This is a map of Erimia. I have not named many of the landmarks on purpose. For one, the citizens of Ipolis have no need to name anything, because they very rarely, if ever, venture outside the city walls. Secondly, I really like the process of players interacting with a world. When that creative process comes up with names, the world jumps off the page and begins to live in a way that I never could have made it by naming everything.
I have marked three things on the map, because they are a part of the daily lives of those who live in Ipolis:
Hex 0808: The city of Ipolis (which literally means "the City") is a giant walled metropolis and a haven from the Chaos that rules the wilderness around it. With the powerful magics available to it from the energy node that lies at the center of the city, Ipolis is virtually self-sustaining. It has no trade with other cities — even if it knew of other cities, it has no real need. The only outside contact the citizens have is through the small community of Gate — those soldiers (mostly Replicants) who guard and maintain the small gate of the city and those merchants that sell the soldiers their wares.
Hex 0805: Pyros Mountain (meaning "Fire") looms large in the minds of the citizens of Ipolis. It is called Pyros Mountain because of the mysterious glow it gives off at night, which can be seen for miles. Thought to be the source of many of the strange monsters that occasionally test the defenses of the city, it is at the center of every nightmarish imagining of the people of Ipolis. Indeed, the glow is the result of a fragment of a chaos weapon that fell from the sky during the Great Cataclysm and buried itself deep within the bowels of the earth.
Hex 0705: Here are the ruins of a city that was ancient at the time of the Great Cataclysm. Called Aripia (or "Ruins") it is carved out of the rock of antediluvian river beds and stands between Ipolis and Pyros Mountain. Some of its spires can be seen from the city walls. In the past, adventurous souls have wandered out to see these great carvings. Those that returned told tales of their wonder and hinted at untold wealth that might be buried beneath. When tales are told of the Golden Age before the Great Cataclysm, they often tell of the wonders of this city that now lies in ruin.
4 comments:
Holy Moses, but that map looks great. How did you make it? I've been experimenting with map-making recently [http://wheel-of-samsara.blogspot.com/2009/03/continued-distraction.html], but this is out of sight.
Thanks for the kind words. In a former life I was a graphic designer and still have all the toys. In this case, I primarily used Adobe Illustrator. It is a vector program which can layer.This offers a tremendous amount of flexibility. In addition, I have an archive of interesting maps and symbols. The ones I like the best get converted to vector, which I then mix, match and adapt when making something like this.
Is there anyway to get you to put up a higher resolution picture capable of printing. I like your ideas and your direction for this campaign. And I especially like this map with the simplicity. I agree that leaving it un-named will probably have the best effect possible.
Very neat. I like what you've done with scale here -- when you see a mountain that's three hexes high, it makes an impression.
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