A Level based rules system that doesn't rely on classes needs another mechanic to restrict what characters can do, how good they are at and when in their career they can get access to various features of the game.
My attempt to regulate this is by using Learning, which can be implemented in various ways to suit different campaigns, from short campaigns to "forever" campaign spanning long story arch's over many sessions.
This is a first version of my Learning Mechanics:
A core mechanic of Hawk Tales is Learning, a way to integrate character development and advancement into the game and its story.
There are several aspects to Learning, let’s look at an example. Say your Character wants to become a Wizard, there are several ways to learn Arcane magic, but if you want to be able to do more than dabble in the arcane arts, there are no way around it, you need to be proficient in Arcana.
The Arcana feat has:
Prerequisite: None
XP Cost: 400
Learning Roll: Intelligence DC 15
This variant is intended for detailed long-term gameplay where character advancement is handled incrementally during gameplay.
Target DC: is the roll that must be met, and the number of days that must be cleared, meaning a Successful Learning Roll must be made each day for the DC amount of days.
This looks like grim odds for an aspiring young character eager to learn the arcane arts, but these are the odds for a cold start without any prior knowledge or help from someone who can teach.
You can make one attempt per Long or Full Rest if you do other activities besides learning and resting. Each learning session is assumed to take around 8 hours, which means you can squeeze in 2 sessions a day if you are in a suitable environment and can focus all day.
Have never experienced the topic at hand: Make the Learning Roll normally.
You have newly experienced the topic at hand: Make the Learning Roll with *Advantage*
A natural 20: means success, and a second roll that day is made at an Advantage (or Double Advantage if you already had Advantage) .
A natural 1: means you have a setback and your effort that day is waisted, and your accomplishments are reduced by 1
Gain +1 for each successful attempt: It gets easier and easier the closer you are to finishing your Learning Task.
You have someone skilled teaching you that day, is like rolling a natural 20 that session, meaning you get an almost guaranteed progress each day. If you roll 1 on your second roll for the day all your effort is wasted that day, even with a tutor.
Using Tasked Learning means that Character advancement takes time and happens gradually during gameplay. The method of improving on what your character knows will usually be made with Advantage, which makes becoming better at what you already know much easier than learning new things.
You can learn most things even while adventuring, some things might be easier to learn while out adventuring. It is up to the GM to determine if and what Learning Rolls can be attempted each day. To learn some things might require a wizard’s lab, or even a library which limits the possibilities to make progress while adventuring out in the wild, on the other hand big city offer limited possibilities to lean things like Nature Skill, while having excellent facilities to serve a deity or do spell research.
Declare what your character wants to learn and allocate the XP.
The GM and the group determine the criteria for Learning: and when that criterion is met, your character succeeds at Learning.
This variant can be formal, like new capabilities will be acquired when a new level is gained, every game session, when you are back in town for downtime, or when some other predetermined condition is met. For example, the GM can set it to be 1 week in game time per 100 XP needed to Learn, this would mean that it takes many years to become a fully capable 20th level character. Which might be reasonable in a long term game, but not suited for a short-term campaign that plays out over a few sessions.
Character advancement is a key part of roleplaying games, both mechanically and as part of the fun. This means that, regardless of the variant used, it needs to work well for the game you are running. Let’s look at the different aspects going into Learning.
Prerequisites
This is a major way to limit when characters can learn something, which means that is should not be tampered with lightly or you will have either a bunch of superheroes, or even worse, underpowered characters not able to survive. Tweak the Prerequisites when you deem it right for the setting, a divine intervention, something a character learned from its ancestors in a magical way. This can be one-off, or permanent changes, but do them carefully.
XP Cost
This is a "hard" aspect tied to game balance, so it should under all circumstances be implemented equally for all characters. It is tempting to have story interfere here, like a dutiful paladin being rewarded by its deity. You can award a new feat or trait to a character like that without the XP requirement, but it will unbalance a game. For a short-term game at a convention no problem, but for long term campaigns it can lead to serious imbalances. It is like handing out treasure, it needs to be done carefully.
