Abilites
There are three more on top of the six we are used to from D&D. Comeliness, Presence and Corruption are the three metaphysical abilities which represent your characters standing in the multiverse, the strength of its life force and how much it has been in touch with the netherworld. They tie into things like life and death, magic and planar travel. Doesn’t’ affect gameplay much at low level but will become increasingly more important as a character faces tougher enemies, learn to harness more powerful things like magic and more.
Exertion
Represents the ability for a character to muster and channel their willpower, instincts and sheer grit to face dangers, reach deep into themselves to find the ability to endure and survive. Exertion is used to power some special actions that let you do more in a round, like take both a move and a regular action in a round, move twice your movement rate to charge and such. It is also used to power some special abilities like smite, turn undead, and innate spellcasting.
Regaining Exertion is done through resting, for humans and other creatures that have a soul. Other forms of creatures can regain their exertion through other means like feeding blood for vampires with a dark soul.
The Combat Round
I’m going to experiment a bit with how the round is structured for two reasons. First to try and keep things a bit more simultaneous and upping the tactical play a notch when using a board (real or virtual). Secondly, I want a bit more structure, to mark the beginning and end of rounds. Things tended to just flow across rounds, and I often forgot to keep track of things. I want to make that easier.
First is a Positioning Phase where the brave, the reckless, the desperate and the determined can move to repositioning themselves before the actions are taken. This move is made instead of moving afterwards in the Action Phase (you can move twice by spending Exertion). Taking action in this phase also means you go early in the next phase.
Action Phase is next when each creature gets its chance to take an action, which can be attacking, casting spells and such. If it hasn’t moved it can also move up to its movement rate as part of its action. Some spells and actions require the whole round which means you cannot move while doing them, but they are the exception.
The end of the round comes with the Wrap Up Phase (which I need to better name for) when those affected by various things make saves, spells durations are ended or prolonged to the next round. This means that a lot of spell effects will last from when cast until this phase before Saves against conditions like stunned, blinded and such are made. This is by design making magic use a bit more situational and powerful, especially if you manage to get your spell cast early in the round.
Reactions are another part of this, you can make attacks of opportunity when creatures move into your reach our leaves it. If you haven’t acted you can just take your action early, or if you have acted spend an Exertion to take a Reaction.
No bonus, swift or other forms of actions. Attacks are the only thing that breaks the mold a bit, if you have high prowess means you can attack more than one creature as part of your action. Some spells also give you this option, either by providing multiple attacks like Magic Missile, or by having a casting time of Attack.
Combat Prowess
Is an overall measure of a creature’s combat effectiveness and dictates how many opponents you can attack in a round, how many you can face at the same time without being flanked. Having many attacks only happens when you attack more than a single target in the same round. If you play a powerful character with a Prowess of 3 for example, you can decide to spread out your efforts in a round and attack up to three enemies, making a roll to hit for each target, and if successful inflict 1 damage die plus Str, magic and other bonuses on each target. Or you can concentrate on a single target and spend all three damage dice on a single target, or something in between like two damage dice on one target and one on another.
Flanking plays a bigger role in Hawk Tales, if you face more opponents than your Prowess, your opponents’ hits are upgraded to the next level making less capable enemies dangerous in numbers. And creatures with really high Prowess can be very scary, since they can flank you all on their own. Taking on a dragon by yourself can be a VERY risky endeavor.
AC and Damage
This is where Hawk Tales is the most complicated. I wanted to make combat a bit more risky, chaotic and unpredictable but trying to keep it streamlined. In the first series of playtests, I did this by using Armor Hardness that reduced damage. This had the desired results by required a lot of number crunching, and subtraction is harder (at least for me) for some reason. So, I’m trying a different way, by separating AC into three stages, Minimum AC to simulate glancing blows attacks that don’t do much more than touch. Next is a Limited AC, which means the attack does a bit more damage, and Full AC which means attacks that manage to hit that hard and do full damage.
