Leaving for Gen Con in a few hours!
This will be my 9th Gen Con, but my first since COVID so it was a while since I was present for the best four days in gaming.
I will be working for Inkwell Ideas, and you will be able to find me at Booth 150 in the Exhibit Hall some hours every day. Don't have the schedule yet so I'm not sure which hours. If you are at the convention please stop by booth 150, I'd love to thank you all for your support in person.
While you are here make sure you look around the the Inkwell Ideas' booth, lots of cool stuff and plenty of map related stuff too!
Huge thanks to https://inkwellideas.com for making my Gen Con trip possible!
I will be back home again Monday, so things will be back t normal next week. No stream Friday this week.
Time for a special treat, a series of banners and shields for your Nyrond campaign, designed by Mike 'von Molkew' Mossbarger, who has done lots of fan work for Nyrond. You can find his stuff on his blog: https://nyrond.wordpress.com
I've taken his designs into Photoshop and given them a bit more life. A mix of shields, flags and banners. I'm going to show the touched up versions below.
Fleet I Crossed scimitars
Fleet II Breaking Wave
Fleet III Trident
I Legion Kraken flag
I Legion shield
II Legion Dragon flag
II Legion shield
III Legion Lion flag
III Legion shield 2
IX Legion Eagle flag
IX Legion shield
Legio Arcanus flag
Legio Divinus flag
V Legion Serpent flag
V Legion shield
VII Legion Dire Wolf flag
VII Legion shield
You can download them here (77MB Zip): https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Heraldry/Nyrond%20-%20Von%20Molkew.zip
and as SVG vector format (256KB Zip): https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Heraldry/Nyrond%20-%20Von%20Molkew%20SVG.zip
Here is a quick note about them from Mike:
Three Fleets of the Nyrondal Navy
Fleet I Crossed Scimitars
Based in Nessermouth, tasked with patrolling the river ways within Nyrond
Fleet II Breaking Wave
Based in Oldred, it is responsible for coastal defense
Fleet III Trident
Based in Mithat, it is the deep-water naval fleet
6 Legions of the Nyrondal Army
Legion I Kraken
Based in Mithat, it is the army support for Fleet I
Legion II Dragon
Based in Womtham
Legion III Lion
Based along the border with Ahlissa
Legion V Serpent
Based in Korenflass, mostly in Oldred
Legion VII Dire Wolf
Based in Midmeadow Ad Septentrionem = To The North
Legion IX Eagle
Based in Justcrown (city of Rel Mord)
Mike has a blog post describing these in more detail in works, so keep an eye out for it at: https://nyrond.wordpress.com
I'm leaving for Gen Con next week and when I get home it is time to start prepping for gaming season. I will run playtest session at Gamehole Con and some online before then. This will be the first real battle tests for my Alpha 2 version of Hawk Tales. I tried to learn from the previous round of playtests and make improve the rules.
This is by no means a full list of concepts and changes, but it covers some essentials. I will present deep dives into each of the sections below with rules samples in the coming months. I will also use https://questlinevtt.com as my VTT and create a Hawk Tales rule set for it. With a new generation of Shield Land maps to go with it I think it can be a lot of fun. Invitations and schedule will be coming in late August.
The six abilities we know from D&D and its sibling systems, physical abilities: Strength, Dexterity and Constitution are all in my rules. The mental abilities: Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma as well no changes there. The difference In Hawk Tales is that I’ve added three more metaphysical abilities. They cover things beyond the mortal realm of the prime and give every character a place, standing a trajectory in the multiverse. A character’s deeds; decisions and luck can change these things as its adventuring career progresses. Service, magic, brushes with death and more will impact a character’s place in the larger existence of things. Please, anger or ignore the powers of the world, it all comes with rewards and dangers.
Presence (Pre)
Measures how strong its life force is. It dictates how often a creature can escape death, survive brutal conditions beyond the natural, stand up to certain forms of damage, and planar travel. It has no hard upper limit, certain deities and other exceptional creatures can have very high presence.
Presence affects how well a creature can sustain certain aspects of planar travel, escape death, withstand magic forces and is one way to gain Divine Rank. Presence grows as a character gains experience, and it is lost facing death, and circumstances that would have killed a weaker creature. Failed Death Saves might require a sacrifice of Presence to stay among the living.
Comeliness (Com)
Takes hold where Charisma alone would fail. It symbolizes how well a creature can handle its standing, fate and destiny. A young character can have the beauty and innocence of youth on its side, spend it to gain favors and standing revealing another side of itself in the process. It is powerful, useful but also risky and deceiving. A high score can boost your Charisma and influence, but it can also bring attention, both wanted and unwanted.
Comeliness is the ability of hags to look young a full of vitality, hiding their gruesome true appearance from those who cannot properly sense such things.
Com can be used to hide Corruption, maybe save you from Death but condemn you in the process. It’s a resource humans lose growing old, or even faster by spending it on vanity or foul and nefarious pursuits. Once it is lost your true character will be plain and visible to all, which might not be an issue or the end of it all.
Curruption (Cor)
The record of how close a character is to death and the lower realms of existence. Fail a Death Save, use foul magic, venture into the worst places in the world and you will be more Corrupt. A fate worse than death itself or a resource to be carefully harness to gain power over others, Corruption can be a fast way to extinction or a way to the greatest of power. It is up to your character’s morals, luck and your determination as a player.
Corruption makes you come closer to death and if you must make a Death Save, make you more prone to fail. On the other hand, a high corruption ability might shield you from having to make that Death Save in the first place.
AC
My first iteration of Hawk Tales alpha playtest rules used hardness as well as Armor Class, which was more than a bit clunky to first roll damage and deduct some due to the targets armor. I had a two tier hardness system that gave the attacker a chance to do a small amount damage on almost every hit and lots of damage on good hits. Now I have re-designed the rules to keep the same ideas and similar outcome but without deducting damage after rolling it, simplifying the whole process.
Armor Class comes in three steps, Minimum, Limited and Full. Minimum is a targets AC without any armor bonus included, if your attack clears this AC, you inflict Minimum damage. How much damage that is depends on the armors Minimum Rating, which sets the max limit, and your attacks base damage whichever is the lowest. Limited means that you managed to score a better hit and you inflict your attacks base damage in full. Full means you roll full damage. Crits means that you increase your result to the next category, and if you already made a Full it, your attack might inflict injuries as well as extra hit point damage. This depends on your weapon, spell or other form of attack.
This means fewer rolls and no extra calculations; the base damage of the attack is listed on character sheets and on stat blocks so minimum and limited hits requires no damage rolls in most cases. Full hits and Crits on the other hand can get really nasty and end combat quickly. Armor makes it much harder for enemies to inflict large amount of damage, but it will still let some damage through so every encounter is dangerous, especially if you face multiple opponents. Armor also provides Death Save Bonus which is a key protection that can save your characters life even after it has taken a lot of damage.
Armor and shields also come with a beatings rating, which means you can let your armor or shield take a beating which means Crits will be normal hits. When your shield runs out of beatings it needs to be repaired before it can be useful. Armor that runs out of beatings lets more damage trough doubling is minimum damage.
Hit Points
Hit Points are handled a bit differently in Hawk Tales compared to D&D. They represent a creature’s ability and determination to absorb hits without getting injured. Hardened adventurers can take a beating before succumbing to most attacks. This means Hit Points can be lost or won quite fast in various ways not covered in normal D&D. For example fear is thing that causes physic damage, fail a save vs. Fear and you need to flee or take damage. This way of treating hit points also means you can gain them back easier, a full rest brings you back to full, and a great deed on the battlefield can give you inspiration and regain hit points. This is how Rage works, it keeps your spirits high!
Recover hit points is a reasonably trivial thing that bards, most deities, primal, and even some arcane magic can accomplish.
Injuries
Sometimes things gets bad enough that hit points is not enough, and you get injured. It might be down to stamina and the fact that you run out of hit points, or it can be fatal blows that cause injuries. Some weapons and other attacks are especially dangerous and might cause injuries right away, like a vorpal or slaying weapon, falling off a cliff or failing a poison save.
Hit Points and Injuries works in parallel, you can sustain injuries while still having hit points left. When this happens, you can stay in the fight, but injuries can get worse fast and you can die from your injuries even with hit points left. Injuries give a character penalties on Death Saves, and when your injuries are so high you cannot succeed on a Death Save you die. On the positive side is that when you have Hit Points and/or Exertion left you can sacrifice them to get an extra Death Save fail that doesn’t use up your Presence. This gives you up to two extra chances to fend off death a day with no long term effects, but to the price of sacrificing some of what your character can accomplish before resting.
This is a recurring theme in Hawk Tales, decide the risk level, choose short or long impact, it is too a large degree a player choice, with a bit of luck of the dice determining if the risk taken pays off or not. Push hard when the situation demands it, do more and push beyond what your character can normally do, failure can mean fewer chances to escape death in the future even if you survive, but you might manage to slay that dragon, or pull off some other heroic deed.
Magic healing can overcome injuries but that is costly in the form of actions needed to preform, and spell slots sacrificed, and will usually only be provided by benevolent deities.
Hawk Tales rules make low level characters usually have low Hit Points and low Presence, but good Death Saves which means they can survive even a tough encounter due to a youngsters’ ability to fend of death. High level characters have loads more Hit Points but might have had many close calls so their Death Saves are much lower and Presence mostly used up. This gives them more stamina in encounters but might make them more vulnerable when their Hit Points run out, or to some types of foul magic. No one is immune in Hawk Tales, but there is hope and agency most of the time.
Another very important thing with Death Saves is that they give your character vital experience, therefore it provides a decent XP reward, regardless of success or failure. If you live long enough afterwards to have use for the XP is another matter..
Exertion
Represents a character’s ability to execute and perform special abilities, magic and other things that require effort. It can be traded for more hit points as a last resort to stay in the fight. Rage, Smite and use innate magic are all example of things that use Exertion. If you run out of Hit Points you can use Exertion as a Hit Point substitute.
Damage
There are lots of ways a character can meet its demise in Hawk Tales, the latest playtest rules come with 22 types of damage and drains. From the common kinetic (bludgeoning, piercing and slashing) normal weapons inflict, elemental (acid, cold, fire, lightning, thunder and poison). Ethereal damage in the form of force and vorpal, Cerebral with Epistemic Drain (Int damage) and psychic. The planar ones with the Fiendish ability drain, despair, energy drain, life drain, necrotic and vile. The Celestials have their special forms of damage too: disruption, radiant and void damage.
Magic, undead and fiends can be very tough opponents indeed, and weapons can be enchanted to be particularly nasty. Sharp and vorpal weapons can injure you regardless of how many hit points you have left. Vile damage brings you closer to death period. Even the foulest undead or fiend should fear the disruption or void smite of a powerful champion of Heironeous.
Some of these damage types only cause hit point loss, most of them inflict hit point and thereafter injuries. Other go after abilities, exertion, lifespan and other things your character hold dear.
Essence and Manifestation
Essence represents the way a creature maintains its existence, what keeps it going. Most characters will have a soul, others might be spirits, later they might succumb to the lure of a powerful creature and become a thrall, have the misfortune to meet a vampire and become a spawn or even worse, an unminded skeleton. Essences dictate how a creature functions, how it lives, takes damage, heals, rests recovers and how it can cease to exist. 18 essences all in all covering everything from souls of animals, simulacra of magical constructs, to metaphysical essences like dark anima, residuum and umbral.
This means that some creatures can be really nasty to encounter, regaining spells and exertion by gaining Corruption. Which means that a lich can gain more spells by casting them if the situation is right. Its existence relies on committing foul acts, so a prolonged fight can make it stronger not weaker. Careful planning and the right circumstances is needed to defeat it.
Manifestation is the way a creature exist in the world, it can be of flesh and blood, like most characters. Other creatures can be more exotic, like shadow, elemental, undead, ethereal and transcendent manifestations. To be able to preserve the carcass of that demon you just killed might require some special tricks or it might be quickly lost.
Essence and manifestation rules are the base mechanics for how different types of creatures function during play. Players only need to get into some of it that concerns their character, for the most part. As their characters adventure and become more experienced, more of the wonders of the multiverse will make the game more complex. This is by design, low level adventuring is made to be simple and straight forward, high level play will be more complex. Not in the number of math or dice rolls needed, but in different things influencing the outcome and possibly causing complications. My goal is to make things flavorful and varied, not mechanically difficult.
This was a short look at some of the concepts for Hawk Tales. Some of it is very familiar for D&D players, other aspects are less familiar. I'm happy with how well it has played so far, now it is time to try and bring it up from reasonably good to something really playable.
Thank you so much for all your interest and support!
After the boring bits its time to look at the interesting stuff, the terrain. For the first time, a look at final edits of Top Down and Isometric terrain samples a 16K tile, covering 15 x 15 miles.
The area is the south eastern corner of Furyondy very near to the western estuary of Veng River. It is almost entirely covered by the symbol for the town of Treen on the map below, but it shows you where we are located.
