Nyr Dyv shoreline.
When Halmadar the Cruel insurgency started Orrona was not directly affected. As Halmadars's influence increased the chaos drew nearer and in the late 420's his forces had taken control of Auldet a few miles to the west. The people of Orrona did what most sensible people did and fled east to nearby Delard. To flee would serve the people of Orrona multiple times later in history as well. Halmadar's men never took over Orrona, Delard was reasonably well defended and not a prime target. Instead Halmadar turned west and besieged Critwall, and the remaining thugs in Auldet was killed off in a battle that the people of Orrona talks about to this day.
The village's claim to fame is one of their sons became a squire in the new Knights of Holy Shielding at the battle against Halmadar the Cruel's men in Auldet where he performed admirably he became a full knight of the order, and rose through the ranks as Orrand in honor of his birth place. He became the lord of the keep that guards the merger of the Ritensa and Veng Rivers, and served their until his death in 480 CY. The keep was named after him, but is now called Oran's keep after a son of the knight assigned to the keep almost a century later. That son was named Oran after the keep and became a mage and took part in the wars against the Hierarchs and then Iuz. He took over the keep and renamed it Orand's keep.
Quiet village life continued until the Horned Society with support from Bandit Kingdom invaded in 579 CY. This time the word came with people fleeing from the north to Delard. Smoke could be seen from settlements to the north. The Knight where nowhere to bee seen this time, and the people of Orrona decided to take to the Nyr Dyv this time. Every available boat was packed up in a hurry and then hastily rowed and sailed out into the Nyr Dyv. So did most people of Delard as well, and a small armada of boats sailed south along the coast and ended up on Scragholm Island.
Orrona faired rather well during the invasion. There was no one there to take, and treasure was nowhere to be found, and there was bigger and richer places to capture. This meant that Orrona was large left alone the first year or so. The Hobgoblins who where the first of the new rulers of the area was not interested in fish farming and soon concentrated on Critwall. Later on in a group of junior Iuz clerics took over Auldet and Delard and started using slave labor to try and get the economy going again. They has a go at fishing, but didn't have boats or the knowledge to make any so it was a low yielding enterprise. The initial crew of Iuzian clerics met a hastily end in 583 CY when a force of the Shield Patrol landed on the coast near the village on a recon/raid mission. The three clerics where found, and either killed in combat, or if they surrended, unceremoniously executed. One of their henchmen was left alive and sent off to spread the news that the Knights will come for them all eventually.
This pattern repeated itself twice more before the Iuzians learned to stay away from the coast, and later the area around Orrona served as a forward base for the Shield Patrol. The village was left empty for several years until Uddard became the new Lord of Delard. Uddard served the newly appointed Baron of Axeport and was given the task of getting Delard functioning again. Being a hardened kid born in Molag who has served in many battles and now was ready to reap some reward from all the fighting, took to his new task with experience and strangely some patients as well. Uddard got a few people there to both guard the road west and be self sufficient, it was a repeat of the initial Aerdy settlement many centuries earlier.
Uddard's tough but reasonably fair regime paid off and a semblance of village life returned again in the early 590's. The Iuzian's wanted their share or threated to take over. Uddard let them try tipped off the Shield Patrol, or killed them off himself, it was a good sport and an excellent way to stay fit, and then blamed the Shield Patrol. Higher up clerics didn't dare to directly confront Uddard, he was capable and wise. One of the tricks he used was to use the riches taken from killed Iuzians to pay off those higher up. This kept him both feared and respected byt leaders further north, who raerly ventured down to check on things.
Uddard
This has been the situation is Orrona until very recently in the winter of 598 - 599 when a force of Shield Landers under Katarina herself liberated Auldet a few miles west. Uddard and Katarina have had a first talk about the future, but nothing has come out of it as far as the people of Orrona have heard it. They are keeping their heads down and tries to say out of politics, it is a dangerous gamble at best and often outright deadly.
