maps update

[The Lesser Evil]

The images posted in this thread inspired me to get the Wonderdraft program and try my hand at mapping. Although it's not the first map I've created using the program (having some practice with completely non-canon/fan made domains first), here my first swing at Ghastria.

VIEW CONTENT:

Notes on the map:
-Most of the details came from the Fraternity of Shadows Quoth the Raven 20. However, I also checked Domains of Dread, Ravenloft Third Edition, and Darklords. One contradiction between QtR20 and Darklords is that in Darklords there is a river shown in the map of East Riding, which I have included. The scaling was taken from Domains of Dread.
-Since there's never been a detailed oriented map of the island before, I went ahead and used my discretion on where to place hills and the stone cairns (represented by the stone dolmen icons above). I figured the stone cairns might work in the back hill country as well as buried within the forests.
-I used the Dolmens and Ruins! community asset by Zalkenai for the stone cairn representations.

[Joël of the FoS]

Fun! Keep on mapping.

If you don't mind, we will collect them all for the site's map room, The Map Alcove.

Joël

[kourkenko]

A whole day for the first and then about 4 h total for Borca. Learning curve going well.

I'm toying with the idea of making Levkarest

It's why i like this engine, not the best in the graphic way but so easy to learn and to use... But the only part where i can make heavy critics is the river tool... It was such a pain to use it in my verdous land map that i totally gave up about trying to make the officials patterns.

Fun! Keep on mapping.

If you don't mind, we will collect them all for the site's map room, The Map Alcove.

Joël

I don't mind it, the only thing about mines: they're not canon at all ^^. If you want to put them anyway, i can make a listing, on the map itself, about whre the domains come from.

Anyway, i'm doing the verduous lands now after a week of break with our little friend Covid. It's not finished and i would like some advice about I'cath, one of the worst domains in Ravenloft's history. I would like to make the darklord and its domain a better thing (after all, she was in a forgotten realm scenary and she was badass in it).

VIEW CONTENT:

So in the far left, i put the isle of monster coming from 100 shades of gray, i will change it a little as their will be two darklords. The one described in the QotR netbook and the second one will a King Kong adaptation coming from Greyhawk. A son of Demogorgon that appeared during the Savage Tides AP, he betrayed his father and was imprisonned in a far land. So i took him and made his malediction an easy one: as a gigantic abomination, his size is halved each round he his in running water, so he want to bring destruction everywhere but can't even leave his island. And the liche darklord is creating monsters to put him down and have all the island for herself.
I made Sri Raji bigger and will update Arijani story. To the south, the Wildlands and The jungle of fire. I made the Endurance a flotting market so it can move everywhere in the cluster.The rest is coming from the two firsts Navigaccio netbook. Btw, does anybody have the worlds of ravenloft that was made available in 2012 ? I can't find a good link for it.
And the maelstrom is just here because it's fun. I was thinking about an undersea monster.
i'cath is the big domain with just the imperial city labelled.

The labels are too little of course but it's the biggest map i ever made. I've to finish it before.

[The Lesser Evil]

Anyway, i'm doing the verduous lands now after a week of break with our little friend Covid. It's not finished and i would like some advice about I'cath, one of the worst domains in Ravenloft's history. I would like to make the darklord and its domain a better thing (after all, she was in a forgotten realm scenary and she was badass in it).

VIEW CONTENT:

So in the far left, i put the isle of monster coming from 100 shades of gray, i will change it a little as their will be two darklords. The one described in the QotR netbook and the second one will a King Kong adaptation coming from Greyhawk. A son of Demogorgon that appeared during the Savage Tides AP, he betrayed his father and was imprisonned in a far land. So i took him and made his malediction an easy one: as a gigantic abomination, his size is halved each round he his in running water, so he want to bring destruction everywhere but can't even leave his island. And the liche darklord is creating monsters to put him down and have all the island for herself.
I made Sri Raji bigger and will update Arijani story. To the south, the Wildlands and The jungle of fire. I made the Endurance a flotting market so it can move everywhere in the cluster.The rest is coming from the two firsts Navigaccio netbook. Btw, does anybody have the worlds of ravenloft that was made available in 2012 ? I can't find a good link for it.
And the maelstrom is just here because it's fun. I was thinking about an undersea monster.
i'cath is the big domain with just the imperial city labelled.

