Thivola Regional Map

Thivola Regional Map: 1 hex = 24 miles opposite corners. Sub hex = 6 miles

So here is the regional map of the setting I am running my players in. This isn't anywhere close to the final draft, as everything is too saturated and such. But, this is usable enough to where I can give it to my players and we can use it.

I will be placing some more icons on the map as the game continues and demands it. At the moment, the red triangle is the city of Kosna, the dilapidated frontier city that the players are currently at. As you can see, they are at the edge of a large forest. They've encountered some interesting locals both new to the players and familiar. There are some roads on the more zoomed in Province map below. These roads lead to some of the keeps that lie on the frontier. Two of the ones that the players have encountered were housing not the locals, but other people. The first one had a tribe of onbu, squat grey fey creatures that were robbing the locals on the roads. The second one had a mercenary band of orcs performing a sky burial for a fallen comrade killed by a pack of Iemesch. 

In addition to Kosna, there is the black square in the upper area by the merging rivers. This is the capital of the frontier province, Rikantu. This is very much a large city and a great place to get some items that would normally be out of the price range for the players. This is also a good place for some more urban styled adventures. Dealing with guilds 

At some point, I do plan on putting the map through the GIMP and work on it. Clean up the line art more, color it in a much better way, better icons. For now though, this will suffice for my game.

Thivola Provincal Map: 1 hex = 6 miles opposite corners. Sub hex = 1 mile

Above is the zoomed in Province Map, colored with pencils instead of GIMP. This is the actual map that I use currently for the day to day adventuring. Currently, my players are stranded in the mountains that are two hexes to the right of the city of Kosna (the red and black triangle). You can see that I've put in some roads and icons in here for the keeps and such. The way I have been doing my 'zoomed in' maps is that I try and break up the globs of terrain more as I zoom in. So, looking at the Regional and Provincial maps, you'll notice that I broke up the glob of forest some. I did this by adding bare patches of grasslands as well as some forested hills and such. I like doing this because it makes the terrain more realistic and more varied for the players. Though drawing it was a bit of a pain, but it was certainly worth it I feel.

I plan on populating it some more as the month progress. One of my biggest blocks right now is the trouble of finding stable work. Sadly, it's taken up a lot of my time to search for a job that can help pay to keep the lights on. The other thing I want to work on is the largest Atlas map, where I can get into some of the real big changes in area, like rainforests and deserts and such. Plus, I do plan on adding a sort of confederation of free city-states for the players to interact with and possibly even rule in, if that is their sort of thing.

That's it for now. I do want to detail some of the adventure sites on the Provincial map for the next blog, as well as talk about how the "Adventure in One 6 mile Hex" is going.

Atlas Map of South Western Thivola (WIP) plus Campaign Stuff

With my 5e/ACKS mashup coming in less than a week, I've been taking a lot of the side work I've been doing the last couple of weeks and getting it all together for Session 1. Setting notes, NPCs, towns, people, monsters... I have quite the treasure trove of stuff ready for this game. While I've played 5e, I have only ever run it once, so I haven't gotten into creating my own races and such yet. Still want to get my sea legs with the current ruleset before I start creating. But I imagine it won't take too long.

Below is the Atlas sized map for South Western Thivola, the continent inspired by South America.

This map in particular is inspired by the Chilean-Argentinean area where Santiago is. The north western part becomes a desert due to the coastline mountain range blocking the trade winds and due to it getting ever so closer to those Horse Latitudes. Further north, there is a plateau similar to the Altiplano. I plan on having a variety of deserts up there. The barren wastelands, the dried up lake turned salt flat, and some sandy dunes. The mountain range is Etapu's Spine, named after the people's founder god of the earth and forests, Etapu. I plan on widening it some more as it goes more south. On the other side of it in the north lie the beginnings of sub tropical wet forest. Further north and east, I'll probably put in some more rain forests and swamps.

As you get more south, the terrain, climate, and vegetation changes to be more green and hilly. The mountains get closer to the coast. The climate becomes more temperate with Mediterranean summers. More rivers and some swamps here and there. This is where the players will be starting their adventures. On the other side of Etapu's Spine, I plan on widening the mountain range to be about 200 mi wide. Very much a montane/alpine area. Then, it will lead to a more arid, steppe-like area of nomadic tribes and such before hitting the coast on the other end.

From here, I have a great variety of terrains and climates that will make exploration and travel interesting to the players. While they will be starting in something a bit more familiar, they can end up in some deserts, rainforests, alpine, or even tundra. All in a geographically close area.

I do have more zoomed in maps for campaign use. I have a Regional Map with small 6-mile hexes that create large 24-mile hexes. I also have a Provincial Map with small 1-mile hexes that create a large 6-mile hex. And finally, I have the Local Map, which just focuses on a single 6 mile hex broken up into 43 1-mile hexes and half/third hexes. Below is a mostly finished Provincial Map. The players will be starting in the large triangle.

I'm bad at coloring within the lines

You can see that from the center to the upper left, my style of drawing changed drastically. I went from doing more symbolic mapping to more iconic mapping. I may redo this at a later point to keep the style consistent and to use a hex map that isn't so dark.

While this campaign is using 5e for the basic rules, I've been using ACKS for a lot of the nation building. You'll notice in the Atlas map that there are some pencil marks that encircle certain areas of the map. These are provinces of the empire ruling over the northern area. The cities are the capital holdings of the nobles in charge of these provinces, built up by ACKS's empire building rules. It was pretty interesting putting the rules to work. Setting up populations and big cities and the empire's metropolis capital in the mountains. The players will be adventuring on the frontier area, away from a lot of these big cities. However, with enough travel time and horses, they can get to one of the capitals in four days. Great if they want to buy and sell expensive stuff, or want more urban adventuring and a break from the wilderness.

I'll get more into detail with the mapping and campaign as the week goes by. Till then, let me know what you think about the maps.