Map Links:
https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Shield%20Lands/Orrona%20presentation%20-1.jpg
https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Shield%20Lands/Orrona%20map%201.jpg
https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Shield%20Lands/Orrona%20Aerial.jpg
https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Shield%20Lands/Orrona3D-%20east.jpg
https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Shield%20Lands/Orrona3D-north.jpg
https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Shield%20Lands/Orrona3D-south%20east.jpg
Fifteen years ago I started to redo my Flanaess map using Adobe Illustrator, the goal was to make a single large map covering the whole subcontinent. Previously using CorelDraw I had only worked with page (A4 at first then Letter) size, the computers and 32bit software back then couldn't handle all the detail in one file. Then I tried out Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop in 64bit versions and saw the capability to handle really large files, and my conversion work started.
Now it is time again, this time its not the need for size that in focus, it us usability first and foremost. I started to learn GIS a few years ago and now the bits are falling in place and it is time to have a first sneak peak at what the new GIS based version of my Flanaess map will look like. Superficially they are very similar, this is by design. Everyone who have been using my maps should feel right at home using the new version as well. Look at bit closer and there are some changes, the most obvious are the symbols, there are more of them and they are a bit clearer. All in all there are currently 998 different symbols, and there will probably be a few more, this includes lots of variations of the same symbol. Towns for example, come in two sizes, fortified or not, and the in various importance from capitals to ruined.
and towns
It is a lot of work but I think it can be useful to have a comprehensive se of symbols when you map a fantasy setting as complex as Greyhawk. A set of simple black symbols will be available as well for maps that need less settlement detail.
Setting up an advanced project like this requires lots of work but once it is done the data can be used in a lot of cool and useful ways. For example using a measurement tool to calculate distances.
Mile markers are added to both roads and sea lanes that are a bit more accurate then the ones on the old Illustrator based map.
Maps can be styled and/or projected differently and the data can be extracted for other uses. One of the most important aspects of this are maps specifically made to be printed with labels and symbols properly sized for the print, not just one size that doesn't fit well to print.
Below is a first test export to see wat it can look like. It is far from perfect but it is already an improvement over the old version.
You can download it here: https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/GIS/Test1-4.jpg
Future versions of my Greyhawk maps will be distributed as JPG and PDF's like now, but with more PDF versions for various print sizes. It will also come as a GeoPackage for those of you who want to use a GIS tool and make your own version, or view it digitally wit all the cool tools offered by software like QGIS (which is free). Next step after initial shipment is to set up some sort of Greyhawk map server, but that requires a bit more work and funds for hosting. There are other super cool possibilities as well, like Game Engines. hat is further down the road but I'm taking that into account when I set up things.
Thank you so much for making this possible!!
To honor tonight's Legends & Lore Show here are a PDF with some of my thoughts on Flying in Fantasy RPG's. It is not a fully fledged set of rules yet, but a number of ideas and thoughts surrounding the nature of flying creatures and the aspect of flying itself in fantasy RPG's.
https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/rules/Flying-1B.pdf
Come and join Jay Scott, Mike Bridges and me on https://www.twitch.tv/lordgosumba at 8:30PM EDT TODAY and share thoughts on taking to the air in Greyhawk!
Thank you again for all your support!! 🙂
Since we had a power outage almost two weeks ago my main computer has been acting out, crashing in various ways including shutting down without going to bluescreen.
After having done extensive testing disassembly with rebuilding, twice, replacing first the RAM and now the PSU I think I think it is ready for prime time again. I've done 6 hours of rendering, flightsimming, various test software and it has come through with flying (pun intended) colors, so hopefully it s back to mapping again!
It has costed me almost two weeks of time and quite a bit of money, but on the whole it could have been worse. If you had asked me two days ago if this was worth it, I would have said no. Deliberately I stayed away from most other creatures as to not want to scare, upset or harm them, I didn't have to admit to anyone that being sole creator making fantasy maps have some serious downsides as well.
Now I'm only a lot poorer but feel energized again and ready to go back to my work!