The labels are too little of course but it's the biggest map i ever made. I've to finish it before.

Regarding the labels, I would recommend picking a larger size. You don't have to retype them- simply click on each string of text with the Label Tool- not the Move Label Tool- and pick a larger font size in the Label Tool sidebar.

Beyond that, several of the settlements are missing. Sanzhou has is missing Ch'a Zhen, and Hiva Mortu is missing its three listed communities.

When you decide on what terrain to fill your ICath replacement with, it will probably need several communities, including at least a couple of ports, to support the Imperial City. Placing some natural resource near the Imperial City could also explain why it was built so far inland. I would put some mountains or marshes somewhere a bit removed from the central regime's reach to hide some dissidents, rebels, and outlaws. Looking at historical maps of China and similar lands as well as maps of fictional analogues could give you ideas for terrain, placement of cities, and such to fill the land with. Another strategy is to think about how people would arrange themselves based on the location of resources and the balance of ease of access vs. defense. And of course for Ravenloft, how might the darklord's character influence the shape of the land. Are you having somebody resembling Tsien Chiang as darklord?

Judging by the skull shape, I'm guessing the Isle of the Monsters is the northwest island. Is that correct?

[kourkenko]

Regarding the labels, I would recommend picking a larger size. You don't have to retype them- simply click on each string of text with the Label Tool- not the Move Label Tool- and pick a larger font size in the Label Tool sidebar.

Beyond that, several of the settlements are missing. Sanzhou has is missing Ch'a Zhen, and Hiva Mortu is missing its three listed communities.

When you decide on what terrain to fill your ICath replacement with, it will probably need several communities, including at least a couple of ports, to support the Imperial City. Placing some natural resource near the Imperial City could also explain why it was built so far inland. I would put some mountains or marshes somewhere a bit removed from the central regime's reach to hide some dissidents, rebels, and outlaws. Looking at historical maps of China and similar lands as well as maps of fictional analogues could give you ideas for terrain, placement of cities, and such to fill the land with. Another strategy is to think about how people would arrange themselves based on the location of resources and the balance of ease of access vs. defense. And of course for Ravenloft, how might the darklord's character influence the shape of the land. Are you having somebody resembling Tsien Chiang as darklord?

Judging by the skull shape, I'm guessing the Isle of the Monsters is the northwest island. Is that correct?

Well, after looking at the map, i decided the eastern cluster needed more attention, and since the smallest domain is already 100 miles for north to south, i will make them in a whole new map, where i'll use Tsien Chang as an opressive empress who extended her domain by killing the darklords of the ones who appeared on the borders of her own. Imo the domains deserve more attention and need to be more interesting than a little isle in the middle of a sea.
So i finished the Verduous Lands map, i used and mixed several darklords coming from the 100 shades of dark. I fastly made artworks for the darklords, because i had looot of free time.