This post is not about finished maps, it is a first in depth look at the terrain. I've shown you lots of sneak peaks, screen shots and so on, but this is the first time I'm sharing full resolution final edit new generation terrains. I'm proud of these, it is the first of many to come and I will be able to improve a bit here and there I'm sure, but trust me these are good enough and I think you will agree with me! 🙂
Terrains for my future maps will come in Top-Down and Isometric versions, and the isometric ones will be available from 4 directions SE, SW, NE and NW. This will make every part of the terrain visible, and no hidden areas behind hills or buildings. I will also use the terrain files for other renders more of a "landscape photography" sort, more on that in future posts.
The area covered here is the south western corner of my first series of maps covering the Shield Lands so I'm using it to showcase what I'm working on. The western third of this area is not fully developed, I will get to that when I expand into Furyondy, but the center and eastern parts are full of interesting details normally not seen on fantasy maps that only covers small areas.
This sample is shown in isolation, this only for this sample. Both the top-down and isometric terrain tiles are being made so they match and will be seamlessly put together. Final maps will cover areas of interest instead of following technical limitations of my production workflow.
In my campaign this is part of the Earldom of Willip, and the Barony of Herechel. the town of Herechel is next to Critwall a bit further north and not of this map. The biggest settlement is the town of Treen, an agricultural hub with a bit of a twist. It is an inland port with a system of small rivers accessing a number of lakes. Treen is situated on what was once a lake, but then turned into a swamp that has dried a bit and now provides the most fertile lands in the barony. Transportation is done using small vessels on the rivers as well as an extensive network of small roads for foot traffic as well as horse and cart.
A small post on the Nyr Dyv to the south is there, and a mill by the waterfall on the way there. Halfway between Treen and the mill is a newly built bridge and a road west leading to the building site of a new fortress serving the order of Heironeous in the Kingdom. The hill where it is located is well chosen, it used to be home to an old fortress from the early days of Ferrond. Just north west of that hill is a bigger flat hill that used to house an old Flan hillfort and town that was ransacked and burned to the ground during the Aerdy conquest.
The ambitious Great Kingdom turned the low laying swamps into their new home and Treen was created in its stead. No one thought at the time that an hillfort was really needed, which was true for centuries. But with the Shield Land being almost completely run over, King Belvor ordered the defenses of this corner of the kingdom to be improved so the site of the old hillfort is being brought back to use again. A new shorter road to Treen is not yet in place but planned. The stone for the fortress comes primarily from the hill its being built on, digging down and cutting the stone and building the top keep makes transportation easy and provides both the keep and its dungeons in one go. The round hole is visible as well as buildings housing craftsmen and workers.
In the north you can follow the river west and find a series of quarries. some of them abandoned but the further west you go the more active they are. The western end of the big lake has the biggest double quarry with a road leading down from the upper part to the port where the stone is shipped across the lake and down river to wherever the stone is needed. Housing and area for draft animals are present as well. The area closest to the active quarries are devoid of trees, they have been used to build barges to transport the stone.
A lot of the forests in this area re managed by the Baron, the mayor of Treen and their sizable number of foresters. This can be seen as a patchwork of young and old forest and large areas used for grazing animals. The south eastern quarter of this area are different, and overgrown by native low bushy forests covering the coastal hills. This is an area with very poor soils unsuitable for agriculture and is instead the Earl of Willip's personal hunting grounds. To aid in this pursuit he built a castle on the highest hill, and a road From Treen down to the Veng in the east. This area is patrolled by his foresters, both to keep an eye on his deer but also to keep an eye on the northern reaches of his earldom.
There are number of small settlements, roads, and other details sprinkled about all over the place. This terrain covers one quarter of a 30-mile hex, Flanaess is big and there is room for a lot, even in this most dull corner of the setting.
Below you can find zipped maps to download. I zipped them up to force your browser to download rather than trying to open them. Download manager is recommended as always.
Download them and explore a tiny bit of the world of Greyhawk in detail, it is my take on it but I hope you like it
Top Down map (210.8MB)
https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/NG/Shield%20Lands%201%2064K%20-%20Herechel%20SAMPLE%20TERRAIN.zip
Isometric Maps
North East (90.2MB)
North West (89.7MB)
South East (90.8MB)
South West (90.5MB)
Next post will be about symbols and making the terrain into actual maps.
Thank you again for making this possible, and special welcome to my new patreon members!
