Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added
 

Nice to see your update. I was thinking of nudging the thread to ask whether you were still working on the map. As always, thanks for the hard work!

I have your page bookmarked (https://darebearsminiemporium.blogsp...f-ytarria.html), but where do we find the latest versions? (It'd be great, especially for new visitors, if there were clear links to the latest versions of files. Or maybe I'm not seeing it.)

Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added
 

That's an ambitious set of additions!


I find lots of people have their own twist on Yrth. I like saying the secret history of the banestorm is that its a prison for Dragons who were terrorizing other worlds(I can say that now! no spoilers for long campaign!), but I don't think many others are going to embrace that.

Sometimes I think it would be wonderful to have so much more detail on Yrth --- but then I ask myself how often I use the detail we have. Some of that is also about focus: Caithess has a lot more detail than the nomad lands.

Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added
 

I will restructure things so that finding the latest map is easier. I am still working on the mountains of the Great Forest, using Harkwood as a guide. Most of the cartography is more or less complete IMO. There is little I could add to the map at the current scale of 24 miles per hex.

Ytarria is already well detailed for sure at the macro level. In no way do I find it bland. Rather, it comes across as very rational and believable. The fact that is uses real world religions is a major selling point IMO and makes it all the more believable and relatable, at least to me. At no point do I compare our own world and its problems with Ytarria. It just never crosses my mind to do so.

Caithness has a wealth of information for it in the Harkwood supplement. If I had to pick an area to campaign in, it would be Caithness. It is close to the action and provides a little of everything, except naval adventures. My second choice would be Cardiel, which despite what the books allude to, would be mostly wilderness due to the low population. Add in some special wilderness features and ruins and you have an exciting location which can do dungeon delving, nautical action and Arabian adventures in neighboring al-Wazif.

That being said, I often think of what I might want to add to Ytarria, sometimes coming up with many wild ideas. However, in the end, I typically gravitate more to mundane ideas which keep thing in line with the current book. For example, for the Nomad Lands, despite my ideas of Chaos Warbands, I would probably use the GURPS Viking the Celt books for that area, rather than creating something new from scratch.

The Worlds Without Number RPG has a great set of tools for generating nations, terrain features, cities, organizations....the works. That is one reason why I have not detailed a lot of the named locations with descriptions yet. My idea of what is in a certain area might vary wildly from someone else. I highly recommend that book (which is a free download) for anyone who wants to customize Ytarria to their liking.

For those who may have missed it, on page 6 of Banestorm there is a sidebar comment which alludes to pre-Elven lost civilizations. It leaves it up to the GM as to what it means, but it is clear that there may be far more to Ytarria's history than what is presented in the book. Perhaps the sinking of Atlantis was a metaphor and instead it was transported somewhere....."else". GURPS Atlantis Crossover anyone?

Who knows what secrets are yet to be discovered.

Sounds like a Dungeon Fantasy campaign to me.

Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added
 

Araterre is an obvious takeoff on Creole country, either Martinique or New Orleans. In fact you can run with that and have zombies, longshoremen tired of hauling bananas, tiki bars, or whatever there. Naturally tropical rain forest will be there.

National borders often are rivers in real life both because surveyors find them convenient and because armies don't find them so when they are perpendicular to the march. However canon says Caithness doesn't have borders, it has marches. The Hazi border is to wild to be worth the bother to survey. While the Megolos border is where Megolan battle mages find the "magical desert" terrain uncomfortable.

Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added
 

Indeed, the borders for everyone are largely meaningless. The only one on the map IMO which looks funny is the Caithness/Meglan border. I thought about adding a river to delineate it. I am still on the fence about that.

To get an idea of scale, using Worlds Without Number as a guide, at 24 miles per hex, there would be at least 2 sites of interest per hex. Likely 3-4. Lairs, ruins, settlements, whatever (the math: rolling a d6 per 6 mile hex on a campaign map, with a 1 indicating a site of interest...there are roughly 16 six mile hexes per 24 mile hex which equates to at least 2 sites per hex). At this scale I have only shown the smallest fraction of what could be out there. That is an ongoing process but I have to temper myself lest I clutter it too much.

I have the Ytarrian coastline mapped out to 6 miles per hex on a blank map. The continent at that scale is massive. I dont even know where to begin at that level of detail.

Anyway, as it stands each country is huge and you could adventure in each one and never explore it all.

Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added
 

Thanks, sent you a PM with my email. I'd be forever grateful for a copy!

Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added
 

The map is wonderful, I will follow the posts here to see the evolutions (apparently you are still working on it, right?)

Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added
 

I am. The basic features are done (mostly). I mainly add special features as they come to me. Dungeons, unique mountain peaks, unique sites, ect.

Ytarria is huge. The potential for discovery and adventure far exceeds what is alluded to in the Banestorm book. I believe the lack of a proper map helped to perpetuate the false idea that Ytarria is widely settled with little frontier left to explore.

Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added
 

I have updated the maps with some additional features.

The mountains in the Great Forest are finalized and harmonized with the Harkwood supplement.

I have added farmlands to all civilized realms. The formula I used is as follows (roughly):
Megalos and Araterre - 8% urbanized
Caithness, Sahud and al-Wazif - 5% urbanized
al-Haz - 3% urbanized

"Acres" under tillage is equal to rural population x2. This was then converted to square miles. Each hex assumes no more than 125 square miles out of 500 per hex is available for tillage (25%). The rest is made up of fallow fields, streams, hills, marshes and other wasteland. Each hex with a settlement also counts as a hex for agriculture. If anyone has thoughts as to whether this is too much per hex, I would appreciate feedback. My assumption is that overall, globally, it all evens out in the end.

I dont have a lot of information for nomadic population density. I assumed about the same amount of land will be required for herding and grazing. I am likely off base by a lot here. In any case, the grassland hexes in the Muslim lands indicate the number of hexes (roughly) which are used by Nomads (yes they move around a lot).

The point to all this is to simply show how much area is basically wilderness, and or only inhabited by small groups of people. It is assumed that there are innumerable small farms, steads and hamlets scattered around the continent which are quite impossible to map.

If anyone wants a PDF copy of the map them PM me with your email address and I will send you a copy.

Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added
 

I kinda doubt if the continent were that untamed that we'd see superstates or imperial adventurism on the scale written in the history. Like, why would Megalos be that intent on warring with the Muslim powers if there was just loads of land unused throughout the whole eastern half of the continent?