Time
This is a much more flexible aspect that will not upset or unbalance the game in the long term. Having character advancement fits the pace of the story and sometime it can be directly implemented, like the warrior who reach in during battle to find his [[Rage 1|Rage]] and can that way defeat the monster.
Be flexible and have fun with this one, a bit of resistance and some unexpected gains can liven up a campaign.
Difficulty
This is another flexible aspect, if you use Tasked Learning give Advantage (or even Double Advantage) in some circumstances, like when they have had an encounter with some enemies and barely escaped, that might warrant learning a weapon, specialize in it, improving [[Combat Prowess 1|Combat Prowess]] or something similar with Advantage, even give them a give success that day on related Learning Tasks.
If your GM allow it, you can "forget" a Feat, Skill or Proficiency you have learned, and get the XP back to learn something new. When you decide your character no longer needs or wants to stay current with something it has learned, you can then free up the XP used to learn and use it to learn something new the normal way.
Note: Prerequisites still applies after you Learned something, so you can only forget things that are not prerequisites for other things your character can do.
If you for some reason want to go back and start using the Feat, Skill or Proficiency you forgot, you can "refresh your knowledge" and get it back again. It will need to take some time, depending on the circumstances, determined by the GM. After the time has passed you spend the XP again and you have your Feat, Skill or Proficiency back, no Learning Roll needed.
Thanks to all of you sharp eyed patreon members who pointed out heraldry I missed recreating in a more realistic style, here are the missing shields. A mixed bunch of fourteen shield stating with the Bakhoury Coast.
and Cryllor.
The Dreadwalkers
Viscounty of Eventide
Fort Gellner
Ikelan
Iyapo
Jolan
Kevot
Kundanol
Nume Eor
Sentinel Keep
Vaynama
Xolapequa
Special thanks to Mark Spangler for listing the missing one, and alerting me!
Grab all of them in a single zip here (165MB): https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Heraldry/Missing%20Heraldry.zip
When I started my Patreon 5 years ago my goal was to try and do Greyhawk content, giving it away under a Creative Commons license, to be an asset to Greyhawk fans. A huge thank you to those of you who have supported me during this time, and a warm welcome to all those who have joined recently!
This Summer Update will be a bit lengthy as I will try and go over all the things I’m currently working on and what I plan to get started soon.
Heraldry
I’ve created my take on existing Greyhawk heraldry, and created a lot of new heraldry, over 400 all in all. What started out as an experiment turned out to be a lot of fun, and very popular. I like to do heraldry, they are neat little projects to dig into for an hour or tow every other day, and they are very popular.
My latest experiment in this field is simple shields. It was an idea by Michael Mossbarger to create shields used not by the kings, lord and generals, but by the common foot soldier. I did a couple of simple wooden shields on my last livestream. It was fun and might be useful, what do you think?
A Greyhawk peasant militia soldiers’ shield.
And one from Dyvers
There will be more shields, I’m creating them as I read, and re-read Greyhawk lore, and create for my own campaign. Furyondy, Horned Society Iuz are in focus now. But I’m also going through the history and development of the Great Kingdom and its successor states for a reboot of my Rel Deven campaign. Haven’t run an elven focused campaign in decades, so now I’m also prepping ideas for one in a couple of years. A lot of very interesting possibilities, and thanks to their lifespan it will tie into a lot of history.
New Website
This is a sore thumb of mine; my web presence is not up to the job of being a place where it is easy to find my content. The problem is two-sided, there is so much stuff hidden in a myriad of posts, and the ability to effectively search and find stuff is limited. Setting up and running a website is quite an operation, which thankfully has tools to help you do that. My problem is that most tools seem to be focused on blogs and similar sites, not large content repositories.