https://mega.nz/file/2z531C7T#mvXu-j6ES ... a7BNNhxrbU

For the isle of monster, i use Oonga because one of my friend reminded me of an old scenari we played. Isle of the Ape, the first high level scenari ever made for D&D in 1985... My first character died in a single blow in this scenari, after all, he just saw a whole tree launched at him in the first round of the fight... And took a critical in full face. And he was the tank... The fight was short.
The Jungle of Fire come from the QotR 24 (and i botched the pic of the darklord ^^)
Kuttu Varizaï come for Ramuthra (QotR 265 p121), and since one of my player is a mortal kombat fan, he will be the organizer of a martial art tournement where he eat the souls of the deceased (a mix between Goro and Shang Tsu if you know them), just for the fun.
Megalbaya is coming from Child of the night Werebeast, the weresnake worshipping the snake king and a real forbidden cult coming from india. The darklord is a weresnake who can ask the snake god anything anyone can dream of. But the price is always a human sacrifice or their own soul.
Hampi is coming from a real Hindu lost kindgom and the Harpy darklord from QotR 26. I think the darklord curse should be one head lead the body and the domain and the other, jelous and bitter, try to push the main head to kill them, so the one killed is the new leading one or something like this.
The endurance is now a floatting market, and one of the only ship abble to navigate the sea.
Gol-Ghan is coming from pathfinder, a cyclop lost empire. IMC, the domain was almost destroyed when entiring Ravenloft, the Maelstrom surged and absorbed its biggest part. The darklord will be a cyclop oracle who, blinded by arrogance, didn't prevented its civilisation to be corrupted by a demonlord. The wall surrounding the domain is a way for no corrupted cyclops to prevent the horrors inside it to escape and destroy the other lands.
And the Maelstrom is, i don't really know, if someone ha an idea i'll take it ^^.
Edit: oh and i forgot Nzari coming from the undead sea scroll 2003.

Critics and comments are welcome, as always. And ideas too.
Edit: i think i'll write a gazetteer, just because i've lot of time, but i would need help for stats blocks, i'm so bad writing them...

[The Lesser Evil]

As far as general things, I like how you clearly laid out the roads where they made sense. I like how you include several communities, large and small, in the appropriately populated communities- I'd love to hear your method of coming up with names. The terrain itself is very lushly detailed and vivid.

General thing to think about: where are your points of relative normalcy and stability in the cluster? Looking at the map, the human cities of Sri Raji and perhaps some regions of Nzari further removed from the colonists' influence. The existence of several communities in Hanpi, Megalhaya, and perhaps Kuttu Varizai suggest points of light there too, although as these are new domains it's hard to say. I notice that, as with the canon Verdurous Lands, most of the darklords are monstrous/non-human darklords (although a couple are former humans). You may consider adding a couple more domains with human darklords and focusing on human evils if all the new domains focus on monster/supernatural horror.

Onto more specific suggestions: In Sri Raji, I might suggest making the Yamata Mountains reach up into a mistbound region instead of being surrounded by water. This would allow you to get a Himalayan-like land-based entry to the cluster. You could reach it from the appropriate mountainous regions in your eastern Asian-analogue cluster or the Frozen Reaches, for example.

Regarding Kuttu Varizai, it seems like you had similar feelings of how placing Ramuthra in an arctic wasteland kind of removes him from the context he makes sense in. But then the question comes, what would be his new curse? Just now, I had an idea that one could restrict him to a mountaintop, such that he's been cursed with a body acclimated to only really cold regions, and therefore couldn't go down into the warm and lush climates of the lower elevation in his domain. If you went with this option, you'd probably want to put the temple on a white-topped mountain range in the middle of the domain.

I have mixed feelings of the Nzari-Wildlands border. On the one hand, the terrain transition between the Nzari and the Wildlands borders seems a little sudden and jarring. On the other hand, the Wildlands has been described by the Nzari people as forbidden and taboo. If such taboo exists, it would make sense that a distinction could be made and that the Wildlands had something to offer, as represented by plains/grasslands or less dense forested areas where it might be a bit easier to live. Perhaps a thing you might consider doing is putting transitional pieces of jungle area along a few parts of the border on the Wildlands side.

The general mold for places like Monster Isle seems to have a remote or hard to reach quality around them. I would say that this Monster Isle would be too easy to see/get to, if it were not for the fact that you mentioned most boats can't make it in the water reliably. If this inability is due to specific geographical features like the Sargasso Sea and the Maelstrom, I might suggest placing Monster Isle on the other side of Saragoss and/or the Maelstrom. However, if it's a general feature of the water, then argument for moving it is less strong. If on the other hand you want to keep Monster Isle accessible, it could make for a wicked pirate haven.

[kourkenko]

As far as general things, I like how you clearly laid out the roads where they made sense. I like how you include several communities, large and small, in the appropriately populated communities- I'd love to hear your method of coming up with names. The terrain itself is very lushly detailed and vivid.

Thanks, i always try to remember the simple fact that villages were always made at maximum one day of travel one of another. I'll also make several little communities in Sri Raji. And for the names, i use a generator of fantasy names.
https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/

General thing to think about: where are your points of relative normalcy and stability in the cluster? Looking at the map, the human cities of Sri Raji and perhaps some regions of Nzari further removed from the colonists' influence. The existence of several communities in Hanpi, Megalhaya, and perhaps Kuttu Varizai suggest points of light there too, although as these are new domains it's hard to say. I notice that, as with the canon Verdurous Lands, most of the darklords are monstrous/non-human darklords (although a couple are former humans). You may consider adding a couple more domains with human darklords and focusing on human evils if all the new domains focus on monster/supernatural horror.

IMC i will use the same vibe than Sri Raji: for the inhabitants everything is normal. In Sri Raji, thugs were fighting weretigers all days in a secret war and a demigod was eating one of them each day. Complitly normal... The fact that darklords are monstrous or were humans before reflect, imo of course, the hindu myths. Almost all of their gods and mythics creatures aren't humans (in appareance) and their heroes undergo changes (new limbs, legs or heads) each times they complete tasks. No heroes, god or whatever is a "nomarl" human.
The hindu vampire is a monstrusosity who, compared to our nosferatu, make him pass for a deformed humain. Just look at the filipino Aswang for example, it come from a variantion of the hindu vampire, a giant mosquito. All hindu monsters, beside very few exceptions (as the rakshasa) can't take a human appreance. The big majority are monsters.
For the politic, Sri Raji will be the more stable and calm at first glance, the other darklords don't control their domain as Arijani does. Each of the head of the hydra has a favorite city (it's why their are seven in the domain) and the head who control the domain will favorise her city at the cost of the others. the weresnake of Megalbaya is leading a forbidden cult (in our real world, even thugs were hunting the snake god cultists) so she have to hide and each time she have the upper hand on something, part of the cult is found and destroyed.

In fact, i think i'll take some part of the wildlands and transfer them to the sri raji. The only problem i have with the cluster is the powerhouse arijani is. And it coe with our westerner point of view because Kali is the goddess of murder, death and, in some myths, cannibalism but also the goddess of maternity, birth, motherhood. Their is no evil god, all of them are two faced, representing something but also its opposite. So Arijani is a killer but must also be a protector. I spoke about him with a friend of hindu origin and to sum up, Arijani, as written is not a darklord at all. He's a son of a demon god but was blessed by Khali, this blessing redeem him. He can be seen as a protector, but hisprotection come with a price... To make him a darklord, Khali should be put of the storyline.
Edit: and i don't want to get ride of this part of the story, so i'll have to find a trick.
And for Kuttu Varizaï: it come from a martial art tournament created in the north of India to distract Raru, the demon god of the moon at each eclipse. Raru eat the soul of deceased during the tournament. The myth was used to create the first mortal kombat ^^.

Onto more specific suggestions: In Sri Raji, I might suggest making the Yamata Mountains reach up into a mistbound region instead of being surrounded by water. This would allow you to get a Himalayan-like land-based entry to the cluster. You could reach it from the appropriate mountainous regions in your eastern Asian-analogue cluster or the Frozen Reaches, for example.

Good idea, i just need to find a domain

Regarding Kuttu Varizai, it seems like you had similar feelings of how placing Ramuthra in an arctic wasteland kind of removes him from the context he makes sense in. But then the question comes, what would be his new curse? Just now, I had an idea that one could restrict him to a mountaintop, such that he's been cursed with a body acclimated to only really cold regions, and therefore couldn't go down into the warm and lush climates of the lower elevation in his domain. If you went with this option, you'd probably want to put the temple on a white-topped mountain range in the middle of the domain.

Again, good idea.