I'm sorry for my lack of posts and for being behind on a lot of things, over time I intend to make up for it. Thank you all for supporting me, if it weren't for some wonderful comments and well whishes it would have been a lot worse 🙂
Extra Mapping Live Stream
There are no Legends & Lore Show tonight, so instead I'll stream my Twitch Channel: https://www.twitch.tv/anna_b_meyer tonight at 5pm PDT/8pm EDT with Linda Buth.
I will work on both QGIS, Photo shop and maybe World Machine as well, so please tune in and keep us company, ask questions and such!
A week ago we had a series of power fluctuations and failures which got to my computer. It messed up my boot settings and file system on two of my hard drives. It took a while for me too check for hardware damage, reinstall my system, configure my boot settings and get back my data from backups.
I'm so grateful I have kept a rigorous backup regime, it paid off handsomely this past week. Everything I'm working on is kept in Dropbox so it get backed up both to the cloud and my other machines. I also use A service called Backblaze that backs up my entire main machine to long term online storage which takes longer to sync, often several days for large files. This is a good compliment to Dropbox.
Finally I back up things that are done on separate hard drives stored in a fireproof safe. This method was more important back when didn't have room for everything. Nowadays I use this mostly for some of all the versioning files that gets created while working on projects. They have a tendency to clog up even 20TB drives after a while, which tells you I'm saving often, and under unique names as a way of long term undo. This is very important when you testing things and go down rabbit holes that doesn't lead to the results you wanted. This way I can go back to before I branched off.
Now my computer is back up and running again, and everything important are installed again. It has taken me back almost a week but it was a good learning experience, and reassuring to know that my backup scheme worked as intended.
Virtual Greyhawk Con 3 is coming soon, less than a month in fact, October 6th to 8th. My Shield Lands game slots got filled up in a few minutes. I'm so humbled and overwhelmed by the interest, ad feel I need to do more. So as a part of my game prep I've decided to run a prep session on September the 23rd at 4pm Pacific, and invite my top patreons.
This will not be streamed, and the story will be slightly different to not spill all the secrets of the VGHC3 game. It ill be very similar and set in the same general area using another set of pregens. The rules will be my my 5E House Rules, that are still very much under construction, so expect some oddities.
We will use Zoom and Owlbear Rodeo, and there will be a tech test session before the gam for those who are going to play. If you're interested, can play on the 23rd, pleas send me a PM using Patreon. I'll use lifetime support as a way to select players if the interest are too big. There will be 5 slots. The mission is to go recon behind Iuz lines in the Shield Lands. Please PM me during the week and I will go though all the PM's and pick the party this weekend.
Thank you so much for your support, it means the world to me, especially times like this 🙂
After a lot of sweat, work and a steep learning curve, it is finally time to present my first proper city map project, my take on Critwall. It took me twenty years to make the leap in scope from continents to local area maps focusing on a single settlement. This have forced me to learn a lot of new tricks and new design principles, things that I have worked on for the last 10 years and now I'm ready to show the first result, a closer look at Critwall a city on Veng near the northern shores of the Nyr Dyv.
A first wave of brave Flan settled the area around -4000CY. The Flanaess was a much colder place back then and the beginnings of what would become Critwall had a mesa that gave a good vantage point for hunters, defensible and still close waterways for fishing and easy travel. The plateau was covered in a dense forest of low spruces and pines which provided both cover and good building materials.
The settlement on the mesa into a large hillfort with fortifications of wood that got gradually reinforced with stone. Some centuries later it had become a small town still centered on the former hillfort. Most of the native forest was cleared and replaced with farmland and planted oak, birch, ash and other, more valuable tree species. The climate was warming and that also helped deciduous trees spreading.
The Flan town was called Shelemek and was home to a bit over a thousand people when the first tragedy struck. A new priest arrived from the east with an entourage warning about grave danger, a dragon had settled in the Volcano in the east. The new priest demanded that they prepared to defend against the dragon, and improved defenses where dug into the hill. This is when they discovered that under the hill there was a huge cavern, the remnants of the old volcano that once was here, it eroded down into the mesa that are still with us in modern times.
