Completed Ytarria Hex map with terrain added

[darebear]

Indeed, that is on my to do list. Sinle has done a preliminary world map of Yrth. I posted it on my blog. Only Ytarria is shown, but you can get an idea of where it is in relation to the equator.

My assumption is that latitude is indicated in 15 degree intervals. That would put the northern coast of the Nomad Lands around 50 degrees. If folks have ideas on what they want to see I will take requests.

https://www.deviantart.com/sinleqiun...emap-935403969

Encampment sites are only meant to represent the center of gravity for inhabitants in that particular area. At 500 square miles per hex (with a total area of roughly 550,000 square miles of area), it is safe to assume there are innumerable small villages, temporary encampments and seasonal camp sites throughout the region. Pure hunters would need 1 square mile per person to population density. Add some foraging, animal herding and minor farming and we can assume many more than that inhabit the region.

2/18 - minor lakes & forests have a more organic look now. We can assume that the Nomad Lands have innumerable small lakes and rivers (similar to Scandinavia) across the whole northern steppe. Mapping such an intricate system of waterways is, for the moment, beyond the scope of this project, and likely of little value for actual game play. Reduced the line thickness of the major river lines, roads and nation borders.

Two variants, with large plateaus which house Native American tribes in the Orclands are posted. Not sure which one, if either I prefer. It was more of an experiment than anything else.

Moved the two northern Meglan castles. There are twin towns near the border which I will assume would be fortified themselves to stop raiders.

All towns/settlements on the map have been named.

Decided to use my much neglected GURPS Conan. Nomad Lands (Nordheim) consists of the Nordheimr and the Vanier. South of the Whithoods is a Cimmerian culture. Suits the positioning. There is room in the central forested area of the Nomad Lands for a Slavic culture, based on GURPS Russia.

2/19 - added the map I found online of Ytarria which I have been using as inspiration for adding minor rivers. Not sure who made this one. There was no scale and it appears that some rivers flow into the Great Desert (no clue why, perhaps it is a pre-Banestorm concept map). The additional water ways certainly rationalize the idea that the interior of the continent was able to be explored and colonized. Their addition also allows GMs to encourage players to adventure in areas which might be otherwise impossible or difficult to end up in.

Reduced the opaqueness of the forests and jungles by 10% to allow for better hex visibility on printed maps.
Added a new canon map. Bare bones. Mostly only the features on the Banestorm book maps. No lakes, minor rivers, ect.

2/21 - looking at the map, it is my impression that the hills in central al-Wazif are actually made up of hills and some low mountains in the western end of the arm. Updated the map to reflect that, although I will keep the canon map as simply a range of hills. Not sure which is quite appropriate to be honest.

2/24 - new hill icons and mountain icons created (regular and snow-capped).

[apoc527]

Any updates, darebear?

I'm about to start fiddling with the map myself and want to makes sure I have the "best" version of what you've been working on!

[darebear]

Yes. I work on it every day. It has become somewhat of a passion. I update it regularly when I make any appreciable changes.

I am in the process of adding small icons for villages, towers and castles. It is a slow process. Of course not every village is on the map. That would be quite impossible. The ones noted are simply the center of gravity for a local power base like a keep, tower or small town. Normally at 24 miles per hex only cities and large towns are represented on said maps. However, since the map is so big it ends up being quite empty when that logic is applied.

If anyone has an idea what the population density would be for a nomadic culture I would be most interested. My guess would be around 5 folks per square mile (2500 per hex, but I am likely off). I have read that hunter/gatherers were roughly 1 person per square mile. I would be most curious to see how many nomadic folks could fit into the Wazifi plains (I know it does not quite work that way since areas are not always in a condition for grazing).

To facilitate Arabian Nights adventures, a small desert and some oasis has been added to the central region of al-Wazif. The description of the country does talk about desert nomad life, but that terrain is absent from the map. I was thinking Syria when I added that area; arid with many oasis. The desert in al-Haz is more akin to the Kalahari in Africa.

The al-Wazif central hills are now a low mountain range. Facilitates isolated wizard towers, monster lairs and other sites of danger for magic carpet owners to travel to. I am considering adding more tributaries to the Markarem river along the Wazifi border. That area is implied to be heavily farmed, at least in the eastern regions north of the hills. (DONE)

Some folks might not want these changes in their campaign, so I posted another version of the map without those two deserts added in and without the al-Wazif mountain range (just regular hills), along with the usual bare bones canon version from the main book.

Megalos is my next target for addition of villages, towers and such.