The most promising solution I’ve seen, and used a bit is Notion, which now has launched a web publishing function. I’m going to try it out and see if it works for what I need it to do. WordPress is way to much work to change something, it takes me a week or so every time I’m doing a site update more than posting. I want to be able to add pages, change layout, add whole sections to my website without having to take a week or two off to do it. I also don’t have to money to pay someone to do it, and this is where I want control, meaning I need to understand how to do things so I’m not reliant on others.
If any of you know of a powerful and flexible tool to create and manage websites that isn’t too pricy, I’m very interested to hear about it!
As piggyback on my GIS project, I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago, properly reference all the places and names on my map. All the renewed interest in Greyhawk has made this extra important. Help with this is very much appreciated, since it is a huge undertaking. Greyhawk wikis and similar resources have made this easier, but it is still a lot of work. Before the collection and curation of data begins, we need to define what data we need and the technical details like data formats, files etc. This can start when the GIS data entry is done this fall.
GIS
My project to create a new version of my existing Flanaess Hepmonaland map using GIS is going well. It is a huge undertaking, and after about a year of data entry a first version is in sight later this year.
A New Generation Maps
My current Flanaess Hepmonaland map is getting, while still useful, showing its age being created using tools from the 1990’s. From the Southlands and Midgard maps I did almost a decade ago for Kobold Press to my latest commission, they are created using tools that are decades more advanced. I made a facelift to my current map when I added Hepmonaland some years ago, but it is only so much you can do with a new set of superficial edits.
The GIS conversion will be the last major version of my Flanaess map that will be based on the old stuff. Future maps will be made using tools like GAEA, world Machine and others put together using GIS, Game Engines and of course still rely on editing tools like Photoshop.
For my Shield Lands campaign, I ambitiously set out to map it in “Porta Potty Scale” at 5ft pixel. Due to World Machine 4 no longer supporting tiled imports that I relied on for this I had to rethink my approach. Now a year later I’m having a new approach that can circumvent the issue and still deliver the detail and quality I crave. The result will be the same and, in some ways, even better, but the process is kind of the opposite. Before I work from the bottom up, now it will be more top down – start with the big and then zoom in for details. I thought you would lose quality and that it would be more difficult going top down, that is why I started with bottom up. Now that I’ve tested both methods, I found out I was partially wrong. Thankfully top down can deliver really good quality even faster, and my drainage issues are less common this way.
The new set of maps I’m working on will have a resolution of 150 ft per pixel and cover an area of 450 x 450 miles whit proper waterflow with lakes and rivers in this area. This is with my current tool World Machine 3, which is now old and but still my go to. With WM3 I can do 16K terrains in a single render without tiling. This is the worst-case scenario, WM3 will be the tool to rely on for remapping the Flanaess. It can be done in a few years, and with areas of special interest like cities at 5ft. per pixel special maps as well.
Thankfully there is a new tool coming in Gaea 2, that has been in alpha for a few months and is very promising. If it can deliver what is on its roadmap for later this year, I will be able to go from 16K maps to 256K, over 2 million pixels per side renders. And Gaea is not the only tool on the horizon, terrain creation is going from an obscure thing to a major feature. What is driving this is the new generation game engines, and GIS tools that made it possible to work with whole planets in glorious, detailed 3D. This is driving a demand for better tools to create them, and now we have the hardware to handle them, so the future is looking bright in this field and we as gamers can cash in and make good use of it.
Maps and heraldry have been a great inroad to local and more detailed worldbuilding, which has made me go back and re-read a lot of the old material and have a new look at it. It has given me a lot of new ideas and different takes on things. To better separate my own version from the “standard” Greyhawk map and other stuff I do, I hope it can be useful to label it MeyerHawk so those that are not that into my stuff can avoid it, and the other way around.
Now with over 20 years of experience creating maps, and 40 years gaming in Greyhawk, I feel I’m skilled enough to not only map the setting, but also contribute to it in other ways as well. My goal with the MeyerHawk label is to is to signal that this is my take on the setting, and to provide a rich a deep set of lore for Greyhawk gamers, and others to use. It will be Creative Commons as well, so it can be used, tweaked and shared by Greyhawk fans everywhere.