Interrupting my regular posting due to special demand, a look at Dahlvier the lich who rules a patch of land on the western fringe of the Fellreeve.
Welcome back David, I hope you will like this one.
Born in -34 CY as Illart the son of Ehldard of Dahlvier, a minor lord of the lands in the far north which would become the Horned Lands. At the time it was lands rediscovered and settled after the great cold, and Illart's ancestors along with many others of the south had moved north as the world warmed up again in the centuries before the migrations.
Ehldard was like all humans around here at the time, of Flan descent. This took on a whole new meaning when the first Oeridians arrived when Illart was a child. In the beginning the new folks where greeted warmly but soon the old way of the Flan was questioned and young Illart saw his father become torn between the old ways and the new, eventually siding with the Oeridians. This caused lots of conflict with friends and family and in being a rebellious youngster Illart took the other side in this conflict. Young Illart could not have known that this would determine his existence for centuries to come.
The hardening conflict between the old elites of the Flan and the new Oeridian rulers in the south and east would soon start to spill over even up here. First by a wave of Flan fleeing the new order in the south, using the remoteness of the north as a safe haven, later the first Aerdy coming to conquer even these remote lands. The folks here, though few in numbers, but hardened by a tough life were determined to keep their freedom. Illart's rebellion against his father took a new turn when he defeated him in combat, the year was 5 CY and Illart was now Lord Dahlvier, the ruler of a sizable patch of land west of the Fellreev.
His dad had taken over an elven settlement, it is unclear how that happened, now it became abode of the new Lord Dahlvier who rose to become a capable lord in his own right. At first he had started out by becoming a force on the battlefield and already showing a talent for politics. He amassed a sizable hird of followers, and then became one of the early hierarchs of the Horned Society. A position that taught him the arcane arts and made him cling on to existence beyond his mortal years.
Already while still being a mortal man he treated his enemies with utmost cruelty while still treated his allies and followers with respect. This made him rise to power fast and soon he was one of the major rulers of the area, and for a time had a near permanent base in Molag leading the fight against the expanding Great Kingdom. His methods of treating his victims was notorious and something lord Dahlvier used for his new personal heraldry. He never used his family's old shield and no surviving copy or sketch of it exists. The new Lord who had no mercy for traitors like his father, it is strange why he choose a title used by his enemies.
Lord Dahlvier played a key part in running the Horned Society until a surprising development started. The lands of Ferrond, no longer beholden to Rauxes, begun a campaign to rid themselves of Hextorian influence. The expelled soon became another group of outcasts who sought a new home in the lands north of Oeridian control. Both the Bandit Kingdoms and Horned Society recognized talent when they saw it and welcomed a group who were both well organized and at home on the battlefield.
The new arrivals brought a previously unseen infernal bent the the Horned Lands, and Dahlvier who had delt with these folks before wanted none of it. Instead of outright confrontation he embraced the powers of his pact with Nerull, time, he was no longer a young mortal, he could wait out his enemies. So he retreated to his hold on the edge of the Fellreev, bided his time by carefully curate his following. He lashed out occasionally raiding neighbors who he felt was getting too close, or too powerful. Making sure they all feared him, and Nerull must have been pleased for his reputation increased with the horrors he inflicted.
Count Dahlvier seems to combine patients, rage and strategy which have kept him in politics for over five centuries. He has mentored such talents as Lerrek who has become rulers in their own right, just like he learned from the likes of Warduke in his rise to power. Lord Dahlvier saw the rise of a new upstart in the north Iuz became a force of the region. He never seemed to have liked him, or even met him. Maybe the inactivity has made Dahlvier soft, who knows. Is he the next player to enter the political stage again, or is he a force of the past to be added to the history books, no one seems to be sure.
I hope you like my take on Dahlvier, the lich of the Fellreev. For my games I always feel the need to give villains a backstory and a place in the world, to give me things like motivations, capabilities and quirks. Then with all that in mind I set out to develop the stats. Haven't gotten to that with Dahlvier yet, the characters haven't confronted him. In time that might happen.
With the introduction done it’s time to dive deeper into the boring technical bits. I’m sorry for those of you who are not at all interested in things like file formats, bit depth and such nonsense this one might not be for you, but for the rest of us map nerds lets dig into things!