Weapon damage is determined in two ways Base and Full Damage. Base damage is a fixed number per damage die used by the weapon, a dagger using a d4 will have a base damage of 1. Then you add your Str and magic bonus to that number, no need to roll it is a fixed number per attack. Base Damage is used for Minimal and Limited Hits, with the limitation of your opponents armor for minimal hits.
Armor makes it harder to be hit, just like regular D&D but in stages. Each armor has a low and a high bonus, minimum damage and the number of beatings it can take. Beatings is a way for armor and shields to deflect crits which can be deadly, but only a limited amount of times before needing repair. Minimum damage is the weirdest part when first looking at the rules, it is the lowest for simple armor and goes up for the more protective things, Leather has a min damage of 5 and Plate Mail has 8 for example. The reason for this is to simulate that armor can’t protect you from all damage, every combat should involve at least some risk. Plate mail protects you from way more severe damage by letting a bit bigger trickle of small amount of damage through. Leather protects you less from the severe damage but is a bit better at stopping the small stuff. Which works best depends both on your character’s capabilities and what types of enemies you intend to face. A low level character is probably better off with something like leather to keep as many of those precious hit points intact, but with a higher risk when facing really touch opponents. A seasoned warrior with way more hit points to protect him would probably do much better with a plate to stop the really damaging hits better and take some small damage in the process.
Weapon specialization gives you two key advantages, upgrade the damage die size and increase your crit range. This means even smaller weapons like daggers can be as deadly as big swords in the hands of an expert. Crits means your hits are upgraded a level from Minimal to Limited and so on. Ful Hits do double damage plus they inflict injuries on top of that, which brings up to the next big change.
Hit Points, Injuries and Death Saves
Hit points in Hawk Tales represent a creature’s ability and will to continue the fight. Running out of them doesn’t mean you are near death, not directly. Instead, you are Bloodied and now if you stay in the fight, you will take injuries instead of hit point damage. Crits and some other hits, and types of damage inflict injuries right away, so both hit points and injuries work in parallel. Hit points are like your ability to stave off injury, and when they run out you are exhausted and less capable of defending yourself.
Injuries have the effect of being a negative modifier on your Death Save, so if they pile up you get into the danger zone. If you have hit points left you are good to continue, but if you have injuries and become Bloodied things deteriorate fast. You become Encumbered and are forced to make a Death Save. Hawk Tales is gritty but with lots of options and player agency built into the rules, all the way to the end and beyond.
Skills
Skills are multi-part in a way. The first part is the Ability modifier which represents a character’s natural talent, and then if you retrained in a skill, you can add your proficiency bonus just like in D&D5E. Proficiency Bonus of +1 is gained at Level 1 and then increases by one every three levels. There are only four base skills, Athletics, Influence, Insight and Tinker, which covers all skills checks, and there is nothing off limits, every character can attempt any skill check. Lower DC’s can be overcome by ability bonus and luck, but higher ones you need more, anyone can succeed opening a crude lock, but the lock protecting the city coffers is another matter. Then you need Expertise as well to manage, which is the next part offering bonus from +2 to +8 to be used along with things like Evasion with Athletics and Dex to avoid a fireball for example. Skills are used as Saving Throws as well, so Evasion expertise can help you avoid getting blasted. Deception Expertise can help you see through an illusion and so on.
Skills are a good example of my effort to make Hawk Tales complexity increase as you play. Things are simple at low level to then gradually take on more complexity as you face more and more of the world and its many dangers.
Magic
Is a big part of the game just like other fantasy, but it comes with more depth that is the norm with regular D&D. Magic can be obtained in three different ways, thought talent and understanding of the world, Arcane magic. Thought a relationship with a power of some sort, Divine magic and through your attunement to life and nature around you, Primal Magic. I call these Conduits of Magic. Strains are wat kind of power that a spell draws from, elemental, ethereal, fey, shadow and more. Schools are what tradition and technique is used to cast magic, fonts are how magic is recorded and transferred, like Relmordian Script for scrolls, or Flan wood carvings for Druidic magic. Tattoos, blood magic and rock carvings are only a few of the forms I have so far, Vecnan Skin Craft is one to keep in mind if you are the more adventurous student of the Arcane arts.
This was a very brief introduction and overview of my Hawk Tales rules. I’ve been working on them for about five years now, and this is major rewrite from the first alpha to try and take in what I’ve learned from the first round of playtests. Creating a rule set, not from scratch but almost is a huge undertaking but very rewarding. It forces you to evaluate and understand gaming in a much deeper way than needed to just keep playing. This will not become a new bestseller or widely popular, but it might be the right tool set for some of you out there. I’m gearing it to be a good platform for those who want a system to tinker with, and tweak and build on what I’ve done. My plan is to have a first public playtest rules package ready spring next year, it depends on the feedback I get from this round of playtests and how well my commission work is progressing.
NOTE: I have updated the character sheets adding few things and corrected some errors. So make sure you download again to get the latest!
The party for my Saturday evening game for VGHC is a familiar bunch, the shield Patrol group led by Onzek. It was the first set of pregens I created for my Hawk Tales play test sessions back in 2023, and they have been on several missions since. Three years in real world time, and a month in campaign time. Now they are going out again, heading out north east from Critwall, this time it is to investigate a detection of powerful magic.
This playtest session will be around senses, magic, detection, tactics and striking. The party is made up of 9th and 10th level characters well versed in all of this, and I hope it will be an interesting session.
You can download the character sheets here:
https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Shield%20Lands/VGHC7-2026%20%20Hunting%20mission%20pregens-3.zip
and the back stories of the characters here:
https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Shield%20Lands/VGHC%202026%20-%20Character%20Backgrounds.pdf
and the spell descriptions here:
More about the rules in the next post.
Prepping for this year’s Virtual Greyhawk Con, and here comes the characters for my low level session Scragholme Training Grounds, a group of young Order of the Shield recruits getting ready for the war against the Old One.
First time I’m trying to properly use the character creation rules of Hawk Tales to create a party or young characters getting ready. I’ve created 7 characters so there will be some variety, or at least as much as can be for a martial themed first level session.
Tossart of Brightport
Tossart is a young generalist warrior getting ready to face be good at a lot of things martial. My previous post about Tossart went over some of the base mechanics of Hawk Tales, this post will be more about the variety and differences between the characters.
Harrin of Critwall
Is a youngster hailing from Critwall determined to become a Knight or the Order, at 15 he has already worked hard at it for years and now he is getting there. Devotion and determination are his mantra, Athletics is his only skill, all his effort currently is to master battlefield using the Heironean signums of the longsword and the battleaxe. He hits hard even at this low level, enemies need to be wary of this guy. This is a character that when broaden a bit when he is leveled could bring a lot of possibilities, but right now he is the point of the spear of any party.
Heironeous is giving him an extra point of Pre which he will probably need sooner rather than later. A d20 Hit die provides extra Hit Points, and high Str and Con gives him the capacity to carry a wide range of weapons.
Jonel of Wilongaard
She is more of a typical adventurer, she has served in the local guard of Wilongaard, a town just south of Critwall very close to the frontlines. She has been seeking adventure for some time so a life in the service of her country seems more appealing to her than town life. In many other places she would more than likely end up in trouble with the rulers but Shield Lands in 599 CY is place where there is a need for those who seek adventure.
Jonet tries to utilize her advantages, her exceptionally high Dex, with Stealth, finesse weapons and a Composite Shortbow. Sneak attacks and Sniping gives her some extra edges. Her high Dex also keeps her AC high even without a shield. She needs to be wary of situations when she is not aware of what is coming her way, but a good addition to any party. Jonel is my attempt to replicate a classic D&D rogue or thief character.
Montard of Foterin
Being one of Harrin’s friends and training mates, Montard shares a lot of the same devotion, in some ways he is even surpassing it. They share their devotion to Heironeous and martial life, but Montard has taken the religious side of that all the way. Instead of physical training and weapon training Montard has gone for weapon training paired with the power of Heironeous using Divine Smite.
Montard has also made sure Heironeous could test his resolve, so he joined a raid on his birthplace in the southern coastal town of Foterin. It is now ruined and mostly abandoned by the invaders, and the few that were still there either fled or was put to the sword of the raiders. Young Montard killed four goblins and survived to tell the tale. This raid gave Montard real experience which he learned a lot from, he knows this is a deadly game and that first encounter was more luck than skill. Next time he wants to make sure he will survive due to skill and Heironeous and not luck. The raid made him 2nd level, so he is already on his way.
Reldin of Brightport
Being a longtime friend of Tossart that has taken devotion and service to the Lord of the Order the whole way. Reldin is studying to be a warpriest, which is big undertaking giving him lots of useful skills and feats later on, but right now he is probably the weakest in the party. He can still hold his own and support using spells or bow, so he is still very useful. The spells on his sheet are only the ones for this mission, he has a much bigger list in the Heironeous Domain to choose from. The healing spells are not needed for this mission to I left them out, only Minor Invigorate that is a quick way to cheer up your allies to not give up by providing fresh Hit Points. Invigorate spells are Enchantments that give Hit Points, but don’t help those suffering from Injuries. Real healing in Hawk Tales are Clemency spells only available from the Divine. Reldin has those too when needed, but this is a training mission, so protection and strike spells are his selection for now.
Samin of Bero
Samin is from the town of Bero near the norther tip of Scragholme. Bero is one of the few places on Scragholme that still has a large Flan community and Samin and Ysoria both come from that community. The war has formed even closer bonds between the two sides of town, that have been strained at times. Now nearly all Bero, regardless of heritage, is on board with the fight to keep Shield Lands in the hands of its people. Samin joined that fight too, and at 17 he is capable archer who has inherited a family bow that he has learned to put to good use. A very promising archer, and a good warrior in the making Samin is good addition to the party.
She is training to be a battle herald which means it is her job to keep her allies motivated and inspired. She can play the lute, trumpet and drums as well as sing really well and already know two battle hymns. Her bardic performance can give her allies more Exertion or Hit Points, and the Call to Arm hymn gives her allies extra damage. As a herald Ysoria needs to be able to defend and handle herself on the battlefield, and she is both a good archer and decent swordsman.
This was a very short introduction to the characters. I’m trying to provide characters that are ready for this mission, hopefully interesting to play and that can grow into heroes in my campaign. You can download the character sheets and spell descriptions here (6MB ZIP): https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Shield%20Lands/VGHC7-2026%20Low%20Level%20pregens.zip
Virtual Greyhawk Con 7 is son upon us and I’m scheduled to run two games, a low level and a mid-level game as part of playtesting my Hawk Tales rules. Thank you all for signing up, so glad to see people interested!
Todays post is a look at one of characters of the low level game, Tossart of Brightport. A 16 year old recruit of the Order of the Shield, fresh from the first few month of service, just getting the grips of serving his native Shield Lands. A near native of Scragholme, one of many war orphans whose parents must have been poor folks from somewhere on the mainland. Tossart was only a year old when he arrived on Scragholme and grew up together with many other orphans in Brightport. Conditions where materially harsh, but every child became vitally important for a nation facing extinction, so everyone did their best to care for the young ones. So little Tossart grew up surrounded by sorrow and misery paired with love and care. At age 12 he was nearly killed in a Iuzian raid across from the mainland. That experience gave him a 1 point of Corruption and a few scars but also experience. Now at 16 he is a shy and determined youngster taking his first steps on his journey to become a defender of the realm. The past few months he has learned how to use weapons, ride and slowly becoming a hardened knight.
You can download the character sheet here (PDF 689kb): https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/Shield%20Lands/VGHC7-2026%20Tossart%20L1.pdf
Let’s look at the character sheet starting with the mechanics’ heavy front page. Tossart is 1st level character geared towards being an effective warrior, no spellcasting or other special abilities yet. He has begun to specialize in the use of the longsword and dagger and sneak attack, only a measly d4 as of now, we all must start somewhere right. He is young so his Comeliness is a high 16, and Presence is 3 which shows the grace and blessings of Heironeous have given Tossart back what he lost during that nearly fateful night 4 years ago. Tossart has never forgotten it and is devoted follower of Heironeous and might choose to join his flock more directly learning divine magic, holy smite or both, for now he is concentrating on learning the basics properly.