House Rules
The fluff is taken care of under the MeyerHawk label, how about the crunch!? I’ve been working on a house rule project since before the pandemic, when I started to regularly run games virtually and realized that I needed a firmer grounding rule wise. Somehow when you are forced to interact using computers and video calls written rules and structure becomes more apparent and need to be clearer.
Having started out with AD&D1E/2E, then moved to D&D3E and 3.5. Even 4E for a few months before switching to PF1 and then PF2 to ending up with a sort of 5E-A5E mishmash, just making a few house rules was not going to cut it. I needed a proper set of rules that suited my playstyle, so I looked at almost every fantasy TTRPG rule set, that was at least vaguely related to D&D (and a few others as well). Found a lot of things I liked, but not in the same system. It dawned on me that when I didn’t find the map I needed, I set out to create it. Now I’m in the same situation when it comes to the rules I need for my games, so under the name of a house rule project a whole new TTRPG rule set is taking shape.
This is my working title; we will see if it survives. The goal for this project is to create a rules system that support and facilitate heavy sandbox-style games. It should do its job and then get out of the way, medium crunch and lots of possibilities and support flavor. I’m making a rule set I need, and then we will see what happens, but I want to offer it free for everyone to use. I’m trying to make it easy to learn and hard to impossible master, making long term campaigns viable.
A few holy cows must go to slaughter for Hawk Tales, and that might upset some, but I did it on the altar of my sandbox gaming temple. For example, Armor and AC are overlapping but not the same thing anymore, and Armor softens the blows. Even the mightiest warrior who can face a dragon has a reason to be a little bit wary every time he faces a crowd of commoners.
Another feature is that weapons get deadlier the better you are at using them. A master of daggers can do more damage than a newbie using a greatsword. Big heavy weapons like mauls and greatswords have their advantages but are not the only way to bring down your opponent.
Tactics and crunch are a side of a rules systems that can become too dominant, and you can have lots of cool ideas and the urge is to implement them all. I’m now in the very important phase of trying to streamline and bring better order to things. The goal is to have a system that is easy to understand, but still, it should be able to deliver lots if flavorful outcomes.
The main way Hawk Tales FRP will be different from D&D (and most other fantasy RPG’s) is the main approach in its design. They seem to be based on gameplay, with the rules and its concepts being at the center of the game. Class being such a key concept, it’s a core function of the game and most of the rules are built around it.
My approach is to see the rules as a supporting role in the overall experience. The rules should provide a supportive framework for worldbuilding, gameplay and character progression. I want a world full of people, creatures, magic, epic worlds and exiting adventures, so I want to create a rules structure that support that. A “thief” is a job description, not a set of mechanics. Some thieves would be stealthy and act in the shadows, others would be brutes using intimidation and violence for their illicit activities, or a combination of the two.
Character progression in Hawk Tales FRP will be guided by the desires of the player, which can vary over the career of the character, and what happens during gameplay. What your character does will to a large degree determine what it will get good at, but there is still room for going on a quest to learn magic even if there is no wizard at hand to teach you. It will just be somewhat more difficult and take more time. Character development, combat and what happens during encounters are a side of the gaming experience that most rule sets focus on and handle well. I intend to make my rules able to keep up with the others, but it is hard to improve on what has already been perfected over decades by way more accomplished game designers that amateur me. The side where I think I can provide the biggest incentive for considering adopting Hawk Tales will be on the Game Mastering side of things.
Like with cartography where I used skills learned in other areas and used them to make setting maps, then it was my understanding navigation and what the world looks like that I relied on. This time I am relying on my understanding of things from physics, electronics, politics and how the world works. How could a medieval-like world with magic, dragons, undead and worse function and still make it fun and interesting to delve into and interact with.