The dragon attacked and they hid in the caves and Shelemek survived its first trial, and come out stronger. The next catastrophe was different but it again started with a a priest, a son of the Lord of Shelemek that had been away to learn new skills, explore and hopefully come home wiser, stronger and preferably even richer. The lords son had indeed picked up new knowledge, he had seen how a new class of powerful lords was conquering in the east and south, they had overcome death itself and make use of the dead to seize power and hold it, for eternity. The son quickly disposed of his father and proclaimed himself as the new ruler of Shelemek. Then he used his necromancy and turned himself into a some form of free-willed undead and dug up the buried townsfolk and turned them into his minions.
The undead lord's tyranny lasted for decades and then he ran out of living souls to rule over, and that is when the name of Shelemek was almost lost and the history of Critwall might never have been written if it weren't for people fleeing the empire of Tostencha who arrived looking for a place to seek shelter and start anew. For these hardened Flan a few undead was no match and they made the process short with the undead lord of Shelemek and took over the town.
They also worshipped differently, they served a new mother in Beory, a father in Obadhai, and they had also learned to ask Ehlonna and several other powers for guidance. They raised the stone circle near the southern end of the mesa, that still stand to this day, and built a small ringed village next to the stones safely away from the tainted town on the hill top to the north.
These people where determined to keep safe from the dead and after Beory had told them to return them to the earth they followed the new tradition of throwing the dead into the underworld the belonged far enough that no mortal could ever used them again. Communities that still practices burial and the use of the dead to fend of other enemies was shunned and labeled Dark, serving the Horned Ones, or worse...
Shelemek became a regional center, it had both good defenses and waterways for good communications. The top of the mesa became known as Niahu Hill, the place you don't step into. Business was good, both the religious and more secular kind catering to agriculture, hunting and fishing. The climate had steadily been warming up for centuries, and this is when new people from the west started to arrive, they were great riders and skilled warriors, the first Oeridians had arrived.
After the initial tense contacts an bit of an understanding started to emerge, and there was enough land to have for all. A few of the new arrivals stayed but then more came and rumors spread of rich lands in the east and south so a lot of the newcomers moved on. Luckily not all did so, and they where around to help out when the next calamity hit the area, Vecna had picked up where Tostencha had left off and become an even worse undead tyrant. Vecna's henchmen terrorized the area for more than a century and it was probably during one of the many nights spent in the old caves dug out centuries before to shelter from the dragon long ago, when an old dark haunting memory started surface again. Every weapon was needed to fight this new horror, and the Dark Ones had the power to call them.
The word spread and the answer came from up the Veng, the Order of the Storm in Molag sent warriors to Shelemek. They were led by a young warrior called Ulvane. He was as ruthless as Vecna's men and with the support of the remaining townsfolk they got rid of the tyrants rule, and after that, several of the old gods where seen in a new light, even the dark ones. Just as Vecna's rule had been disposed of came the next problem, and again it was a dragon. This time the folk were not going to take it, they were prepared and determined to hit back hard. Under the leadership of Ulvane they figured out that dragon laired in the Volcano they named White Plume Mountain.
This time the dragon was a big one, of the most powerful dragons that have ever existed in Flanaess, Dragotha. She was a determined, intelligent and utterly ruthless dragon,. This threat was going to be tough, and require a both cunning, cooperation, bravery and patients to defeat. All of the priesthoods of the area saw the threat and cooperated, and a group of the most daring servants of the gods secretly settled in the Mountain to observe and get to know the enemy, they were lead by a hierophant named Aegwareth.
Shelters where dug in various places across the land and a big complex was constructed in the Serion Hills a day east of Shelemek. By having a force there as well they could attack from multiple directions and have many places to seek cover. The caves became known as the Dragonhide Caves, and in the year of -900 CY the Order of the Storm, led by Ulvane, and every abled body from Shelemek participated in the battle near the caves when Ulvane became Warduke when he defeated Dragotha.
After the battle the dragon carcass quickly became a worm ridden mess which was left to rot. To the astonishment of people left to guard it, even the bones disappeared, such a thorough job did the worms before they too was gone. Later wisdom would have told the people back then to take this omen seriously, and both Dragotha and the Worm Lord would come back and haunt many of their descendants later on. But for the time being celebrations where at hand, Warduke, the Order of the Storm and the people of Shelemek had triumphed!