I have mixed feelings of the Nzari-Wildlands border. On the one hand, the terrain transition between the Nzari and the Wildlands borders seems a little sudden and jarring. On the other hand, the Wildlands has been described by the Nzari people as forbidden and taboo. If such taboo exists, it would make sense that a distinction could be made and that the Wildlands had something to offer, as represented by plains/grasslands or less dense forested areas where it might be a bit easier to live. Perhaps a thing you might consider doing is putting transitional pieces of jungle area along a few parts of the border on the Wildlands side.

Will change that. You'r right.

The general mold for places like Monster Isle seems to have a remote or hard to reach quality around them. I would say that this Monster Isle would be too easy to see/get to, if it were not for the fact that you mentioned most boats can't make it in the water reliably. If this inability is due to specific geographical features like the Sargasso Sea and the Maelstrom, I might suggest placing Monster Isle on the other side of Saragoss and/or the Maelstrom. However, if it's a general feature of the water, then argument for moving it is less strong. If on the other hand you want to keep Monster Isle accessible, it could make for a wicked pirate haven.

At the beginning, i was thinking about making the Saragoss sea almost unavailable for sail but it would limit everything, i will need to find an advantage for Saltbitter compared to other sailors. You're right about the monsters island, it should be difficult to reach. I will put a storm and reefs around it. Just the isle with the mother of dinosaures will be free and a heaven for pirates, under her rule.

[The Lesser Evil]

In fact, i think i'll take some part of the wildlands and transfer them to the sri raji. The only problem i have with the cluster is the powerhouse arijani is. And it coe with our westerner point of view because Kali is the goddess of murder, death and, in some myths, cannibalism but also the goddess of maternity, birth, motherhood. Their is no evil god, all of them are two faced, representing something but also its opposite. So Arijani is a killer but must also be a protector. I spoke about him with a friend of hindu origin and to sum up, Arijani, as written is not a darklord at all. He's a son of a demon god but was blessed by Khali, this blessing redeem him. He can be seen as a protector, but hisprotection come with a price... To make him a darklord, Khali should be put of the storyline.
Edit: and i don't want to get ride of this part of the story, so i'll have to find a trick.
And for Kuttu Varizaï: it come from a martial art tournament created in the north of India to distract Raru, the demon god of the moon at each eclipse. Raru eat the soul of deceased during the tournament. The myth was used to create the first mortal kombat ^^.

What if you switched around Arijani's relationships to Kali and Ravana? In that he betrays Kali, slays her avatar/aspect/emissary, and defects to following Ravana? Part of Arijani's crimes could be that he subverted his followers in the former service of Kali and corrupted them into the evil cult that would later become known as the Dark Sisters. And so Arijani squandered/abused whatever blessings from Kali (or fantasy equivalent) he might have received, betraying those he should have protected. Would this approach work?

Onto more specific suggestions: In Sri Raji, I might suggest making the Yamata Mountains reach up into a mistbound region instead of being surrounded by water. This would allow you to get a Himalayan-like land-based entry to the cluster. You could reach it from the appropriate mountainous regions in your eastern Asian-analogue cluster or the Frozen Reaches, for example.

Good idea, i just need to find a domain

You might not necessarily need a separate mountain domain in the Verdurous Lands, just a mistway or mistways, that could lead a mountain region like the Frozen Reaches or a Tibetanesque realm like Dorjiloka.

[Mistmaster]

I don't use Arijani at all, I use his mother as darklord.

[KingCorn]

I like Arijani, even if he doesn't make sense in greater lore. I like darklords that were never human, and just love the idea of a shadowy tiger headed devil-king of not-india

[Mistmaster]

He is still the Tiger-headed King of Not-India, just not its Darklord; I'm toying with the idea of making him not-evil, even.

[kourkenko]

After looot of work and reading, i finished my next map. It's a big cluster based on ester asia with almost all fan material written.

VIEW CONTENT:

I took every eastern domain of the Navigaccio netbooks (bottom left of the map) and the ones created by Ryan Reynolds here:
http://fraternityofshadows.com/forum/vi ... 35&p=50345

Only the north of the planned continent was created, kinda sad since it was really promising.
I'cath is on the bottom right, iexpanded it and i'm currently working on it.

