Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added

[darebear]

A terrain legend is in the works (completed and done).

The scale at the bottom was done when I did not have a hex overlay that would show up clearly. I did those scales for folks who wanted to convert the image to a PDF and pop it into an editor. PDF-XChange Editor has some great tools for calculating distance and area. I kept the scale bar in for folks who want both methods of calculation.

The original image is huge (1771.726mm by 1337.742mm). At that scale, distance is 24 miles per 10mm. Each hex is 24 miles, or 500 square miles)

If you scale that original image down to 11x17, then the distance on the actual physical paper is 24 miles per 2 mm.

Keep in mind, if you convert the image to a PDF, you can print just the area you are viewing on the screen rather than the whole map. This allows you to zoom in on a particular country/area and print an 8x11 map without any loss of resolution. I have done this for Caithness and produced very usable GM maps on a single page.

It is 3500 miles from the west coast of the orclands to the City of Megalos (as the crow flies). I did perform a scale check on the original map vs the hex map. It is pretty close.

As far as distance of terrain features I used Sinle's original map that had cities on it for reference. The borders of the Great Desert, Bronze Mountains, Great Forest and the Fence of God are per his original map.

There is a lot of room for the Blackwoods to expand, especially to the east. The Blackwoods, from tip to tip, east to west, is just under 700 miles. I ran it through PDF Editor and found the area to be roughly 130,000 square miles. I see no reason not to expand it eastwards personally, possibly with an added mountain range or lost plateau in the interior.

The Great Forest is over 150000 square miles. These are truly huge areas. In any previous campaign I ran, I found that an area of 50000 square miles was more than adequate. The civilized core of Caithness is well over 200,000, not including the Great Forest, the southern badlands and eastern plains which are unpopulated (except for monsters and bandits). Heck, the forests in Caithness are huge, most bigger than Yellowstone Park.

My own version of Ytarria might have some changes. A small desert can easily fit between al-Haz and al-Wazif (or within the interior of al-Wazif itself), allowing for desert adventures without going to the far west. Forests and mountain peaks need names, as do rivers and other geographic landmarks. The Nomad Lands (not a fan of that name, but my favorite area of all Ytarria) need fleshing out (clan names, ect). Ruins, wizard towers and other adventure sites need to be added. Banestorm was written as a kitchen sink setting, which personally I like. It is quite easy to take material from other settings and plop it in somewhere.

IMO, Tacitus is the perfect place for a traditional fantasy campaign. Forests, dwarven mountains, the rebel's at Wallace, The Great Desert and the Orclands, all filled with whatever monstrosities a GM can envision and all within a few days ride of each other.

Sinle sent me a blank hex map of Ytarria done to a scale of 6 miles per hex. Its insane, well beyond my ability to map at the present time (that is a project that would last over a year at least). In any case, mapping the whole of Ytarria at that level of micro-detail would be of dubious practical value to most campaigns anyway.

Anyway, I appreciate the feedback and glad that this map is useful to more than just myself.

[darebear]

Updates
Increased the size of the Great Forest and Blackwoods to better reflect their size on the original map. The Blackwoods will soon engulf the northern Megalos trade road if something is not done.

Moved the Caithness border to include the whole of the Great Forest (mainly for aesthetic reasons).

Added the elvish community along the southern Cardiel peninsula.

Added the dragon lair which is menacing the city of Ekhans. Everyone loves a good side of Meglan beef.

Added a small jungle along the coast of the Djinn lands. Perhaps a location for rare spices and insects, highly sought after in the Muslim lands. Perhaps an independent coastal town or two for exporting?

Reduced the text size for most objects to allow for better map visibility when printed from a PDF document.

2/13 - UPDATES FOR LATER TODAY:
1. Caithness eastern border needs to be moved to the westward slightly to align with the canon map.
2. Deerwood forest in Caithness is too small. Increase by 5000 square miles.
3. The central forest in Caithness is too big. Reduce by 9000 square miles.
4. Small forest west of Mershall needs to be added.
5. Hills west of Megalos need to be extended to the headwaters of the Mehan River.
6. Increase the text size for the Oceans (which were reduced by accident)
7. Several former battlefield sites to be added in Caithness (civil war and Meglan)
8. Farmland icon developed for indicating major areas of cultivation, livestock or other points of economic interest. These will be labeled where appropriate.
9. Legend is hidden in an unused Layer. Will fix that.
10. Emperors Forest needs to be increased slightly to the west, along the river.
11. The Great Forest needs to be reduced by 30000 square miles to align with canon size (I made it slightly too big). There really should be a one hex gap between the border regions and the forest. This is a maybe change. Not sure what actual difference it makes overall.
12. The small forests in Sahud will be reduced in size slightly.

2/13 - Completed.

[apoc527]

Originally Posted by darebear

Thanks Tbone. When GURPS Fantasy came out in the mid 80s I felt the same way: great potential, lack of detail on the physical representation of the world.