For me it is equally important to have a system for high level magic and a way to play out high stakes power struggles as well as the daggers, swords and magic fights. How do you bring down an evil ruler, or even a god. What can necromancers really do with their power, and what would someone get from serving a demon lord. These are questions I want a set of rules to help answer, not by providing all the exact details, that is up to you and your campaign. The key for me is to provide the imaginary arena and guidelines for how to conduct the play.
Things like how are divine beings created and how they gain and wield their power. In this I’ve even managed to revive the concept of alignment languages, and how does Vecna’s gathering of secrets work, and where is Tharizdun imprisoned. These are all campaign plots that Hawk Tales can help you run campaign around and provides rules and guidelines for fighting cults, liches and more, way beyond the simple statblock.
I will run games using an early form of Hawk Tales at Virtual Gary Con 5, GameHole Con and PAGE 2025 and Gary Con XVII, as well as run online short skirmish play tests starting this fall. I hope you might be interested in joining.
A “Skirmish Alpha” Release will be available this fall, that will cover basic rules, encounters, combat and spellcasting. Come with a sample of characters, some opponents to fight and a list of spells and equipment. Hopefully enough for you to see if it is something for you to even consider.
Hawk Tales FRP will be published using Creative Common 4.0 -by license in PDF and Markdown formats and will be available to be downloaded and referenced for free on my website.
The CC -by license makes it possible foe anyone to use, alter and share Hawk Tales as they like. In the day of gatekeeping and corporatization of I want to do what I can to help and inspire gamers to have fun, create and share.
Again, thank you Everyone for making it possible for me to work on this, it is your support that pay for my computers, software and covers the bills so I can spend time work on this!!!
I hope you all feel welcome and are exited to join me in exploring and mapping our favorite fantasy world!
Can't resists this! Awesome creators and a very interesting approach, and for a gamer like me an irresistible aura of attractiveness... 
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/darkageoftheer/progcore-fantasy-the-dark-age-of-theer
This last batch is a small mixed lot of shields and symbols.
Let’s start with Uskedge that comes from a reference in the Saga of Old City Gord novel, a General Lomor, the Margrave of Uskedge leads a Great Kingdom force into the battle at Woodford in the Adri. I created the March of Uskedge on the North Province/Kingdoms western edge where Woodford is located, and here comes my take on lord Lomor’s shield.
The background of the shield tops with the overkings colors and markings, showing the Margrave is an overking loyal and appointee. The green lower bit is the Edgefield Green, showing Lomor’s family ties and origins. The boar is a symbol Lomor choose to underline his abilities as a hunter, the frontier status and danger of his posting and a way to look cool.
This is the version that was used by Lomor until the fall of Ivid’s line. Above it is shown in an aged version that could be found in the 590’s.
The fall of Ivid forced Lomor to change his allegiance and update hi heraldry accordingly. Gone are the colors of the Overking replaced with the Naelax Red and an Aerdy small star have been added as a way to show allegiance.
The overking himself kept a retinue of Fiend-Knights, both infantry and cavalry. Their heraldry is described in Ivid the undying as a fierce tan horse and a baboon respectively. I used AI to create the concepts and then used my Photoshop editing chops to create the shields. I placed the symbols on the Naelax red, and due to simulated wear and tare the colors faded a bit differently.
Next up is a variant of the Hardby heraldry from OJ #10 and a design by James A. S. Muldowney.
This can be the Hardby shield is you prefer, or it can be one sed by an earlier Gynarch, one competing for power. The moon suggests elven connections…
There is one place in the Empire of Iuz that have managed to retain a “decent” civilized form of heraldry and that is Delaquenn, the town on the eastern shores of the Whyestil.
The town was founded by Oeridian explorers with ambitions to become part of the expanding Great Kingdom and the heraldry was made to prove it. The standard Aerdy symbol of city with the black of the then ruling Cranden overking’s house over blue water. The city gate and its windows are gleaming golden to indicate wealth and prosperity. The flags on tops of the towers are probably a later edition showing the colors of Molag.