There is lots still to be done. The Orclands and the Djinn Lands are still in WIP and I still need to name many rivers and forests.

If you want me to post a version of the map without certain features let me know. It is just a matter of hiding certain layers on the file.

2/28 - Fixed the location of Quazr-as-Sawh in al-Wazif. Had it in the wrong place. :-/

[tbone]

I really appreciate this project of yours! The results may not be "official", but it'd be great if your map spurred more interest in Banestorm, maybe even new adventure and supplement proposals directed at SJG.

I've got no expectation that you're soliciting requests from people. Still, if on a day of happy mapmaking you should find yourself wondering what else people might want to see, here are some points of interest that come to my mind:

Volcanoes! The Ytarria map seems to forego most fantasy maps' love of volcanoes.
West coast rain forests. Ytarria's west coast is long and rather dull. It'd be a nice place for counterparts to California's redwood forests and Washington's temperate rain forest. (Though maybe those coastal forest blotches in the Orclands and Sahud already do the job.) Plus maybe some nice jungle along the coast down south?
Canyons. You've already got badlands; a couple of notable canyons, grand or otherwise, would be nice additions. (That includes fault lines and gaping rifts, which of course hold entrances to hidden underground worlds.)
Lands o' lakes. Yeah, Ytarria has lakes. But I'm thinking the craziness that you see in a close-up map of northern Minnesota, or the absolutely nutty mess that you get a bit farther north in Canada. Lakes on lakes on lakes. A region or two like this on Ytarria would be welcome.
Valleys. Those wide mountain ranges could be spiced up with some big noteworthy valleys, perfect for remote communities, giant waterfalls, mountain lakes, lost prehistoric jungles, and yodeling competitions.
Fjords. The Nomad Lands need some good fjords. (I assume they're there, just not indicated on Banestorm's maps.)
Ice shelves. Big ice shelves maybe need to wait for a different, more northern continent. But maybe the Nomad Lands could support a perpetually frozen sea area up top?
Other. Named mountains (is Ytarria completely lacking in these, or am I just missing it?), glaciers, notable cave systems, tepui table-top mountains (great places for lost world adventures), major hot spring areas, noteworthy cliffs...

==

Incidentally, a side thought on the bigness of Ytarria. Yes, it's big, as that well-known "USA on Ytarria" map shows - it holds the US, with even more space out west. But it doesn't have room for Mexico and Central America down below, or the huge Canadian land mass up top. So I'd guess that the extremes of climate between north and south are mild compared to North America. (Then again: fantasy climate, so anything goes.)

I simply note that while Ytarria is huge among Earth countries, it's not particularly giant as a continent. (Which still leaves it a massive and sparsely-populated place for adventure, so it's plenty big enough!)

[darebear]

You read my mind Tbone. All of that is on my to-do list.

I use many sources for topographical inspiration, and you are correct, all of these features are missing from Ytarria. As far as climate, my take is you can use any excuse to have fantastic changes in climate at a local level. The Banestorm, ancient alien machines, curses....all of these can be an excuse to have a region behave differently than the latitude may otherwise suggest.

Volcanoes - the Djinn Lands and the Fence of God are prime candidates. I was thinking of having a pair of them (a couple of hexes apart), both linked to the Elemental Plane of Fire (or some other dimension), one being an entrance and the other an exit point, with a corresponding arc of Essential Fire flowing in the sky from one to the other.

West coast rain forests - agreed. I envision the west coast to be a gradual plateau, increasing in height as you move eastwards, with the lowlands being like what you describe, possibly with some sharp plateau inclines at certain points.

Canyons - agreed. I planned on doing something like this for awhile. The area between southern Caithness, Megalos and al-Wazif is uninspiring (a vast emptiness) and a prime candidate for something bizzare like a land tear or other fantastic dangerous place which is avoided by all three realms.

Lands o' lakes. I have perused many a map of Norway and Finland thinking this same thing. I envision The Nomad Lands and Northern Megalos. It is a lot of drawing but I think it is manageable. I need to reference more maps to judge the scale of lakes and such to get a better idea on what is big vs too big.

Valleys - I need to flesh those out in the Bronze and Fence of God. Likely just by spreading the ranges out a bit. The old D&D map of Mystara, specifically Norwold is my reference for that.

Fjords - agreed. Redrawing the coast is not something I want to do at this time though. Mapping fjords would be a nightmare.

Glaciers - I have a map layer for that. It is currently empty. The plan was to put those in both the Nomad Lands the Bronze Mountains, along with plateaus in the central regions.

Named Locations - this is another to do list. I have a huge list of names with short write ups for all types of terrain (mountains, forests, swamps). Getting pen to paper is hard sometimes. Once you zoom in on the map and start working on it you realize how huge it is.

Areas which I need ideas for are legion. However a few stand out:

The plains just south of the Great Forest, between the Great Desert and the mountains. There is one area of ruins and thats it. This area needs a history and something more interesting than more plains. My first thought was a plateau, possibly by extending the mountain range right to the desert and putting said plateau in the middle of that.

The area north of the al-Wazif hills, and the region between the Smoke and Makarem rivers. Right now it is a vast empty zone, with many areas of low mana. I have considered filling it with a large lake, mountains...something, anything. One of my main drivers is to create a continent where there are no "boring" locations, meaning there is a reason for adventurers to go there. Its not realistic, but that is not the point in fantasy games to begin with. It could be left as is of course...but having vast emptiness smack dead in the middle of the map bothers me though.

West Megalos - between the Blackwoods and Lake Acheron. More emptiness. I have considered adding a small mountain chain here (caused by glaciers from a previous ice age), along with a few lost valleys, effectively blocking the easy expansion of the woods and adding interest to this backwater area.

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.

Anyway, suggestions are welcome. I have no qualms about stealing ideas from folks or other supplements.

[apoc527]

I love it all so much. I guess my only request is to get to Cardiel too and add some more map features!

If I had the skill, I'd make a LOT more changes though, primarily by increasing areas of "uncivilized" land, adding more frontiers, and generally creating space for more petty kingdoms (perhaps between some of the larger powers).

I mean, just look at a map of Europe during the Holy Roman Empire...so so so many dukedoms, principalities, and petty kingdoms.

But that's going wayyyy past canon, so mostly just keep doing what you are doing, it's amazing and very very appreciated!

[darebear]

Thanks Apoc.
I am not done with Cardiel yet. Not by a long shot. That country is more or less a nation of semi-independent Principalities. It is ripe for internal strife or low level intensity conflicts. I need to add additional castes, estates and wizard towers.

There is also plenty of room for additional topographical features: rivers/lakes (with corresponding river pirates), small forests in isolated areas and hill/low mountain regions. The western hills are an intriguing area. That could be expanded into a small mountain chain as well.

Cardiel reminds me of the D&D Mystara Grand Duchy of Karameikos: a very secular area, with potential for internal strife/civil war with avenues for both wilderness and seaborne adventures. What it currently lacks is the wilderness and a history which provides for "lost civilizations" and places to explore.

One possibility is to have the country become a wizard den, with corresponding estates along with monsters which regularly escape. A dark foreboding forest for the more insane ones and as haven for those fleeing civilized society might be in order as well.

[tbone]

Originally Posted by darebear

Volcanoes - the Djinn Lands and the Fence of God are prime candidates. I was thinking of having a pair of them (a couple of hexes apart), both linked to the Elemental Plane of Fire (or some other dimension), one being an entrance and the other an exit point, with a corresponding arc of Essential Fire flowing in the sky from one to the other.

Sounds good! I think Bilit Island also needs a big smoking volcano, the sort that any proper savage land has. Or a string of volcanoes across the island, eventually dumping lava into the sea, Hawaiian style.

(Incidentally, I cleaned up my last post to properly name the continent Ytarria, not Yrth. I get that wrong a lot. Speaking of continents, I know Banestorm mentions the existence of other continents, but no other continent has an official name, does it?)

[Pursuivant]

Taking a guess at Yrth's physical geography:

Volcanoes

Spoiler:  

Consider having geothermal &/or volcanic features where a large meteor impact hit a fault line or similar weak spot in Yrth's crust. Think Iceland or Yellowstone, although the locations & terrain might be different.

Bilit Island, with its tiny and isolated mountain range in the middle of the island, could easily be the site of one or more volcanoes. Think Hawaii or Monserrat in the Caribbean.

The Bronze Mountains and Whitehood Mountains look to be massively geologically active with a major subduction zone running roughly east-west across the continent. They will have a number of dormant and active volcanoes and the whole area will be prone to earthquakes.

In the southwest, the unnamed coastal mountain range could represent a very old chain of mountains like the Appalachians that's gradually pulling away from the Fence of God, making that region tectonically active with potential volcanoes.

Rain Forests

Spoiler:  

Tropical rain forests need climate-driven monsoons or similar seasonal deluges and tend to be on the eastern coasts.

Temperate rain forests need mountain chains just inland from the coast to push clouds upwards to cool them and make them drop their precipitation. There will be dry areas in the downwind of the "rain shadowed" areas.