Ytarria is vast and the individual nations cover a much larger physical area than they probably should (based on their populations). Either the authors never bothered to actually compare the population numbers vs the size of the continent, or the canon numbers are only vague estimates. My guess is, due to the lack of a properly vetted and rationalized map, the answer is the former (especially since the original map was done in the mid 80s).

Some facts:
Cardiel, 6 million folks and 275,000 sq/mi (slightly bigger than France) has a population density of 22 people per square mile.

Megalos, 16 million folks and 1.3 million sq/mi (the size of India) hovers around 12 souls per square mile. Modern India has over 1300 folks per square mile.

Now, I live in Canada and our population density is just over 10, with most of the country being uninhabited forest, swamp and tundra.

Megalos, by the book, is the same as Canada: almost uninhabited. In fact, when I ran the numbers from a few supplements which deal with this topic (Magical Medieval Society and ACKS) the inhabited areas under cultivation are not much more than the settlements on the map (92% of the 16 million population is rural, 67 cities and towns, 450 rural population per manor, 1 manor per square mile, 1 map hex is 500 square miles equates to 66 populated hexes. Of course not every hex is fully populated, but the simple fact is that the countryside is in most cases a vast wilderness. The various regions of Megalos, as I interpret the book anyway, are semi-autonomous regions with little to no interaction with each other or the Capital. Megalos, at least to me, is a degenerate fantasy version of the Third Imperium, from GDW's Traveller.

Of course, at the gaming table, none of this matters. 99% of players are not interested in demographics since it is irrelevant to the game. For GMs though what this means is Ytarria has huge potential for traditional fantasy adventures. There is room to fit just about anything: lost valleys, civilizations, monster lairs ect. GMs are also of course free to increase the population numbers to whatever levels they wish (just ignore the timeline and assume much more time has elapsed since the Banestorm than the canon 1000 years).

The canon map is basically done. There is not much more I can add, other than a few minor details, perhaps naming some minor rivers and mountain peaks. Going forward, I will be adding non-canon specific features to the map and posting that map alongside the canon one. These ideas come to me in waves so this is very much a living document.

North America was not explored all at once. The same goes with Ytarria. Who knows what lies over the horizon.

There is much goodness in this post. Thank you for really making the numbers pop in a historical context and clarifying just how easy it is to add...nearly anything to Yrth.

On the unofficial GURPS Discord, I just asked about Yrth's history before 200 BC, which is when the Banestorm book says the oldest reliable elven and dwarven writings date from. There could be entire civilizations on Yrth that nobody has ever seen...particularly if you suppose that some of them went underground, perhaps during a particularly nasty series of mana-rich asteroid impacts!

[darebear]

Thanks Apoc.

When I run a fantasy setting, any history beyond the very recent is quite often disputed conjecture only, preferring not to be shoehorned into another author's vision of a world.

Yrth has great potential and you just tapped into a major one: the Ring Islands. That is huge plot hook to justify just about anything. Perhaps humanity actually originated on Yrth and migrated to Earth before the meteoric impact and the Elder races are the mutated descendants of the survivors who remained behind? Fast forward millions of years and we have our decedents, Elves, who find remnants of ancient technology and due to their tinkering with said devices, unwittingly cause the Banestorm? Like you indicated, who knows what lies beneath, buried under the eons of time? Something older, and even more dangerous?

Some ideas spawning from the Ring Islands Impact and how it related to gunpower and other "inconvenient" technologies:
The impact was not an asteroid but something alien in origin. Magic is not necessarily supernatural in origin but something more akin to TL15 Superscience. Spawning from hyper-advanced (GURPS 3E TL 15) nano-particles, these self-repairing & replicating devices allow reality itself to be altered if one knows the proper formulae (spells). Over the course of countless eons these nano-machines no longer work exactly according to their programming. Micro-climates can occur in regions which they should not exist. Spells which had predictable effects no longer produce consistent results. Finally the laws of physics itself become unstable, such as gunpower simply not producing the expected chemical reaction when ignited. Guns simply do not function on Ytarria due to the legacy of the impact in the Ring Islands. No continent-wide anti-gun conspiracy needed. This sort of super-science (or whatever term you want to use) can be used to justify and change the GM needs, even if only on a local level.

Some things to ponder:
Are the Elder races actually the original inhabitants of Ytarria? Since I am human, my preference is for human-centric backgrounds/settings.

Was the Banestorm caused by the Elves? Maybe. Maybe not (lies, fabrication, mis-remembering their own history?). Maybe something was disturbed which was better left alone?

Are the ruined cities in the Great Desert Elvish in origin, or are they something else entirely, and far older than anyone imagines?

Perhaps the Djinn are not Elvish spirits but something else entirely, serving "Things Man Was Not Meant To Know"?