When I launched my first attempt to map Greyhawk Internet was still in its early days, print was the norm and JPEG was just invented. At first, I just stumbled along and tried to make it look OK, but after a while I realized it would take years, many years, to finish so setting up a workflow that could work long term was crucial. Now when I’m starting over again, I’m keenly aware of the fact that this project will probably take the rest of my active days, so a proper plan is key to making it possible, and the result usable. The key bit in this project is that it leaves a robust set of cartography material for Greyhawk fans to use and build upon for the future long term.
The result will consist of digital data in various forms, images, heightmaps, masks, vectors, text and database files and more. My first priority is to try and use open files formats whenever possible, so files can be opened and edited even after the tools I’m using now will no longer be available.
Terrain starts with heightmaps, the greyscale image that provides elevation data. The resolution I’ve settled on is 5ft per pixel, as a D&D nerd I couldn’t resist that homage to the game. It is also a useful compromise between large- and small-scale maps. Detailed enough to show individual buildings, trees and the like, but still possible to cover large areas like a whole continent. The Flanaess will be around 22 million pixels across at this resolution.
World Machine and my hardware limit me to work on an area of 65,536 x 65,536 pixels (64K) which cover an area of 3,844 square miles at 5ft per pixel. Currently I have created a dozen of these areas, which are nearly 50,000 square miles and several more is in the making. So good progress at this stage.
The heigh data needs to be stored in a format that is accurate enough, which dictates the bit depth needed. If the goal would be a Minecraft terrain 8bit data would be enough, but Greyhawk the way I want to present it need more than the blocky terrain of Minecraft. The Bit Depth sets the limits for how much data each pixel can contain, a 1-bit file can have a value of 0 or 1. Minecraft terrain probably requires 16-bits with covers 65,536 height values. My aim is to cover a height from seal level to 12.5 kilometers which is a bit over 41,000 feet, which ought to be enough height for impressive mountains.
41,000 feet is over 400,000 inches so only having 65,536 height values might mean a bit of that jagged stair effect when looking closely. I’m not taking any chances and will store the heigh data using 32-bits which gives me 4,294,967,295 height levels to play with which is enough even for closeups. The file format I’ve chosen to use is OpenEXR, which was created by Industrial Light & Magic Studios to store all sorts of complex image data, and it supports 32-bit data.
When working with digital terrain creation, a way to select only areas that have a certain, elevation, slope, direction facing or other feature, or to manually place things like trees, roads or buildings. For this, masks are needed and they are greyscale images like heightmaps, white for total presence and black for total absence, and degrees of grey for everything in between. Bit depths range from 8-bit to 32-bit in rare cases. For 8- and 16-bits PNG is my format of choice. PNG is technically supporting up to 32-bits but that seems to be iffy, so I stick with EXR here as well for the few masks where I need lots of precision. Like Erosion masks used when creating textures for example, when very gradual changes are needed.
Most masks are only useful when creating and editing heightmaps or textures, but some masks are useful for changing things like rods, building, trees and other things on the map, so I will make sure they are preserved. For this I will use PNG, EXR and layered TIFF files. Which are all standards that will be around for many decades or longer into the future.
Textures will be saved as JPG’s and/or TIFF’s, depending on how detailed they need to be and how much storage can be saved using compression. WepP and JPEX XL are newer formats I’m looking into as well might be the way forward if they become widely used standards. Both offer great features, and good compression.
Areas that are done and ready to be presented will be summed up as JPG’s, PDF’s, and TIFF’s. The data will also be available as GeoPackage which is a way to package GIS data as a single database containing all sorts of stuff from terrain images, vector data for things like roads and borders and symbols all in one bundle.
My goal is to set up a server to offer this in a browser or for use straight into GIS software like QGIS, like OpenStreetMap is today. Started to test that on my LAN and its promising. The next step when I have more data ready is to set up a Virtual Private Server with my web hosting company and install it there. I have a domain name and server capacity ready to go. This might have to be by invitation only, if it gets popular the bandwidth costs can shoot up. The content will be available to download as final maps or GeoPackage for free for everyone, so you can run a server on your machine at home or set up your own server with your own version if you want to.
I’m using my webserver and Notion to host and distribute content. In many ways I prefer Notion, it is searchable and easier to work with. I’m thinking of moving all the downloadable content to Notion and letting my website become more of a landing page, sending people to my Patreon for my blog, Notion for downloadable content, and in the future a map server for online maps.