The time of celebration and happiness turned into yet more tragedy, Warduke turned out to become more and more of a ruthless tyrant as the years went by, and he seemed to escape death as well. Not only on the battlefield but rumors had it he served Nerull himself and the lord of death needed him here so he could live on as long as he served him well. Often had problems come from afar, but this time intruders would be the problem solvers. A stream of Oeridians came, from the east this time. Descendants of the first wave hundreds of years ago had now established a powerful kingdom in the east and was seeking new lands to settle, or conquer with force if needed.
When the first probing ships came up the Veng the people of Shelemek knew the language and took a chance and asked for help, offering they lands as a reward. That and tales of evil Flan cults terrorizing the area made the mighty Aerdy send a force many times stronger that had been seen this side of the Nyr Dyv before. Warduke fled back to Molag with those loyal to him and the Aerdy took over, and a new era started.
The new rulers had big plans, were well organized, skilled in both engineering and warfare, and determined to build an empire. Plans for a big city north of the Nyr Dyv on the well situated peninsula along the Veng were laid out and work begun. The new folk had a habit of using clay and chalk found along the river to cover their walls making them white, and the term Critwall was coined ant it soon became the name of the new town. A new lord of the Walworth family became the new ruler when Critwall was included in the Earldom of Walworth. Below is their heraldry:
The modern city started in the early days of the Great Kingdom's advance westward as a staging point in the defense against northern incursions as well as continued advance westwards.
In the early 100's CY the city was still under the Earldom of Walworth when they adopted this heraldry:
The tower symbol was still white, relating to its white limestone, the black malachite imported from the mainland Great Kingdom would come later in the 200's CY. Then a new heraldry was introduced to show the new fancy improvement:
Now the modern day Critwall is starting to take shape with its three main wards defenses and port. Shelemek, the old gods, traditions and history of the flan who had lived here for so long became legend. Scary stories, told to folks to make them cling to the new gods, or laugh at when drunk in the alehouses.
Symbols are vital to marketing, propaganda, religion and way more in our real world, and in Greyhawk that might be even more so. Every ruler, cult and faction needs to brand themselves appropriately using the means available.
In a medievalesque world the options are more limited but the basics are still the same, a recognizable design that send the message you want effectively across. Since our games are for us to have fun they need to be an inspiration for our games as well!
Tonight's legend & Lore Show on the https://www.twitch.tv/lordgosumba channel @8pm EDT will be about Languages, Expressions & Glyphs so I wanted to add some stuff to the discussion, so here comes a selection of symbols I have cooking for my games. Mostly cultish and other more nefarious types, but not all.
Lets start in old Flan lands with Count Dahlvier.
In my campaign the lich was once a Flan lord who fought against the Oeridian invaders and succumbed to using some of the worst of methods and kept on the fight beyond death even. The design of his symbol are, according to some of his many enemies, either some sort of fiend or an example of what he does to his enemies, or a combination of the two.
Next up is Keraptis who we don't know that much about so I kept it simple with a rune of a person reaching everywhere at once.
as a part of his career Keraptis ran large part of the old Flan world from Tostencha using, according to legend, some pretty harsh methods and needed a symbol to keep the masses subdued.
Simple Flan design with a symbology what are mainly lost in history.
A modern use if the flan tradition are the servant of the Old One, Waquonis with his own rune showing his ability to change.
Now it is time to look at a someone that are held in much higher regard the master of Swords Kelanen. He is actually playing a small part in my current campaign so I needed a symbol for him.
I might need to tweak it, but it's a start..
Next up is a faction I invented for my campaign. The Daughters of Aegwareth. Aegwareth was the druid who Keraptis killed in White Plume Mountain. His spirit survided and he persist in some strange form and in my campaign he had a daughter who wowed to revenge his death. She started a cult to go after Keraptis, each time he are reborn. The daughters have a symbol made up of a set of runes, see if you can figure out which..