Is Ytarria actually a planet? Or is it a TL 15 ring world, or a pocket dimension, similar to the demi-planes of AD&D's Ravenloft (or even part of that realm?). Maybe the stars are only phantom illusions and there are no other lands beyond the continent, only the endless sea which goes on forever (or results in a loop, eventually delivering the sailors back to their starting point).

Anyway, Ytarria is huge and changes to most areas will not have much of an impact. Want a small desert in the middle of al-Wazif or al-Haz? No big deal. Drop the old D&D module B4 The Lost City in the middle of it and you have an instant Arabian Knights/Cthulhu crossover campaign. Drop a large plateau in the Orclands and fill it with whatever you can imagine. Fill the unused areas of Cardiel with forests and hills. Since it is your game, it wont matter unless you want it to.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by darebear

Perhaps humanity actually originated on Yrth and migrated to Earth before the meteoric impact...

There's an interesting idea: All these creatures that the Banestorm "introduced" to Yrth... actually originated on Yrth much, much earlier, and the Banestorm merely brought them back.

(How they left Yrth long ago and why, and why the Banestorm brought them back, become pretty big questions to be answered...)

[darebear]

Indeed. There is no reason that world histories need to be complete, comprehensive or even correct. Perhaps the current "year" of Yrth actually millions of years in the past or future? Being in an alternate time stream could explain why Yrth is easier to get to than to leave in the Infinite Worlds setting? (its pretend so we don't have to be rational).

Since Yrth is a "Parallel Earth" there is no reason not to designate it as humanity's actual home world that suits your needs, with the Banestorm "bringing everyone back home" as you suggested.

Perhaps our Earth is hollow and Ytarria is a continent that vast interior (natural or artificially constructed), with a micro artificial star or a dimensional tear to another universe providing heat and light to world which never sees darkness? Entrances could be at the poles or at various points on the outer world (Bermuda Triangle, Roanoke, the caverns of Utah, ect).

The actual history of Yrth can be as ancient and mysterious as you desire.

[darebear]

2/16 Update
1. Created new icons for castles, towers, villages and tribal camps.
2. Adjusted some borders and areas in the Orclands & Zarak to better reflect the original map.
3. Wizard towers added in Caithness as well as former battle locations.
4. Clan holdings added for the Orclands and Nomad Lands.
5. al-Wazif terrain aesthetic better reflects the humid grasslands of that area.
6. Trails and less travelled routes represented via dotted lines.
7. Added Meglan fortresses to guard against barbarian invasions.

Still to do:
Icons for towns and cities.
Additional minor rivers and lakes to be added.
Naming of remaining natural features: forests, rivers, ect.
Addition of additional sites of interest (monster lairs, castles, towers).
Clan holdings for the tribal inhabitants of the Djinn lands.
Naming of towns which are unnamed in canon material.
Completion of map Legend.

[sinleqiunnini]

New updates are looking good!

[darebear]

Thanks Sinle!

I will be loading a canon map today without my own DM specific locations. My plan is to use the following material as culture packs in my own vision of Ytarria:

GURPS Russia (for lands south of the Whithead Mountains, between lake Styx and the mountain peaks; I think a Slavic civilization will work well in that area, with some additional deep forests (to be added)
GURPS Vikings (Nomad Lands)
GURPS Arabian Nights (for al-Wazif)
GURPS Middle Ages 1 (for Caithness of course)
D&D Gazetteer: The Golden Khan of Ethengar (for the Mongolian residents of the Orclands)
D&D Gazetteer: The Atruaghin Clans & GURPS Old West (for the Native American residents of the Orclands)
D&D Gazetteer: The Orcs of Thar (using some material for the Orclands)
AD&D Birthright Setting: the cultures are very similar to Yrth. Lots of good ideas are scattered about. Especially for the Djinn Lands and the less civilized areas and deep forests.

The Djinn Lands may be the area that I populate with ruins dedicated to bizarre alien gods and cthulu-like entities, with the Djinn themselves being magical human-like beings from an alternate dimension, similar to Jadis from the world of Charn from the Chronicles of Narnia (maybe even Charn itself: Jadis's people had interbred with Djinn, making them inherently magical and quite tall...I'm not a fan of the canon Ascended Ones).

In any case, and non-canon areas will be PC-adventurer friendly, meaning it will not mean instant death or enslavement if you travel there. I have never seen the point of creating large Mordor-like realms; typically they just end up being huge no-go areas in a campaign world, which like black holes are best avoided at all costs.

If anyone is interested in a year 1000 map let me know. If enough interest is present I will generate one.

I will be loading a PDF version of the map shortly as well. However, you can convert the PNG file into one easily enough.

[apoc527]

I'm also interested in your custom maps! (EDIT: Nevermind, you already added that. Thanks!)

What would be REALLY cool is if you decided to put together a world map with a few extra continents... :-) I love maps, but have no skill at making them.