Athletics is the only Base Skill he is proficient in, which only provides a +1 one, for now, when leveling up it means all checks based on it will increase. Tossart is training to become a horseman, therefore Animal Handling expertise +2, and all the hours spent on the obstacle course have given him Climb +2 as well.
A good +6 modifier on Death Saves, Constitution and Armor make a difference, but 1 Corruption brings it down a notch. Having a good Death Save modifier will save your life in combat for sure, and as you get older and more bruised in life your Death Save Modifier tend to go down, but you gain more Hit Points which can keep you out of trouble. Tossart has 32 hit points based on a d10 Hit Die which is a bit above average and will serve him well as he levels up. Hawk Tales is more bottom heavy, giving extra hit points to start with and less when leveling up. 10 Hit Points as a base for all creatures, a further 15 in size bonus for being medium, a full Hit Die and one per Presence. This gives humans around 20 to 40 hit points to start with depending on their stats, and then another 1 to 10 per level. This gives a 20th level character up to around 250 Hit Point maximum and bigger monsters a bit over 400.
Hit Points are only half the equation in Hawk Tales, they represent a creature’s ability and will to fight, not physical damage. This has opened some different uses for HP, to deal with fear, pain and non-lethal damage, more on that in a future post. The other side, when things get bloody is handled by Injuries, which are effectively eating away at your Death Save modifier. When you take injuries your chance to succeed on a Death Saves diminishes, and eventually, if you go untreated you will fail, losing a point of Presence, gaining Corruption sliding closer to your afterlife. Losing Presence (Pre) is permanent, and the only way you can normally get it is by leveling up, 1 point more per level. This can be devastating so there is an escape hatch built into the rules. If you have Hit Points left you can keep going in most circumstances, only facing the inevitable if you run out, giving you time to heal if magic is available. If you have Exertion, which is the resource you spend to do fancy stuff, like smite, turn undead and strenuous moves, you can spend all your points and get an extra Death Save. You still must succeed in it to stay on the safe side, so injuries are dangerous and take a days of downtime to heal from. Hit Points are fully regained by a long rest, or you can regain a Hit Die of them during a short rest, or by being Inspired.
Armor Class is handled in a less straight forward way compared to D&D, you have effectively three Armor Classes, Minimum (Touch), Limited and Full. When attacking you can do either Base Damage, Full Damage or Crit, and then there is Minimal Damage if you manage to hit an opponent’s Minimum AC but no more. Minimum Damage is limited by the opponents’ armor, for example Tossart’s studded leather has a Minimum Damage of up to 6. The effect of all this is that having armor protects you from taking severe damage but for the price of letting some small blows through. Combat is always dangerous in Hawk Tales, armor protects you better against a knight’s sword than it does against a mob of angry villagers with pitchforks. Even a commoner can harm and even kill a far superior opponent, under the right circumstances, like allies helping with flanking. A skilled warrior can quickly land a blow taking out all Hit Points on an opponent but still might need to spend a round or two to make sure the opponent is injured enough to not be among the mortals any longer.
Tossart is a human, which means he has a soul and a living body to host it. Not all creatures’ functions in this way, some are based on a spirit, dark souls or worse. There are 18 different Essences in the game, and they set up the rules for things like Key Ability, which is Presence for Soul based creatures. If you get killed by a vampire you might become a Thrall and that changes a whole lots of things, story-wise for sure, but Hawk Tales has the mechanics covered as well. Some forms of undead doesn’t need to rest, and they regain spells and other resources like Exertion by inflicting damage and pain, so they get stronger the more they fight. They need to inflict damage and pain on others to continue to exist even, be wary when facing them in combat. This type of encounter is what my mid-level play test session is set up to explore!
