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Author Topic: [My Homebrew World] Updated Campaign Map  (Read 1022 times)

Zachary The First

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[My Homebrew World] Updated Campaign Map
« on: October 28, 2008, 12:18:40 AM »
I went ahead and cleaned up and tweaked the map of the northwestern portion of Irrin, our homebrew campaign world.  Whenever we've played in Irrin before, it was back east, so this is our first foray in this region.  I wanted to get it posted, along with a bit of background, so you can see how its a going to be a good region for some vanilla fantasy sandbox play and some dungeon diving.  This was originally done in Fractal Mapper, but I cleaned it up just using Paint.

Northwest Irrin was once a province of the Kingdom of the West (aka The Great Kingdom of Man), which fell 1,019 years ago to the foul and incredibly ancient magic of the accursed High Elves (who took such bitter losses themselves they were forced back into the last of their great forest refuges).

For 1000 years, the High Church controlled passage to the lands of the West, knowing full well what monsters and horrors had been left behind by war.  The fertile land was given over to bands of warring humanoids, whereas the peripheral human cultures shifting back into a martial barbarism.  To traverse to the accursed lands, said the High Church, carried the penalty of death.  Almost none who defied this band returned, and the stories of terror from the West grew with each year.

Yet some 19 years ago, the High Church decided to lift the ban, and no makes a tremendous profit charging tolls to would be settlers who pass through their eastern city of Alten and down to the Far River valley to this land born anew.  Several thriving communities have sprung up, and many a man dreams of making himself a king in this region, so far from the decay and oppression of the east.

But the region is dangerous, make no mistake.  Orc tribes and Troll marauders still pass through the region, and the human barbarians largely do not welcome these newcomers.  Whispers at night speak of bizarre horrors from an earlier age best left forgotten, awoken by the arrival of so much human flesh.  Ruins of castles and cities still dot the landscape, many of them rumored to be haunted or occupied by powers unwelcoming of guests.  The Tombs of the Silver Monarchs are said to be somewhere in the Yurn Hills, but those lie in the Claimed Lands, those belonging to the Wild Elves and their Gnomish allies, and they brook no trespassing.

The magicks of the Kingdom of the West were some of the greatest the world had ever known, and many a sorceror's keep or dungeon lies undisturbed, protected from casual intrusion over the year by deadly and powerful wards.  Cultists, fleeing persecution in the east, hope to find these beacons of powers and turn them to their own twisted ends.

The City of Caloe is the capital of the Sea Elves, who are the same race as the High Elves, but are a nautical people who took no part in the war against the West.  Only a select few human traders are permitted to live in a small trade town outside these obsidian-black walls.  Sea Elves are said to have sailed to lands no Man has ever laid eyes on.

Bramble Bay, the penal colony, is as hopeless a place as exists on Irrin.  Here, the criminals of the east are forced to work in The Bramble each day, until the horrid creatures that lurk within seize them or they die from exhaustion or poisoning from one of the fantastic, rare, and deadly plants therein.

It is here that your characters awake, on a dark beach, an icy rain falling, accompanying by the crash of thunder & waves.  An icy wind illuminates several other bodies lying near you amongst the wreckage of a ship.  And then it hits you...you aren't certain who you are...

Here's the map, in low-res JPEG form:

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knightvision

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[My Homebrew World] Updated Campaign Map
« Reply #1 on: November 02, 2008, 02:27:22 PM »
Nice map. What program do you use?

Zachary The First

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[My Homebrew World] Updated Campaign Map
« Reply #2 on: November 02, 2008, 03:30:58 PM »
Quote from: knightvision;262443
Nice map. What program do you use?

Thanks!  I use Fractal Mapper, and cleaned it up a bit in Paint.  Nothing fancy for me. :)
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CavScout
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[My Homebrew World] Updated Campaign Map
« Reply #3 on: November 02, 2008, 10:14:57 PM »
Cool stuff sir!
"Who's the more foolish: The fool, or the fool who follows him?" -Obi-Wan

Playing: Heavy Gear TRPG, COD: World at War PC, Left4Dead PC, Fable 2 X360

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Zachary The First

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[My Homebrew World] Updated Campaign Map
« Reply #4 on: November 02, 2008, 10:27:22 PM »
Hey, thanks!

Cartography isn't my strong suite, but I really enjoy it.
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jswa

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[My Homebrew World] Updated Campaign Map
« Reply #5 on: November 03, 2008, 12:19:20 AM »
Very cool. What's in the Chasm?

Zachary The First

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« Reply #6 on: November 03, 2008, 12:58:30 AM »
Quote from: jswa;262609
Very cool. What's in the Chasm?

Some say its a portal to hell itself.  Others say its a remnant of fell Elven sorcery in a time before Man was ascendant.  Few have gone near it, as the amount of wandering monsters in the area is ridiculously high.  Around the chasm, many mutations and aberrations are witnessed.  Even at high noon, sunlight penetrates only a few yards down into the immense hole.

There has been exactly one expedition known to go down into the slate-black, strangely...wrong...straight-down walls of the Chasm, and only one lone torchbearer made it out.  He immediately grabbed a knife from the one of the waiting party, and before he could be stopped promptly and violently cut out his own eyes.  He screamed in a language unknown to any that heard it.  He lived to be an old man, mad to nearly to the last.  Yet on his deathbed, he was heard to whisper one fevered sentence, finally again in his native tongue:

the long fingers crawl oh yes they crawl from the mouth to the slouching beast oh the sound of wet blood in the eyes always in the eyes


(We have a lot of created history through gameplay)
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knightvision

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[My Homebrew World] Updated Campaign Map
« Reply #7 on: November 06, 2008, 11:27:59 PM »
I use a combination of FM and Paint shop pro

Zachary The First

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[My Homebrew World] Updated Campaign Map
« Reply #8 on: November 08, 2008, 09:21:22 AM »
Quote from: knightvision;263807
I use a combination of FM and Paint shop pro

Work pretty well for you?  Have any purty maps to share? :)
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knightvision

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[My Homebrew World] Updated Campaign Map
« Reply #9 on: November 08, 2008, 08:44:17 PM »
Yeah, they're on my blog and website

Here's a thumbnail: