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Old 01-25-2023, 03:36 PM   #1
darebear
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Default Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added

Finished my first version of Ytarria with terrain features added. I considered using different colors for the climate in the Muslim lands. Maybe on my second version. I assumed all areas of Ytarria are at least lightly wooded, except for the Djinn lands and the Great Desert. The wooded areas are exceptionally heavily forested. Hills and mountains have flora depending on the needs of your campaign.

Newest map is at the bottom of the blog entry.

https://darebearsminiemporium.blogsp...f-ytarria.html

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-1y...ew?usp=sharing

Last edited by darebear; 01-12-2024 at 07:14 PM.
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Old 01-25-2023, 11:49 PM   #2
Pursuivant
 
Join Date: Apr 2005
Default Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added

Very nice!
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Old 01-26-2023, 12:59 AM   #3
Magic_Octopus
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Default Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added

This is awesome! Thank you very much for sharing. I appreciate your hard work.
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Old 01-26-2023, 05:09 AM   #4
darebear
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Default Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added

Your welcome fellas. My intention is to add different terrain types such as rocky desert, badlands, steppe, stuff like that. Likely some named locations too for adventures.
You can check back periodically to see what I have added. It is very much a work in progress.

Last edited by darebear; 01-26-2023 at 09:55 AM.
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Old 01-26-2023, 10:08 AM   #5
acrosome
 
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Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: The Land of Enchantment
Default Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added

Awesome, and something that I have long looked for. My own attempts got aborted in boredom.

I know that you said it's a work-in-progress, but just to be sure:

I think that you are missing some hills. Western Al-Wazif, the Cardien/Hazi border, and the island in Keyhole Bay stand out. I think that there may have been a supplement that put some hills near the Wazifi coast, too?

And I could be completely wrong but it sort of feels like southern Araterre and especially Bilit Island should be mostly tropical forest, doesn't it?

A suggestion: maybe use the widely-accepted three-dots symbol for ruins? It looks like the therefore sign- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therefore_sign.

A critique: it is difficult to differentiate national borders from rivers. The Megalan/Caithness and Cardien/Hazi borders are particular examples.

Also, I don't think that the door symbol for the dwarven halls works well. Either the usual town dot or something that looks like a cave mouth might be better.

Are you familiar with CartographersGuild.com? https://www.cartographersguild.com/content.php
I find it to be an invaluable source.

Last edited by acrosome; 01-26-2023 at 10:29 AM.
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Old 01-26-2023, 01:01 PM   #6
darebear
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Default Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added

I agree with your critique. Unfortunately, I did not produce the original hex map template. Another fella did. The cities, rivers and borders are part of his document. So, I basically have to work with what I am given.

The islands are not done yet. I am working with Inkscape and generally learning as I go. For terrain, I consider the main map in the Banestorm book a very high level overview..basically what scribes think they know. I have been adding swamps, moors, light hills, badlands, oasis, forests, plateaus and other features as I see fit. My finished map will be far more detailed than what is presented. The continent is huge and there is plenty of room for all kinds of biomes which are not represented on the map.

For example in al-Haz I have added oasis, hills, arid plains, coastal jungles, a rocky/sandy desert near the al-Wazif border (with the caravan route going through it), and badlands areas for all manner of bandits and monsters to reside.
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Old 01-26-2023, 08:46 PM   #7
sinleqiunnini
 
Join Date: Jan 2019
Default Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added

That's awesome!

Do note that the original hexmap does include some inconsistencies with the town placements. I worked off the maps in free map pdf, and wasn't too consistent when checking them against the locations given in the book's text. I only noticed it when I started mapping Yttaria's political divisions, and I don't think I corrected it in the hexmap.

Edit - On second glance it looks like you went off of a version w/o all the settlements. I don't recall if I ever uploaded one that had them xD. I doesn't look like I uploaded a version with 6 mile subhexes either.

Last edited by sinleqiunnini; 01-26-2023 at 09:06 PM.
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Old 01-26-2023, 09:04 PM   #8
sinleqiunnini
 
Join Date: Jan 2019
Default Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added

Quote:
Originally Posted by acrosome View Post
A critique: it is difficult to differentiate national borders from rivers. The Megalan/Caithness and Cardien/Hazi borders are particular examples.
As I recall, this was an artifact of two things - that I chose to represent the countries in QGIS as polygons and not polylines and my wanting to keep the map BW+Printer Friendly. In retrospect, I could have converted the countries to polylines pretty easily and done cleanup, but I didn't.

Quote:
Also, I don't think that the door symbol for the dwarven halls works well. Either the usual town dot or something that looks like a cave mouth might be better.
Easily changeable on my end by replacing the symbol with a custom svg - but I'm pretty sure I just wanted the darn thing to be done and didn't much want to faff about with non-stock symbology. I also think that at the time I had recently been working on an interactive webmap showing all the town locations in Daggerfall territory in TES II (and also one for Greyhawk's Flanaess) and the service there wouldn't allow me to import custom ones so I believe I decided to play within those constraints.
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Old 01-27-2023, 02:27 AM   #9
darebear
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Default Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added

First of all, thank you sinleqiunnini foo doing that map. Many folks have been waiting years for that type of document. Much appreciated.

IMO, the borders on the map are simply for reference. The areas we are talking about are simply too large to actually control in reality.

I added the additional settlements based on where I thought they were in relation to the main map and where the nearest water source was. My original intention was to simply leave the map blank and add terrain as needed in pencil. However, I started exploring Paint and then Inkscape and this grew way beyond what I was originally intending. This version I am working on is basically a rough draft, since I have made a few mistakes along the way which are hard to correct now. My vision of Ytarrian geography will of course be different than others. I am slowly adding lakes and named locations (mountain peaks, hills, etc) which serve as areas of Interest to adventurers. I update the map file on my blog when I make these changes.

I would suggest creating a blank hex map version, without any names or features of any kind and posting it here. Some folks want to adventure in an early version of Yrth and a blank map would be of some use to them.

Last edited by darebear; 01-27-2023 at 06:35 AM.
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Old 01-27-2023, 08:04 AM   #10
Blind Mapmaker
 
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: Mannheim, Baden
Default Re: Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added

This is very nice, darebear (love the name!) - Thank you for posting this.

I can't resist adding my two cents of criticism. They're not meant disparagingly, but as suggestions from one cartographer to another. I agree with most of what acrosome said, but I think the roads are sufficiently distinct. The rivers and borders can be easily made more distinguishable just by using blue for one and red for the other. Some more terrain variety is probably a good idea, but don't overdo it. At this scale we don't have to differentiate between the different types of forest for example.

The one thing that really stands out in a negative way is that you delineated some terrain features in a non-hex way (Great Forest, Great Desert, outer boundary of Zarak Mountains) and others completely with hexes. That makes one area of the map stand out very different from the rest. I greatly prefer the hexes in these kinds of maps, but you could go the other way. Just keep it coherent. This is not a problem with roads, borders and coastlines. I'm not sure why, but it's probably because we were traditionally trained to expect them this way.

Other than that one thing, I like the map very much. Keep up the good work.

Btw, what software do you use for your work? I like Campaign Cartographer's hex features, but I sometimes like to switch to Inkscape for the flexibility or go completely off the beaten path (mapped quick dungeons in nethack style for my last adventure).
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