The Keep of Trystenn is a hideous keep along the road between Molag and Dorakaa, ruling the Long March. Its crest is an equally gloomy addition to the annals of heraldry. Based on an Aerdy heater shield to mock the enemy, and with a symbol that is both a homage to the caltrops surrounding the keep, the helmets worn by its guards and their long shafted axes.
While up in the north let’s look at a shield that never was, but could have been, the Northern MarchesThe Great Kingdom’s reach never really got to Blackmoor but it was in their sights. If they had properly conquered it they would probably have made it into the Northern Marches. The name is also an homage to the Northern Marches that was Dave Arneson’s realm in the Great Kingdom campaign.
The design is the norm for Aerdy marchlands, the Aerdy seal with the sun and the crown, on a black Cranden background due to the ruling dynasty of Rauxes. At the bottom are the Blackmoor blue and white.
In the Griff Mountains south of Stonehold lies Garel Enkdal, a nest of Orcs (and maybe other humanoids as well). Here is my take on their shield, a portrait of what they are very proud of, their defenses that have held the pesky Fists away for a long time.
Last of the proper shields are a design I found in the D&D gazetteer, published in 2000. It is in a picture of Belissica and Karll in front of their heraldry, but the Duch one with the bear has black diagonal stripes instead of a uniform background color. I took this design and made it into Duke Karll’s crest and the symbol of his capital Leukish.
Next up are some other symbols. First out is the Cranden conclave, mentioned in Ivid the Undying. It is usually found as a pin that can be worn on clothes to identify the wearer as a Cranden noble.
Iuz distributes holy symbols to his clergy in two variants, black and white.
They both work as holy symbols, the reason for having two colors is the same as tyrants throughout history have figured out. Never trust your underlings, so make sure you divide them into competing teams. In case there is a rebellion, Iuz can cancel the power of whatever offending color the hapless instigator was issued with. Might also be only a rumor used to scare lowly henchmen into submission. There are rumors of a red version distributed to the truly powerful among his followings.
https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Heraldry/heraldry%2012.zip
all of this is Creative Commons 4.0 -by -nc -sa content!
Maps of the Flanaess over the years
The new Dungeon Masters guide is going to include a poster map with a map of the Flanaess on one side and a map of he City of Greyhawk on the other. A teaser for the new map was just revealed, and it’s made by Mike Schley, this is but the latest of a number of maps of the Flanaess by TSR, WotC, and of course fans. Let’s have a brief look at the different maps, and what they tell us about the setting itself.
Due to copyright I’m only going to post low resolution versions of the maps as a guide, for full versions, I refer you to the products or creator.
The Great Kingdom
The roots of the Greyhawk setting ca be found in the Great Kingdom map from 1971 published in the Doomsday Book Fanzine #9
This map is already familiar to Greyhawk fans, Dry Steppes, Sea of Dust and the Lake of Unknown Depths (called Nir Dyv at this time) are present. The Layout of the mountains separating the western parts from the eastern Great Kingdom is somewhat already resembling the ranges we see much later on the published maps.
As the Castles & Crusades Society was established a more detailed version of the Great Kingdom map evolved.
The geography hasn’t changed much but lots of new names have appeared, most of them very familiar to Greyhawk players. Gary Gygax created and claimed the Principality of Walworth north of Nir Dyv, what would later become the Shield Lands with a Walworth province still part of it.
The Setting Takes Shape
As part of the work getting the Greyhawk setting ready for publication was to create a proper setting map. A sketch map was made and circulated among TSR staff and friends of Gary Gygax, and I have scanned Len Lakofka’s old copy of the map.
Now for the first time we have a map that every Greyhawk fan recognizes and are familiar with. Some of the names and places have been slightly altered or moved, like Rinton which became Rinloru on the published map, and Loreltarma which was moved from the northern coast of Lendore Isle to the southern.
The Darlene Map
In 1980 the Greyhawk Folio was published and with it came the 2-part poster map made by Darlene, which have rightly become fantasy cartography legend. It was one of the first fantasy setting maps and a great piece of art, with beautiful calligraphy and striking colors.
