But what I always knew that I'd eventually have to do, if I was ever to make a hexcrawl capable map, was to make a honest-to-goodness, old skool D&D hexmap of the place. Which, I have now finally done. This map isn't supposed to be complete-complete—I've deliberately left lots of blankish spaces with only terrain. One is to assume that there are many more villages, hamlets, and other small settlements than are noted (because actually very few are) and even up to reasonably sizable towns can be inserted without too much work or effort in places that are otherwise blank. For instance, most of those cultivated farmlands all along the southeast coast and up near Preszov should be assumed to have small hamlets or even villages in them for the local farmers to gather to market, etc. Most of the hexes through which the rivers run should have similar hamlet and village sized settlements, but only the small town of Ebenbach and the larger town of Mittermarkt are actually noted.
Also; I have put no ruins anywhere on the map, but naturally one can assume that there are some. This is a very old country that's been continuously settled for thousands of years.
Of course, by ruins, I don't necessarily mean D&D-style "dungeons" but that's only because I don't really do dungeons myself. Someone else could certainly assume their presence, if desired. But you've got to decide for yourself where they are, if so. Also; I exported the map, but didn't save it. In this, I made a rather significant mistake; because I forgot to add the coordinates first. (sad face) So, you'll have to use this without coordinates. You'll survive, no doubt. I'll probably have to eventually re-draw it because of this, so look at this map as a "draft" I suppose. Sigh. If I'm going to go to that much trouble, I'll probably double the size of the map and halve the scale, to allow more detail.
So anyway; let me describe the map. If you're not quite familiar with the Hexographer app, then you might not necessarily recognize every one of the terrain tiles, so I'll describe what's what.
Up along the top edge of the map, we have hilly shrubland. The Knifetop Mountains should be obvious; they look like mountains, plus they're labeled. The forests should also be obvious, but you can see that there are three colors, more or less, to them—the darkest is heavy evergreen forest, the medium one is heavy mixed forest, and the lighter one is heavy deciduous forest. The Haunted Forest is thus the "darkest" of the forests, and the Bitterwood, the "greenest"—although in winter, when the leaves have all fallen, that obviously won't be true.
The Eltdown Fens are marshlands, and should therefore be obvious. Below them is a long ridge of forested hills, gradually making their way up to honest to goodness snow-capped mountains by Mittermarkt. South of this ridge is flat shrubland, and south of that is grasslands. On the other side of the river are forested grasslands, followed by prairie.
The cultivated fields and low hills and mountains in Dracul and Ubyr Counties should, hopefully, be obvious. There are some rough canyons and cliffs and badlands in Vyrko County and around Preszov. The other slightly tealish hexes that aren't the marshes of the Eltdown Fens is the marker for moors, and should be seen as "wind-blasted heath"; rolling downs, maybe, often soggy and foggy. Much like the wilder parts of northern England and Scotland—had The Hound of the Baskervilles described a real, supernatural entity roaming the lonely moors, this is the kind of place in which it would have taken place.
That dotted stuff in Orlock County and near Inganok is the symbol for "poor grasslands"; I actually think of them as perhaps not unlike the Warren Sand Dunes or Sleeping Bear Dunes of western Michigan; covered with salty grasses, but unable to be sufficiently fertile to be arable for very much.
The dots out in the ocean near Innsborough is a reef.
Two large lakes are also noted; the Henefelsee, and Eltdown Lake. The latter is for reference; the fens are actually difficult enough to traverse that people don't really go out that way.
You'll also note that the Black River is navigable, and where it connects the towns—especially the very large town of Mittermarkt—to places further south, such as Grozavest, there are no trails or roads. There should be many more smaller (and perhaps unmarked and lacking in signs) trails and roads that connect many more towns, villages and hamlets all throughout the countryside, but since most of those towns, villages and hamlets aren't noted, the roads that lead to or through them aren't either.
And finally, you'll note the dead zone around Grozavest. I've said before that it is the astronomically implausible fact that it is always night in Grozavest. The sun does not rise nor set within this circle.
The Grand Duchy of Karameikos hexmap has one hex = 8 miles. This seems about reasonable for the scale of Tarush Noptii. Before I looked that up, I was thinking about 10 miles per hex, which seems like a rounder number, and therefore one that I'd be more inclinded to remember; but 8 and 10 are close enough that I don't really care. Feel free to do either, to taste, but I'm assuming 10. This means that it is unlikely that travelers will cover more than a couple of hexes a day even in the best scenario. On horseback and on a road, or perhaps in a boat that travels through the night on the river, you can get three hexes done a day. In the rougher country, it's more 1 hex per day average while traveling. And for those who are taking it slow, hunting and gathering their own food as they go, perhaps, or otherwise spending time exploring the hex a little bit there's definitely no way you're getting more than one hex a day of travel done.
UPDATE: I did make a bigger map. The scale here is different; 1 hex = 5 miles. Also, I moved a few things a small amount. This is the "real" hexmap for the setting. In fact, I've replaced the old hexmap that I drew and overlaid a hexgrid on on the FANTASY HACK sample setting page with this one.
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