They also have a a more prominent holy symbol, a dark Beory with a burning interior..
Time for the BBEG's Fist out is my favorite Fiend, Graz'zt. Who in my campaign have been a sponsor of a lot of bad things for a long time in the Flanaess. His most notorious symbol are a six fingered hand, here in silhouette.
and here in a painted version...
Graz'zt is also known for his mastery of swords and his huge curvy demonic blade that has lots of powerful propeties.
Here is a painted version..
Another major evil that might need some more symbology in Greyhawk are Orcus. I made this rune based on the scare his has some of the WotC illustrations.
It is a combination o his sword and his horns. Here is a silhouette symbol of his used to scare and impress..
and a full color version for the places when he really want to show off..
The concept for Orcus head and Graz'zt sword are made using Midjourney, without mentioning any artists in the promts and then lots of Photoshop and illustrator editing. the other illustrations are made using Illustrator and Photoshop, without any AI involvement. I know it is a contentious topic and I want to be open with it.
After a way too long prep and learning phase my GIS project is well under way. I took the decision to migrate my Greyhawk project to use GIS technology as its base over five years ago, and now after lots of reading, watching videos, consulting people who are professionals and have worked on similar projects, I have something to show.
I've been a long time user of GIS maps in my former life both professionally and as a hobby, but I have never produced them. Understanding the basics of how something works in the reals world only takes you so far trying to implement said technology on a fantasy world. The key difference is that you can't go out and measure the world, or use data already collected and processed, you need to create and refine the data from scratch which is the big part of the work. Back in May I posted the first look at my GIS project, georeferencing the planet and its continents. This time it is much more into the weeds, looking at data entry from large to small.
One key part of this project is to convert my existing Flanaess & Hepmonaland map into GIS, and the other is use GIS t make detailed regional and local maps. The test area for this local bit are Critwall and its surroundings. First step is to geo-reference the detailed terrain map of Critwall so it matches my Flanaess terrain and the surrounding terrain.
Next is to set up layers, its databases and the styling and start adding stuff to the map. This is the most fun bit, to world-build and create my version of Critwall. Its main quarters, called wards from its religious roots with a cleric or paladin assigned to be the protector of each. The Oeridian empire builders who settled this area in the 100's where emerging empire builders, and after a century the Old Ward wasn't big enough for their ambitions. A new ward was created on slightly lower plateau sough of the old town dating back to Flan times, and it became the New Ward. It was designed to house at least 10,000 people, and more if you included the new Harbor Ward to the west.
The Southward was added in the 200's when the Great Kingdoms ambitions peaked. The intention was to turn Critwall into the main bastion of the north west and a base for further conquest north. This is when Rauxes started to have problem closer to home and the anticipated influx of settlers and soldiers from the Great Kingdoms core lands never materialised. The southward instead became a walled in area for the well off, military training facilities and a large tournament and fair ground.
Here is a work in progress preview of Critwall:
Again I have to remind you that this is my very first map done in QGIS, but I'm enthusiastic for the possibilities. Things will get better from here and take less time to do as well!
When it comes to the bigger picture I've added all the Metropolises and all the Cities and was about to start on the Towns when I screwed up with my database management and managed to delete all the city data, a couple of days work gone. I store stuff in Dropbox, or so I thought, but QGIS store so called "sidecar files" in C:/User/%USER%/Documents..sigh. Found that out the hard way, and now I have change that setting and turned of the sidecar files and works with integrated data until I export it. You learn every day in this job...lol. It was a lot of anger management for half a day, but now I' coming back to it again, placing labels in Critwall was a great way of liking my job again.
It is a lot of tedious work but will be more than worth it in the long run. The potential of this in endless!!
Housekeeping
Patreon have screwed up a bit on their own this past month. They changed payment processor and the new one was according to rumours in Ireland and lots of US banks declined the card charges, in my case it was about nearly 40%, hopefully they will have that sorted out to next month. They sent out an email apologizing, but without going into much detail which is understandable. Being away for a bit over a month also takes time come back from so it affected me when I deserved it..lol.