[The Lesser Evil]

Once again your efforts to graphically bring together and reinterpret the existing material impresses me. I especially like how you expanded I'Cath by separating the various bells and trees into different corners of the land. Now, adventurers wanting to destroy Tsien Chiang would have to go to great and multiple efforts to truly be effective.

And as usual, I like how you've left countless smaller villages and other sites unnamed to be filled in later.

I noticed you left out Rokushima Taiyoo. Was this intentional? If the exclusion was intentional, do you have any other intentions for Rokushima Taiyoo?

Another thing I noticed was that you had both Chonyo Egurimja and Chamhok Mun, which were imagined to be the same place existing in different points in its timeline. Do you intend to keep some kind of mysterious link between them, or reimagine them as completely different places?

As for missing tidbits, that link you mentioned specifies a village called Donglingmen on the western edge of the Yujing domain bordering the necropolis of Zhong Anling. in Shenlizhou, you may wish to include the village of Ch’a Zhen or the Great Grove amidst the ruins of Ch’a Zhen (depending upon whether you're cleaving closer to the Nebula Obscura or Worlds of Ravenloft 2012 version of the domain, respectively).

[kourkenko]

Thanks a lot. It's the hardest map for now because nothing was fleshed out beside the Navigaccio part.

For I'cath, i expanded it for several reasons. the first Tsien Chiang is an epic level character, featured in a sceanrii (declared non canon after for surely for copyright reason as Soth, Boris and Vecna) answering a call for help coming from a GOOOOD !!! The second one is I'cath was the worst island ever created because it wasn't a week end in hell, it was a TPK. How adventurers can cast four wish or limited wish, on a little island with an epic charcter hunting them with her daughters and several deadly treants and stay alive ? It was so bad...

So, i took the main island and decided she would study the mist and attract little domains to kill their darklords and took their domains as her own using her deadly treants. I changed the trees, the tree of poison is producing Gu poison ( a deadly invention... ) and the ravenous one is changing people in cannibals and ghouls after, no ideas for the two other but it'll come. Now her domain is joining a big cluster and she has to decide what her next move will be since big ones are present here.

I left Rokushima out because a netbook just appear on the board and i'm waiting for traduction to decide if it join the cluster or if i would build around it. Eastern ravenloft need an aswang. And i loooove the Jade Empror from Pathfinder, he's so bad, evil, clever... I like it.

Chonyo Egurimja and Chamhok Mun are the same domain but not at the same time, it's heavily implied (even if the autor choose to dismiss Chonup because he tought the darklord wasn't evil enough if i remember correctly) but they're so differents each i deicded to put them together. I think a Dm could link the two to make its players discover the reality of the two domains. A same country at two different times present in a same cluster could lead to some interesting stories and theories but it can also be dismissed as simply two diffenrents countries.

And yes, i forgot to put Donglingmen...

To finish i think i'll use the idea of linking Jorpuk to the Frozen reaches. It could make Vorostokov way more interesting than a simple wasteland. The only cluster i won't change is the Shadowlands because nothing was created beside Addar.

[Green Giant]

So, i took the main island and decided she would study the mist and attract little domains to kill their darklords and took their domains as her own using her deadly treants. I changed the trees, the tree of poison is producing Gu poison ( a deadly invention... ) and the ravenous one is changing people in cannibals and ghouls after, no ideas for the two other but it'll come. Now her domain is joining a big cluster and she has to decide what her next move will be since big ones are present here.

Great map! Really enjoying it. As for some help in regards to the 2 other trees -

* The Tree of Unending Lamentations could be the focal point of a haunted forest similar to Japan's Aokigahara. The tree could be killing people and turning them into incorporeal undead (ie ghosts, spectres, wraiths, etc.)

*The Tree of Malice is creating Oni. Its possessing people and turning them into Oni. If you have access to Pathfinder, the tree could be creating different types of oni.