Prowess is a creature’s general combat ability, it dictates how many opponents you can damage and face without being flanked. Tossart is still a rookie having only Prowess 1, which means things get tricky when facing more than a single enemy. Human warriors can go up to Prowess 5, which gives you 5 Damage Dice to dole out each round, and you don’t need to be that worried until you face 6 enemies simultaneously. Some creatures can have Prowess above 5 , which makes them even nastier like flanking you all by themselves. Dragons and similar creatures don’t fight fairly, be careful!
The key takeaway from the back side of the character of Tossart are two, equipment for which a Slot system is used to manage encumbrance. Wealth is held at levels, and Tossart’s is well-off enough to handle expenses in Copper which means you don’t have to record things priced in lower coins. On Hand and total is a way to handle wealth stored at safe location or party wealth.
Tossart has no spellcasting powers at 1st level, he might learn that later if Heironeous thinks he is worthy.
This was quick look at Tossart’s sheet. He will be one of the pregens for my low-level game a VGHC and the sessions I will run next weekend. The character portrait of Tossart is made using AI and some Photoshopping.
I love creating and using the detailed terrain images and make maps from them, they are great for immersion and creative deep dives. Sometimes they are not the right tool for the job though, something simpler that concentrates on the essential is needed, enter the orienteering maps. I choose to call this style of maps orienteering maps to honor my inspiration for them, could also be called ordinance maps, the maps used to find your way as hiker, soldier or sportsman.
Thanks to my decision to keep separate different types of data, making maps that are very different in style and purpose can be made without too much trouble. A 15 x 15 mile area my porta-potty resolution took me less than an hour to make once I figured out how to set it up. That include variants with and without vegetations, light or colored versions and so on. The set of test maps depict the same area I presented here: https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/terrain-163572123 so if you haven’t read that post and download the images so you can compare the images in this post with the others.
The purpose of these maps are to make it easier to find key information, like roads, buildings and elevation. To be able to discern the lay of the land quickly and accurately, which means loosing clutter for a simpler view on things. Another benefit with this type of map is more room for additional information, like an overlay depicting battle movements, or the influence of cultists.
The elevation lines on this map are created using the Cartography Node in Gaea that created beautiful output but lacks the ability to properly label the elevation onto them. This is an ability that QGIS has but I haven’t dug that deep into QGIS yet, but I will so future maps of this type will come with elevation marked as well. A bit of more work but should be doable once I have the heightmaps properly georeferenced.
Data is stored as masks and then imported into Photoshop where it can be styled as needed. For the colored version I’ve based it on a parchment texture which blends through a bit too keep a bit more of a fantasy feel.
Another benefit with Photoshop styling is that you can add stroked and color overlays, which makes narrow things like roads and buildings remain visible even when you reduce resolution. Very handy for large area overviews.
Even when I shrink the 16K image down from over 16,000 px to 512 px it is still usable, but works bets in simple light version showing the water and roads.
This is a great base map for political overview maps.
This is the map I will use to annotate my game prep, and the after action reports. I will also experiment with more extreme styling to see if some cool handout maps can be created using these. You can download the whole sample pack here (537.8MB ZIP): https://annabmeyer.com/Downloads/NG/Shield%20Lands%201%2064K%20Herechel%20Orienteering%20-%201.zip
As always, a download manager is highly recommended!
Thank you again for your support!!
3rd part of the series where I look into the old stuff laying around that might still be useful. This time it sill be the more odd and experimental.
This winter version of the Flanaess was a first installment of what was going to be a series of maps depicting the Flanaess in all seasons. I started out with winter since that was one requiring the most editing. You can find it here: https://annabmeyer.notion.site/Flanaess-Winter-Map-3cc0da32cbe680b4ab54d4fb553a9153
The projects fell apart due to me getting deep into a new generation of maps using World Machine, and its possibilities. I realized that seasonal maps are much more usable at a local level that for the whole setting, so when I saw what could be done locally this projects kind of fell on the wayside. It got sitting on my hard drive until now When I uploaded it to my Notion site.
This was a more ambitious project that got published but hasn't gotten any love since. A map focusing on the rivers of the Flanaess, their navigability and flow.
