Valley Colour Pallet

Here are a couple of photos of valleys, from which a colour pallet might be developed.  There are a lot of yellows, greens, oranges and blues in these photos, with the blue colours mainly appearing in the hills.

I'm not precisely sure how to capture the grandeur of these vistas in a 4" hexagonal tile, but I do think that any reprint of Magic Realm must meet or exceed the current standard for boardgame art, which has been set pretty high by modern boardgame publishers.

Reimagining Valleys

Excuse my horrible scribbles.  Here is a very rough reimagining of the look of the Magic Realm valley tiles.  A reimagined Magic Realm reprint needs valleys that have a decided yellow theme, to differentiate valleys from other tiles, especially woods, hills, swamps and forests.

Valley Counters For Magic Realm

I've always thought that the use of warning chits in the valley and woods tiles of the Magic Realm game was redundant.  Those tiles only ever have one dwelling or monster appearing in them, so why not replace those chits with the dwelling counters themselves?

The Ghosts appear in the valley tile with the Bones V warning chit.  Bones V could be replaced with a Graveyard or Grave dwelling. 

I would suggest that alternative starting rules be used, with the adventurers moving onto the Board on Day 1, with all of the dwellings hidden at the start of the game.  All of the Dwelling counters would start face down (question-mark up) and the adventurers would have to discover which valley tiles held which dwellings, in addition to adventuring for wealth and acclaim.

Each set of dwelling counters would have a different color on the question-mark side, to identify which tiles they belong to.  Gold would be valleys, light green, woods, and so on.

Enchanted Crossroads For Magic Realm

I posted the Crossroads earlier.  Here is the Crossroads tile again, this time with both the enchanted side and the regular side.  When enchanted, clearing 3 supplies Purple magic, clearings 1 and 6 supply Gold magic, and clearings 2, 4 and 5 supply grey magic.

Magic Realm: Hills

Here's an example of a Hills tile for an expansion to Magic Realm: the Defile.

Depending on the direction of travel through the Hill, you may be forced to travel over hilly terrain, rather than travelling around or through a valley, thus the Hill clearing in one of the two directions.

Magic Realm: Dismal Swamp

In addition to Hill, Forest and Ruin tiles, I envision a set of five Swamp tiles for an expansion to the Magic Realm game.  The Swamp tiles would be for travel and would also contain some monsters typically found in swamps (Snakes, Ogres and the like).  It would also be the location of the Hut, the abode of the Hags.

Here's an example of a swamp tile (the Dismal Swamp).

The swamp texture is okay but could be better.

And here is a draft of a Barrows tile.  It's a work in progess, as I'm not happy with the lack of secret passages or hidden paths, but not sure where to place one.

Magic Realm: Crossroads

I've never been terribly happy about the Borderlands tile being the first tile placed when constructing the Magic Realm map.

The title, Borderland suggests it should be on the edge of the map, not the centre, being the "borderland".

Having read the Elfland's Daughter by Lord Dunsany, i'm less unhappy with the central role of the Borderland in Magic Realm map construction, since the Borderland can also function as the border between the world of man and the magical world, all of which are parts of the world explored in the Magic Realm.

Still, I've always pined for a Crossroads tile, to take the place of the Borderland as the initial tile placement.

Above is one potential Crossroads configuration.  An adventurer beginning on the Crossroads tile can set off in any direction, although some directions are more challenging routes and exhausting than others.

Enchanted Hidden Forest

I failed to publish the enchanted side of the Hidden Forest when I posted yesterday.  Here is the enchanted side.  Gold and Purple magic are available to all clearings except clearing 2 (only Purple magic is available to that clearing).  When the Hidden Forest is enchanted, clearings 3, 4 and 5 are only accessible via a secret path between clearings 3 and 6.

Hidden Forest: The Enchanted Forests Of The Magic Realm

 

In the basic Magic Realm game, the Deep Woods is considered to be one of the Mountain tiles.  For My Enchanted Forest expansion for Magic Realm, the Deep Woods becomes the Deep Forest, and four other Forest Tiles are added to the game. 

 

Above is the Hidden Forest, which can only be accessed through a cave system or by traversing a range of mountains.  I'd say it was a perfect place for an Elfin Castle or Homely House.

 



Wasteland: A Ruins Expansion Tile For Magic Realm

I'm reasonably satisfied with the way the Wasteland Tile came out.  There are no desert tiles in the original Magic Realm game, and this tile would be accompanied by four other tiles, including the Ruins, Barrows, Heath and Midden.  The Ruins tile from the original Magic Realm would be moved to this set, and another Caves tile would be developed to take its place with the others.

Each Ruins of Arcadia tile has a single underground clearing.

These five Ruins tiles would, collectively, be the "Ruins of Arcadia" expansion set.  The other three sets would be the "Enchanted Woods", and Hills and Swamps expansions that I have not yet come up with names for.

Magic Realm: Hill Tiles

A took a couple of minutes and re-did the Hills tiles for my dream Magic Realm expansion.  I hope this set is a little easier to understand than my previous effort.  The Crossroad was given an extra clearing, number 6.  The Knight who blocks the bridge, the Tree and the Gibbets will appear in any clearing 1 of the Hills Tiles, while the tournament encampment and the cottage will appear in clearing 2.

Magic Realm: Precipice

This is a potential replacement for the Deep Woods tile, which would be removed from the Mountain tiles and placed in the Forests tiles in my dream expansion for Magic Realm.

The artwork, again, is sufficient evidence of my lack of artistic ability.

Magic Realm: Swamps

Obviously, I'd prefer that Richard Hamblen be involved in a re-print of Magic Realm, along with his stamp of approval on any expansions.  While we wait for some kind of news on that front, I've decided to play around with some expansion ideas of my own.

These are my rough sketches of some Swamp tiles.  They have five clearings, instead of the three normally found in Woods tiles, since my thinking is that it should be more difficult to navigate and take longer to pass through swamps.

It's tempting to add some hidden paths or secret passages to the Swamps, particularly in an attempt to recreate the Dead Marshes from LOTR, but neither the original Magic Realm valley nor wood tiles contained any, so I'm hesitant to do so here.  Maybe on the Wretched Swamp tile only, connecting 1-3 and 3-5?

Magic Realm: Hills

If ever evidence was required of my utter lack of artistic ability, these sketches will no doubt be suitable, final and absolute proof of same.

While I wait (impatiently) for Stronghold Games, Richard Hamblen, or whomever it is that intends to re-publish and expand Avalon Hill's Magic Realm, I'm having fun imagining what I might do if I put serious effort into an expanded game.

I've got four ideas for additional tiles:  Hills (above), Swamps, Forests and Ruins.  Hills and Swamps would be for travel and human and minor monster encounters.  Forests and Ruins would be for Monsters and Treasure sites.

The Hills tiles (Gorge, Ravine, Abyss, Defile and Crossroads) are similar to Valley tiles, but have some difficult terrain in the form of a Hill in one of the two travelling directions.  The Crossroads tile  serves as an alternative character starting point, if one does not want to start at the Inn, the normal starting location.