I’m tempted to present the new maps as JPG’s or PDFs of a 24 x 36 inch sheets useful both digitally and printed. 24 x 36 is a standard format available almost everywhere you can get stuff printed and the cost is reasonable. The problem with 24x36 inches is that it is too big to print on most home printers, 13 x 19 inch might be better for home printing. 8,5 x 11 inches are the easiest for printing and storage, but very limiting when covering large areas. Test maps have to be made.
Below is a layout idea for 24 x 36 inch maps. Oerth globe map top left to get a base idea where on the planet this is. Large area map on the left with other maps in the series marked out as well. Below that room is for notes of the area, sources and links. Scale projection and other technical details below that and Credits and edition at the bottom left.
B
The main map area would be 24.5 x 24.5 inches and can be either top down or isometric, I’m going to make both versions. More on this is my next post, which will be a lot more interesting to look at.
This type of layout with mini-map and all the information might be useful for some series of maps, others might be most useful as full page maps with as little disturbing stuff on there as possible, so you can lay them side by side to present larger areas distraction free. I’m thinking that isometric maps might be really cool this way.
Maps that are primarily used to find things and to refer to them would benefit from overview maps, grids and scale information.
Next will be to present the map data I’m putting together, top down and isometric renders and some overview maps. Below are a couple of sneak peaks..
Starting my mapping of the world of Greyhawk all over again was something I started to plan for over a decade ago, as I was wrapping up Hepmonaland and started working on Southlands for Kobold Press. This time it’s going to be in a way I had dreamt of back when I stated in the 1990’s, high detail, 3D and customizable in a way that my first map could never be. If I had known then how far away from being able to do it, I would probably have given up long ago, but my goal was tantalizingly possible if I just had a better computer, software and more skills. For a long time my vision felt possible, but always thousands of hours away from being a reality.
Now over a decade and several computer upgrades later, and after spending many thousands of hours pursuing my goal of creating a new generation fantasy maps of a setting at a scope no one has been foolish enough to embark on since a group failed to map the Middle-Earth back in the early 2000’s. They were a bit too early, tools and computing power were not advanced enough to do it. They go a fair bit into it, and what they showed was impressive. Now a quarter century later I’m ready to paraphrase Peter Jackson, “Now is the time to do it”. Computing power is here, and the tools are good enough to start a massive project like this.
Most fantasy maps are beautiful works of art, produced by talent and skills. My new Greyhawk maps are being done in a different way, talent and skills play a role, but the main thing is being the way they are built up around data. Elevation, biomes, water levels, road and building area and height and so on. The image above shows some of the data, inf the form of colored masks, that makes up the map below.
The resolution I’m working with is roughly 5 feet per pixel which gives enough detail to be useful all they way from large scale worldbuilding to play out encounters on a VTT. The sample map is of the town of Hirtfer on the wester shore of the Veng River in the Furyondian barony of Herechel, that is a part of the Earldom of Willip. The sample map is 2000 pixels across, and at this resolution Shield Lands will be roughly 70,000 pixels across, the Flanaess will be nearly 22 million pixels. A lot of those pixels are water or uninhabited wilderness, which are a lot easier to do. Roads and buildings are all hand places which take quite some time. Nature can be made using procedural and fractals which speed up things a lot.
To get a better view of where Hirtfer is located below is an overview map. Thanks to its being data, I can easily throw the water mask of blue to represent lakes and rivers, add roads and settlements and then labels.
Testing how to do annotations and best integrate them as well. A simple top-down overview map might not be enough time to make good use of the fact that these map are based on heightmaps giving them three dimensions. Below is a 3D overview map with Hirtfer in the center seen from the SW and Critwall in the background. Hirtfer is an agricultural hub in the middle if the very fertile Veng floodplains forming a mile wide band along its shores. The Veng valley has its own microclimate due to it flowing south from the colder north causing a more humid climate with increased mists clouds and rainfall, compared to areas only a few miles inland away from it. This can still be seen on the Furyondian western shores with large parts of the forest that used to cover this area intact. The best areas for crops have been under the plough for many centuries but lots of forest are kept for timber and hunting. Wood for construction and boatbuilding are still a major industry in and around Herechel. The Shield Lands side used to have much more forest along the Veng, but most of it was lost during the siege of Critwall. Small patches and young promising regrowth can be seen.
Below is a closer look at Hirtfer from the air.