It can be found here: https://annabmeyer.notion.site/Rivers-of-the-Flanaess-576CY-cc4bdffc59b9419da3a7fdc73b108317
A project that gave rise to a lot of thoughts around the topography and drainage of our beloved subcontinent. Rivers and lakes are constantly proving to be the most difficult part of mapping, never ceases to surprise me how much difficulties can be generated by them.
Back in 2022 I created an 576 CY Atlas of the Flanaess & Hepmonaland. It came on 98 maps plus legend and Excel database with names, in JPG and PDF formats. You can download all the files here: https://www.annabmeyer.com/atlas-of-the-flanaess-576cy/
A huge thanks to Duane Costa for all the help with the index!
In the previous post I went over where to find the maps and other things I have created, in part two I will go over what you can find in these places. Lots of it you are all familiar with, but there might be some stuff that might be hard to find (my fault) or made long ago and now buried among blog posts.
Cover the Flanaess and Hepmonaland and have been in development from 1998 to 2025.
You can find the inaugural 2012 edition, the 2017 and 2019 Editions on my Notion site here: https://annabmeyer.notion.site/Flanaess-598CY-Maps-e9acd7890cad4733b898eb81f5cfa67c
My website hosts the last Illustrator based version the 2022 Edition here on my website: https://www.annabmeyer.com/598cy-maps/
The 2022 Edition Illustrator file can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/b3y6axzv26avua3a3jhx1/Flanaess-Hepmonaland-Map-598-CY-2022-Public.ai?rlkey=0xngbazohu0ccupuy5kgt8whw&dl=0
598 CY 2018 Handout maps
In 2018 tested to create a series of stylized handout maps based on the 598 CY map, they can be found on the websites 598 page: https://www.annabmeyer.com/598cy-maps/
There are also terrain only versions of the 598 CY maps, in non-hexed versions as well as 12- and 30-mile hexed versions.
Political maps are to be found as well
and I even created a Photoshop Spread Map template to make it easier for all of you to make your own spread maps to illustrate politics or anything else you want. It can be found here:
https://annabmeyer.notion.site/4b5e63f83355456e93142c51d55aa7bd?v=39875a8d417344029c3a9bd18aa6b94b&p=94d797a40db344b58db9c25647db5d39&pm=c
GIS maps
The latest version of my 598 CY map is the GIS based and divided up the big 598 CY map into regions and a bigger map covering the core of the Flanaess.
You can find them on my Notion site, patreon blog in both jpg, pdf, psd and GeoPackage
https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/baklunish-598-cy-120992090
https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/baklunish-598-cy-120835478
https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/sea-of-dust-598-120783491
https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/amedio-598-cy-120703748
https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/sheldomar-598-cy-120636822
https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/old-ferrond-598-119296693
https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/tilvanot-and-119055291
https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/aerdy-east-598-118928750
https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/aerdy-west-598-118862512
https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/hepmonaland-598-125780074
https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/baklunish-598-cy-120835478
https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/flanaess-core-cy-123487711
Geopackage: https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/flanaess-117996644
After having made the Flanaess, and later added Hepmonaland, I was often asked to make a 576 CY version which spurred me to create a version depicting the setting at the earlier time.
The 2020 Edition can be found here: https://annabmeyer.notion.site/Flanaess-576CY-Maps-8b613d10dc244dfcbe435fea36fd4d92
and the 2022 Edition here: https://www.annabmeyer.com/576cy-download/
the 2022 Edition Illustrator file can be found here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wz1bml8t5v97frzfgdumh/Flanaess-Hepmonaland-Full-Map-576-CY-2022-public.ai?rlkey=eqz3pd1j7xj2usvplgs2knlwk&dl=0
The symbols for my 598 CY and 576 CY maps can be found here:
https://www.patreon.com/annabmeyer/posts/symbols-in-svg-95035579
I've stated to try and model the whole planet Oerth a few years ago, and so far the results are only low resolution, but covers several aspects like climate and alternate histories.
You can find my Oerth posts here: https://www.annabmeyer.com/oerth-test/
Time Zone is one of the special maps that created for my Oerth project.