I just lost a friend and long time former colleague which is always hard, and not being able to attend the funeral (it is not possible to go back to Europe again so soon) feels really depressing. I'm sorry for the delays in my projects and communication that this have caused. I'm getting over it, just need to be careful so I'm not spreading negative vibes.
I plan to do an overhaul of my Patreon and its tiers this fall. Patreon are changing lots of things and I need to adjust on my end as well. Lots of the changes are for the better I hope, want to make things simpler and a bit more straight forward. More on this soon.
Merch
NobleDwarf now have a lot of stuff with my graphics on it, posters, t-shirt, mugs and more with my maps, heraldry and logo on them!
https://www.nobledwarf.com/collections/anna-meyer
The price is for the cost of the print, I don't get a cut of the sticker price. This is so I'm, hopefully, staying compliant of the WotC Fan Creation Policy. There is a tip option in checkout, where you can ad a few bucks that will go to me. The exceptions are t-shirts and mugs with my logo only, there I will get a bit of the sale since there are now derivative Greyhawk art on them. I hope you find something you like!
I will be back with an in depth look at Critwall soon.
Thank you again for your support, it means so much, especially now!!!
It has taken 20 years of hesitation, half-assed attempts, a few fast made commissions and lots of trials and error, to get this point where I have found out how to create city maps that are both useful and pleasing to my eye. Please understand me wrong here, fantasy cartography are full of fantastic looking city maps. After dungeon maps they are probably the most common type of map in TTRPG publishing, and despite looking great they often missing key parts I'm looking for in visualizing a settlement.
May main missing feature are the surroundings, a city is a feature of the surrounding landscape, a landscape that are usually the reason for its existence and determines its layout and spread, omitting it makes it really hard for me to understand the place. Another vital part are elevation, a settlement on flat lands are fundamentally different from one with huge height differences. A proper map need to make this apparent, strangely this can be harder to do well when the elevation differences are smaller but still significant.
Level of detail is another key aspect of a map, especially for a place where text and images are the only way we can get to know the place. Fantasy mapping are less about finding the way and more about discovering the journey. At a distance things like color and shading give away clues to the lay of the land, big structures like city walls and the biggest buildings. Contrasting colors between buildings and streets work to give hints to the basic layout of the city even at a glance from the distance. Porta Potty Scale works well to show an overview of settlements and their surroundings, and to use to navigate around town, point out places of interest and calculate travel times.
The final map and its data need to fit into my grander scheme of setting mapping, both in accuracy, data compatibility, and style. The data bit is the often overlooked part, I want to be able to re-use as much of my work as possible, and when I update something the update should be applicable across all maps using the the same data. Good maps are so much more than pretty pictures. All the separate layers of textures, shading, masks and things like occlusion data can be very handy when it comes to make different types of maps, like a grey overlay to show the sewers for example.
I've used my trusty World Machine, Photoshop workflow for this one and I'm starting to feel comfortable with both the process and the results. It is tedious and even "treacherous" at time with many pitfalls, but overall the best possible at the moment. There are a few things with large scale water drainage that I need to iron out, but I have ideas on how to fix them better. Who knew that drainage would be such a big part of my life, I never even though much about it until I started moving into virtual terrain creation, and now I study both geology and python to get a grip on the topic!
Half of the process still requires a hands on approach using Photoshop, this is both a pain but also a source of artistry and a chance to get to know an area intimately. It is also important for me to have lots of hands on in in the city design process, things need to be figured out gradually with a tow step forward one step back kind of way. Trying to imagine what the place would be to live in, when and how was it constructed, by whom and who made the decisions. Towns and settlements rarely form instantly, but it might happen in a fantasy world, they grow over time and their history are an integral part of how they are designed. Taking time to let all this evolve when I work on settlements makes it possible to come up with lots of cool little details.
Next phase in mapping Critwall is to bring it into QGIS for labeling, which is something I'm very much still a newbie at. The final presentation represent a whole new set of challenges with, fonts, size colors and more. More on that in a few days...
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