Hirtfer has a small port to support transport of agricultural products to Herechel and Critwall, and occasionally further away as well. The port is designed to cater to small and mid-size river traffic. There is a small lakes just outside of the town walls that have a boardwalk alongside it. This is a pod used for wastewater from Hirtfer’s wool and tanning business, the cleaning, treating and dyeing wool and leather. Dumping it outside the town wall letting it drain slowly into the Veng downstream. I’m very pleased with how the swampy shoreline turned out with reeds and trees.
The 3D horizon reference images are a great way to get a feel for a place and how it fits into the world around it. This is what Hirtfer looks like from the east across the Veng (top), downstream Veng from the south (middle), and from the northeast upstream Veng (bottom). These are quick views taken from World Machine and then given a fake sky in Photoshop. Blender and WM5 will be able to a much better job at this so landscape images of places from MeyerHawk will be a key part of this project.
Sometime its nor realism you’re after, you might want to give the players a copy of the stylized map they bought from a cartographer in Willip when they arrived in Furyondy aiding them in exploring. Below is a quick sample to show how you can use the data to make a map that looks very different but is still recognizable as the same place.
I tried to use the same method on the whole big tile scaled down to thumbnail size. First without styling:
And then stylized:
These are down sampled from 16,384 to 512 pixels, and thanks to masks for roads and settlements they can be enhanced to be visible. This samples are just quick test to prove that is works, with more work they can be made to look a lot better. Even at this low resolution it’s sill way more detailed than my old map, but it’s starting to look a bit like it.
When you need a base map to show anything from troop movements and historic borders to how that party progresses, a simple overview map is very useful. Below is a simple map ready to be a backdrop when you need it.
Often I just want to be immersed in an area getting a feel for those living there or characters traveling there are seeing. Great for worldbuilding and adventure prep. Where do the Iuzian hordes lay in ambush or how arduous the journey across the hills is?
How roads are laid out across the landscape becomes much more intricate when you work in three dimensions across a natural landscape with its hills, rivers, lakes and other natural obstacles needs to be mitigated. Below is a look at the road west from Herechel, again only a preview in World Machine but shows it well, I think.
City design is another very interesting part of cartography that enters when you move from setting maps to these much more detailed work. Critwall was my inaugural test bed and it has gone through numerous iterations over half decade I’ve been working on it, from simple sketches to full 3D model. Here is a closer look at Shield Reclaimed, the big temple and the Critwall old ward and its fortifications.
My take is that these might buildings are carved out of the rock, as much as they are built. The builders carved away stone from the inside to use to build up more of it. This way they could make it stronger and larger without having to lift all the material up from lower down. You can read about my take on the history of Critwall here: https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/critwall-599-cy-88584154
You can download all the images shown here in full resolution (103.9MB): https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/New%20Generation%20Smples%201.zip
Thank you again for your support, without it, I wouldn’t have been able to embark on this new chapter. In many ways it feels like it did back in the 1990’s setting off on a journey to discover Greyhawk one small piece at a time leading to the first-generation map. That was like a fly over tour giving a distant look at things from afar, this time its more loke traveling though the landscape seeing each square mile in detail. This is what I dreamt of doing, and now thanks to your support, I’m off on another journey to discover the world of Greyhawk. I invite you to journey along with me. I’m currently mapping out Scragholme and the Veng Estuary and more way more is under way. I’m working in 6 stages, and I have more than 1 million square miles at stage 1, more than 50,000 square miles at stage 2 and around 3,000 square miles in the last stages ready for settlements roads and final touch up.
A teaser of what is coming!
After nearly a decade of trials test, failures and more learning the time has finally come to launch a new generation of Greyhawk maps. Thanks to your support all this time I can now finally start teasing this project, the biggest of my career as a Fantasy Cartographer for sure, and one that will be ongoing to the rest of my career.
I'm pretty certain that no project of this scope and detail have been attempted before. A whole campaign setting mapped in 3D detailed enough to see every hills, creek, road building and tree. It will be my vision of the world of Greyhawk at a scale of 5ft per pixel.
More information for patreons is coming soon. Thank you again for joining me on this journey to explore the Flanaess....
I will be nerding out about Greyhawk with Angelo tomorrow at 6pm PDT.
https://www.youtube.com/live/gTBhidbA07A?si=4qtHJFFpM1J__ZY0
Hope to see you there 🙂
A bit of house keeping. I haven't published an updated Campaign Map version of my Flanaess map in a while, here is the latest version: https://www.pathozoom.com/image/702589
You can download the JPG (115MB) here:
https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Campaign%20Map%202026-06.jpg
I'll be back with more stuff soon!
