Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by darebear

The plains just south of the Great Forest, between the Great Desert and the mountains.

The terrain suggests dryland uplands or possibly a rift valley. Its proximity to the Great Desert means that the area was magically transformed before it turned into a Low Mana Zone.

It's possible that a river once flowed between the ruins to the north to the ruins to the south near the unnamed southwest coastal mountain chain. The entire region was lifted by the Banestorm or tectonic action, making the southern end of the river, which once emptied into the Southern Sea, into a dry canyon. That might have been the mundane origin of the The Deep. (It's also possible that the Banestorm didn't blow away the mana in the desert, but "drained" it into the underground, making the Deep a Normal or High Mana Zone.)

Think of the coastal regions of Kenya or Somalia. For that matter, you could have an African-based nomadic culture in the area. If the Banestorm picked up people from Asia, it could have just as easily picked up some Africans.

Originally Posted by darebear

The area north of the al-Wazif hills, and the region between the Smoke and Makarem rivers.

It's anything but boring because it's on the border between Caithness, Megalos, and Al Wazif, with the elves of the Great Forest to the immediate Southeast. That means also sorts of international tensions.

It could also be an area like the "Debatable Lands" along the Scottish-English border prior to unification or the 19th century U.S.-Mexico border with warring clans/cattle-raiders/bandits taking advantage of international tensions and slipping over the borders as needed. You could reinforce the "Wild West" theme if the governments of Al-Wazif, Caithness & Megalos are encouraging settlers to "civilize" the territory, while the natives vigorously resist them.

Since the terrain is relatively flat it might lend itself to herding animals, which would reinforce the cattle-raiding or Wild West themes.

It might also be a good place to put a population descended from Eastern Europeans or Spaniards (or both) with "Cossacks" or "Reconquista" overtones.

Geographically, it's might be an area of low rolling hills and uplands which separate the Smoke & Makarem River basins before flattening out near the points where those rivers join with the River Conn. It looks like a temperate climate, so it could be terrain reminiscent of Northern England, the Ohio or Upper Mississippi Valleys or the Rhine or Danube Valleys. There will probably be intermittent forests in the areas not specifically marked as grasslands.

Originally Posted by darebear

West Megalos - between the Blackwoods and Lake Acheron.

Assume that the nominally flat areas to west of Lake Acheron are actually rolling hills that drain the streams flowing out of the Blackwoods Forest hills, while the more coastal areas are fertile flat formerly glaciated areas. You've got a line of unnamed towns which are clearly on a major trading route which means lots of fertile agricultural hinterlands to support them. It might look like the Shenandoah or Yakima Valleys but bigger.

In terms of settlement, it's got all the advantages that the Great Lakes had in the 19th century - cheap transport of goods to and from the interior of the continent. There will be a lot of money to be made from trade alone. It could also be an "industrialized" region since it will have lots of streams suitable for mill races. Loggers will try to log the Blackwoods hauling it the coast (via a magic road or golems?). The various trading towns might be at each others' throats. Finally, there will be plenty of monsters coming out of the Blackwoods to raid more settled areas as well as ordinary banditry and piracy.

It might be good place to put a German-descended population to get a sort of Hanseatic League meets Black Forest feeling akin to Warhammer FRP.

Originally Posted by darebear

Eastern Orclands around Castle Defiant. I have considered populating this with small human enclaves, beholden to no other Leige, with a rebuilt/undestroyed Defiant, struggling to hold back the Orc tribes.

This is another good place for human bandits, outcasts, and would-be empire builders. That lake to the east of the Castle Defiant hills/forest is fed by three rivers, one of which flows to the sea, so it's a great place to found a city.

Fertile grasslands to the east of the lake might be potentially good farming or herding land. Perhaps an area reminiscent of the Black Hills of South Dakota or the Wasatch Valley near the Great Salt Lake.

This is another place you could drop villages of human descended from Eastern Europeans, Africans, or even Amerindians. It's also a fantastic place for technological reformers, inventors, and recent Banestorm transportees who don't want their memories wiped since it's about as far from Megalos as you can get without being completely in the wilderness.

Castle Defiant is also in a really stupid location if its job was to deter orc raiders. A better site might have been to the east of the lake controlling a major river ford (to prevent orc armies from crossing) or up in the wooded hills so it has a better field of view and better defensibility as a watchtower.

There's got to be a very good reason that the castle was built in the middle of nowhere and the region had to be appealing enough to attract enough people to build and run it. It might have been built as a political statement as much as a defense, hence the name.

That suggests lots of very stubborn and resourceful humans in small villages around the lake and in the forest to the east of the castle. There also have to be abundant and potentially valuable resources if the area can just be properly settled and developed, but it also has to be something the orcs don't want or can't use themselves (rare spices? valuable woods? magical minerals?). Local sentiment is virulently anti-orc and there's lots of popular will to push human settlement as far west as they can. Think early 19th century American settlers or 21st century survivalists.