Likely candidates for temperate west coast rain forests, like the Pacific Northwest, are the Unnamed southeastern coastal mountains & the smaller chain of mountains just south of the Kashk River. If there are mountainous hills to the East of Castle Defiant, they will almost certainly be temperate or semi-tropical rain forests, as will the western end of the Bronze Mountains. The number of major rivers and large lakes in the Western Yrth drainage basin suggest lots of water, which supports the idea of heavily watered uplands.

In the east, The Blackwoods and Emperor's Forest could be seasonal temperate rain forest, watered by monsoons or typhoons which track through the islands of Araterre, northwest up the Mare Medium and disperse over the southern Megalan coast.

The Ring Islands are canonically jungle, as is Bilit Island. They'll be tropical coastal jungles with lots of mangroves. The mountains in the center of Bilit Island will have all sorts of tropical rainforests with more temperate uplands reminiscent of Hawaii or Java.

Canyons, Fjords, and Valleys

Spoiler:  

The Continental Divide appears to run from the Fence of God in the South through the Great Forest, then through the Eastern Great Desert to the Bronze Mountains in the north. That suggests that the Great Desert is actually more like the U.S. Desert Southwest than the Sahara, with heavily eroded canyons and areas of nearly impassible badlands.

Since it's a magical construct as well, The Great Desert will have signs of massive magical disaster, which could feature unnaturally warped geological features. The gap in the Continental Divide where the Great Desert intersects the Bronze Mountains and the Fence of God would represent an area of magical destruction so powerful it destroyed or altered an existing mountain range. That could give you anything from bottomless pits, to gates to the Elemental Plane of Earth, to vast areas of tablelands where mountaintops were sheared off.

Areas of massive glacial runoff or glacial lake outburst events can also cut canyons (e.g., the Genesee River Gorge or the Niagara River in Western NY). The Yvosek River is a great candidate for a deep river gorge with impressive waterfalls. The fact that the goblins went to the trouble of digging a canal to bypass it further supports the idea that it's hazardous or impossible to navigate.

The hilly terrain on the unnamed peninsula to the northeast (call it the Myrgan Peninsula) might have been a low or very eroded mountain chain which got buried and ground down by glaciers. Lots of good places to put not just canyons and fjords, but cool glaciated terrain features like massive "eccentrics" and canyons formed by glacial runoff. Think of the Canadian Maritime provinces.

Sahud and the terrain surrounding the Koriryu No Umi Bay, the Bay of Fimbulsee, and the unnamed peninsula in the Myrgan Peninsula would also probably be heavily modified by glaciation. Lots of fjords in previously mountainous coastal areas.

The area between the unnamed coastal southwest mountain chain and the Fence of God could be a huge rift valley like inland California or Africa's Great Rift Valley. Another potential rift valley is the Allahalon River basin in Al Haz. That would make the lower reaches similar to Egypt along the Nile River and the upper reaches somewhat reminiscent of Sudan or the Horn of Africa, but wetter.

Lands O' Lakes

Spoiler:  

The northern Bronze Mountains and Whitehood Mountains might have held back the glaciers with the action of massive walls of ice hollowing out at least part of the Koriryu No Umi. Catastrophic glacial runoff might have created Lakes Acheron & Styx, giving them terrain reminiscent of the Great Lakes regions. (There's also the chance that either Lake Archeron or Styx could eventually find their way to the ocean, causing massive ecological change and possibly causing a catastrophic flood.)

The flat areas between Nordheim and Branduch River would be the place for your "Land O' Lakes" with muskeg and tundra terrain reminiscent of Finland or Northern Canada.

Sahud & the Myrgan Peninsula might also have lots of little mountain lakes left over from glaciation. Think of the Adirondacks.

Don't worry about having to redraw fjords, at 24 miles/hex even Norway and Alaska lose their crinkly bits. Just assume that every indentation in the coastline of hilly northern areas is actually a fjord.

Glaciers

Spoiler:  

There will definitely be glaciers in the northern areas of the Bronze Mountains and the western Whitehood Mountains, draining into the Koriryu No Umi. Icebergs might be a hazard to navigation!

There might also be glaciers in the western Bronze Mountains. The unnamed river which rises just south of Ekarriel could be fed by one or more glaciers. There might also be glaciers at the the head of the Conn River. That would make Northern Caithness/Southern Zarak look like Nepal, Kashmir, or Switzerland.

[darebear]

There is a volcano on the island. It has a red peak. If you want another one we can do that.