All in all I have created around 500 shields and banners, both recreated the shields we know and love from published lore, but also expanded with lots of new designs trying to fill the gaps.
You can find them here: https://www.annabmeyer.com/heraldry/
and on my Notion site: https://annabmeyer.notion.site/Heraldry-173ceb34eec0469f94547f1cd54a5750
Note: notion only loads a few at the time, so look for the load more link at the bottom of the page!
Banners can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/library?tags=Banners
I hope this post are helpful for finding your way around stuff I have made. I've tried to keep things accessible even many years after they where originally posted but at the same time keep the costs down a bit, so I have experimented with how things are hosted. This needs to be looked into and I will make an overhaul of how I host my content as soon as my current big commissions are done.
Hawk Tales FRP, my rules project was not included here because it is very much in development and only in what I call alpha not ready for distribution yet, but something being redyed for a second round of play tests, starting in a few weeks.
Thank you again for all your support!!
This is a post I should have written again sooner, a guide to where you can find all the stuff I've been creating, the stuff you have invested in me making. So here comes an overview that I hope will be useful specially for everyone who hasn't collected my content for a long time, or are new to Greyhawk.
I'm using my Patreon as my blog, newsletter, and main way to try and virtually beg for some financial support to keep my computers running and myself fed and happy. Thank you all for making that happen!
Here I'm posting what I'm doing and creating, and some of these post are for supporting patreons only, at first. I'm making sire that all content will be available for all after a little while. My patreon posts are still being mirrored to my website after a day or so (with patreon privileges still intact).
Patreon doesn't have file sharing capabilities good enough for my needs, so most of the files are hosted on my website or Dropbox and links are posted here. I try to use my website for that since those links are more under my control than Dropbox.
Patreon has a search function, so if you click on posts in the top bar you can use the search or filter functions on my posts. Search is a search for any work among all my 500+ posts, but the filter function might be more useful. Under filters you can search using tags, and I have tagged posts to the best of my ability for years, so that might b a good help to find things you are interested in.
Please report any broken links and I will try and fix them as soon as possible.
My website https://www.annabmeyer.com is in dire need of a renovation, and it was something I planned to do this summer/fall, but thanks to commissions colliding it is now postponed for a while longer.
Now it is a blog mirrors, and a host of a lot of my content. The problem is that it is not easy to find. There is a top menu with links to some of my 576 CY and 598 CY maps, heraldry and Orth maps.
When you download things, remember to use a download manager on the larger files. They are too big to open in a browser, and the download process will often reset, download managers handle that much better.
My plans for the website is to make it a landing page and hub for my digital presence with links to places. Later on a second and even third website will be added, one as a content hub for geopackages and another as a geoserver, more on that later. I have already acquired the domain names for those!
Notion turned out to be a surprisingly good way to present and distribute content. My plan was to use Notion as my content hub while re-doing my website, and maybe even after that so I have uploaded almost everything to it. You can find it here: https://annabmeyer.notion.site/
There is a search function at the top, and to the top-right is a link to the "Greyhawk Content Database" which is where all the stuff is. The database page has a filter function that lets you sort search and filter things to find the stuff you want. Filter for things like type of content (maps, heraldry for example), format (jpg, pdf, png for example), year of publication, tag (Keoland, Iuz for example), collection (Terrain Only, 1:2 million, for example).
I have a Discord server for my patreon members, so if you are a on my paid tier and connect your patreon account with discord you will be added to it. This is mainly used as an easy way to reach out to me and chat, and to tell me what I need to fix on my maps!
I know I'm lagging behind in this field, and my content is spread out, and not the easiest to find and download. A big part is may fault, I should have invested more time and money to improve it. Another reason is that a lot of my stuff is big, too big for a lot of the usual ways to share and spread content on the web. Large files are costly to host and spread, and I don't want to use torrents and more shady ways to do it.
I'm spending over $600 per year on webhosting already and this will have to be more in the future to improve things. Commission money coming in will make that financially possible, and taking less commissions in the future will give me the time to do it.
Thank you again for all your support!
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