The style of the Darlene map was probably inspired by the Outdoor Survival board game by Avalon Hill published in 1972.
The Darlene map was reprinted again both for the 1983 boxes set, and From the Ashes in 1992, but tis time with blue borders instead of white.
The Saga of Old City and Artifact of Evil by Gary Gygax has a Flanaess map probably made by Clyde Caldwell depicting Gords journey across the Flanaess.
WotC Takes Over
After WotC acquires TSR in 1997 a new series of Greyhawk content was published and with it came new maps. A series of maps including a Flanaess map made by Sam Wood was included.
Third Edition D&D was launched in 2000 and with Greyhawk as the standard setting, and we got a new look at the setting in the D&D Gazetteer with a map by Dennis Kauth and Rob Lazzaretti.
This map was the first Flanaess map published that is based on a post war Flanaess without the Great Kingdom.
PaizoHawk
In the mid 90’s TSR announced an Atlas of the Flanaess that was never published, probably due to TSR’s failing finances. A decade later Paizo was the publisher of Dragon and Dungeon magazines. In 2005 a 4-part poster map was published in Dungeon #118-#121, it was made by Rob Lazzaretti and was hailed as the most detailed Greyhawk map ever published. That is still true, if you don’t count fan made maps.
It was a great new take on the setting and would be the last published Flanaess map, until the new DMG comes out.
D&D 2024
In the new DMG coming out later this year Greyhawk will be given a chapter and a new poster map, made by Mike Schley. It seems to be a reboot of the setting with some changes, but the cartography is solid, despite a bit overdone labeling. The labels might be for the low-resolution preview only, its too early to tell.
This was a quick overview of publication history of Flanaess maps. Jay Scott and me will discuss this topic on the Legends & Lore Show on the LordGosumba Twitch tomorrow Wednesday the 26th @7pm EDT. twitch.tv/lordgosumba
Here comes a very quick GIS Flanaess map created using orthographic projection, maybe we should call is Oerthographic projection 😉
The Scale is 1:16,000,000 and I added the metropolises as well. The icon shading is overdone and should be reduced for a better look, but this map is about testing the feasibility and to see how difficult it is to set up a new map in GIS. This map took me a couple of hours plus some extra time dithering on the icons, and with a style set already made making a new version of this would be very straight forward.
I wasn't sure ortho would work for a map covering the whole Flanaess, but to my surprise it does. For a DM reference map I think it would work. For a stylish fantasy map I need to find a better projection, WGS 84 that I use as a standard is bit to squished N-S, so I need to look into others to find the best that looks like we are used to.
Two grids on this one as well, a black 5 degree georeference grid, and a 500 mile white square distance grid. There is a slight discrepancy between the scale bar and the white grid. This is due to them being calculated using different methods and uses different averages from the map. This map is not detailed enough for that to really matter, if you need more precision, use a better map!
I think it proves the potential of using GIS to create a multitude of maps at various sizes, scales and for different purposes. I'm creating a number CRS's (Coordinate Reference Systems) to go along with my GIS data. Ortho CRS's for setting, regional and country maps, that will be distributed with the Geopackage files containing the map data. The first set of map files will be available in a couple of months, when I have entered all the data.
You can get this map here (5.5MB): https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/GIS/GIS%20Test%20Map%20-%20Flanaess.jpg
It’s not every day we get a new Flanaess map, end an “official” one is even rarer, the Paizohawk map from over 20 years ago are the last one, I think. So today is a special day indeed. I’ve only had a couple of hours to study it, so these are just some initial thoughts.
The cartography looks like Mike Schley did it, it’s very stylish and looks like it belongs in a fantasy world. It appears very simple, but looks can be a bit deceiving, this map is way more detailed than earlier official Flanaess maps. Look at the coastlines and compare them to the Darlene map and you know what I’m talking about. Also, those coastlines look familiar, Mr. Schley has done an excellent job on those...
Labels for cities and towns seem to have been done with the map, because they look great and like they belong there. The rest of the labels, meaning all the other ones, are a different story. I don’t know who did it, and that is probably best. Most likely a quick and dirty job by the marketing department to make sure they stand out like sore thumbs.
Oceans have bands of color, and the hexes are still there, but in a more subdued fashion this time. The preview image has dotted lines to seem to indicate a page layout, or just lines to indicate where the map is going to be folded. An 8-page spread map isn’t bad, might be a pretty substantial size to this one.
Geography-wise it’s all what we could expect and are used to, very little news there as far as I can see right away. One change, Prymp has moved a bit more east to the little peninsula that offers a better natural harbor. This move is on my to do list for my campaign map, great work Mike!
On the political side we have a series of expected changes that I like, the barbarians in the northwest are now the Chakyik and the Wegwuir, an improvement that these names are used on the map. Scarlet Brotherhood is now more properly named Shar. Blackmoor is now Arn, interesting and a neat homage. I like Blackmoor and will keep the name in my campaign I think but there are probably good IP reasons behind the change.
Joe Bloch cover this and more in his great video about this map: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxoXH4JFnZc
Hats off to Mike Schley (if he is the cartographer) for a job well done. Minus points to whoever took over and did the labeling, please get someone with s bit more stylish sense.
You can download the map here: https://www.enworld.org/attachments/d18b9a566830e9c1215c662599e141cc-png.367815/
Finally, after a journey or about five years of learning, planning, testing and many hundreds of hours of data entry, its finally time to show a first preview of the new generation of Flanaess GIS based maps.
First out is a look at the Pomarj on a 13 inch x 18 inch map in scale 1:2,000,000. This map is primarily intended to be used digitally with a resolution of 300 dpi and labels that are a bit too small for printing. The purpose here is to make sure all the bits and pieces are working and can be made into a proper map.
There are still things missing here like river names, area labels and political names which are in the process of being added. Each of these layers have special settings that can be a bit complicated, so I want to do them one type at a time to keep my skills sharp.
When I started planning a GIS conversion of my Greyhawk map, my main worry was that the map would not look good. I saw all these simple pure vector maps that didn’t look suited for fantasy at all, thankfully things turned out quite differently. GIS software and the power of computers have developed a lot, making it possible to create truly inspiring maps. This new generation of my old maps is an improvement not only in the features it can offer, but also in how it looks.
Let’s look at the features of the map. It comes with two different grids, a black geographic grid with a line for each degree of latitude and longitude. This grid is used to locate things and keep track of directions. The projection is Orthographic with minimal distortion, but the directions vary across the map which the black grid shows. The white grid is there to help you keep track of distances, and I made three different versions of this map, each with a different white distance grid, a 100 miles square grid, a 30-mile hex grid and a 12-mile hex grid.
Which of these white grids you prefer depends on your use case. 12-mile hexes for those of you who use that for your hex-crawls, 30-mile hexes for those of you who want to stay old school and 100 miles squares for those who want a more clutter free map and still have a measuring grid. I opted out of numbering the hexes for several reasons, it is a lot of work, and adds a lot of clutter. Hex numbers are used for finding things, but now you can use coordinates which are easier, and can be more precise and work across different maps without hassle. Setting up a global hex reference numbering is a use undertaking, and redundant. An interesting alternative is to use what3words for geolocations. It is really cool and kind of fantasy-like, but it doesn’t work on printed maps, so lat. long. reference seems to be a better way to do it.
The roads also have little pick tick marks to tell distances. Small ticks every 5 miles and a bigger tick every 50 miles. These are a bit too small, and I’m going to make them bigger but if you look carefully, you can see them. Thanks to GIS they are now accurate and show the true (horizontal) distance along the road.
You can download the maps here: https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/GIS/Test%20Map%201%20-%20Pomarj.zip
This was a first look, more to come soon!
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