Showing posts with label mapmaking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mapmaking. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 05, 2025

City maps

I've never been into making fantasy city maps, but I don't see why I couldn't. JP Coovert, who's presentation is sometimes lacking but who's content is often pretty cool, shows how easy it can be, especially for someone like me who's already decent at amateur fantasy mapmaking anyway.

Check it out.


I've got a few maps already handy that I can use as templates. I'm not going to copy them, but I'm going to start with them as examples of what I'm looking to make my cities like, and then start modifying them based on that baseline. Here's some fantasy city maps that I have. Not meant to be comprehensive; I have quite a few more.

This is Scuttlecove. It's maybe a little too small to be one of my big main cities, but it can certainly stand in for a place like Burham's Landing or Cayminster.

Fallcrest could easy stand in for Cockrill's Hill. I didn't at first envision that as being on both the upper and lower side of a big bluff, but I can either say that is is after all, or just not draw that when I draw a similar riverside country town.

Another option for a place like Cayminster or Burham's Landing. Obviously for the latter, it'll have to be flipped vertically, as the Darkling Sea shoreline is on the northside of town, not the south.

This Korvasa map is a big city on a shoreline, and would work quite well for Garenport.

I dunno; another reasonably large market town on a river. If I increased the building density and rotated it 90°, it could even be Mittermarkt

I grabbed this one mostly because it's large, dense, on a shore and has a river running through it, all things that I was looking for for at least some of my towns. I could use it for Lomar. Maybe flipped horizontally, it could even be Grozavest.

Another modest port town. Benchley or Waller's Grove would look similar to this.

Another decent sized port town. I have too many part towns; I don't have that many important ports that I'm looking to map yet! But I can look at it for ideas. The marina is surprisingly kind of sparse. I'd expect more docks.

Another one with rivers running through it. If I increased the building density, but otherwise used a similar layout, this would be a great Port Liure, perhaps.

Or, I could have a more visually interesting Port Liure, like this. 

Another Port Liure option. Or, flipped vertically, Garenport. Or flipped sideways, Barrowmere. This is from the Cityscape book, so it's already kind of generic. 

This map of Sasserine with all of it's canals is an even more visually interesting option for Por Liure, or any of the other port cities. But especially Port Liure. From the Savage Tide adventure path.


Two more port options. Of course, I could easy turn these port cities into river cities by just making the sea have another shore a little on the other side there, and I'd have a great Mittermarkt, for instance.

A landlocked city that could be Simashki

The most recent version of the Freeport map. Always a font of inspiration.

A strong contender as a starting point to be Port Liure. Although I think I want to make the towns riverfront a little broader and have more bridges than just the two. 

Another landlocked Simashki option.

Last city map that I had handy; a river city opening up into a broad bay or at least wide part of the river.

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

Rhûn and the Sutherland

Some Middle-earth maps have Haradwaith unlabeled; just the vague regions Near Harad and Far Harad. The original Christopher Tolkien map, however, is labeled Haradwaith (Sutherland) (Curiously, Forodwaith isn't ever labeled as Northerland, but y'know.) I don't really like the word Haradwaith or Haradrim a ton, so I prefer to use the English words of Sutherland and Southrons, or even Swertings.

But my favorite mystery in Middle-earth is the East; Rhûn. Lots of people want to assume that the east is like the Orient, and maybe it is if you go far enough, but the actual Easterlings that we're familiar with seem to be more like Scythians or Slavs, or at the most exotic, Huns, Magyars, or Bulgars, etc. Sadly, Tolkien told us relatively little about the East, and much of what he told us is wildly out of date by the time of the War of the Ring; we don't even know if the Sea of Rhûn (probably not it's real name, since Rhûn just means "East") is a remnant of Helcar or not. There's a vague reference to the Red Mountains in discussions about dwarves, and that they're at least as far east from the Misty Mountains as the Blue Mountains are west of them. However, that would put them pretty much (at the nearest) on the eastern edge of the map. So it's interesting to see these two maps. One of them is done by Amazon for their stupid Second Age show, and the other one is of... unknown provenance (at least to me). So, I know that this depiction of mountains, hills and forests in Rhûn are not canonical. But they are, at least, plausible, so I like them both.

UPDATE: Sorry; the original Christopher Tolkien map did have Haradwaith labeled. It was the revised Christopher Tolkien map that did not. The original map also had Forodwaith in small labels with Northern Waste as the bigger label for that same area.




Wednesday, October 09, 2024

Porhomok and more

A minor update has caused me to reevaluate my worldbuilding/development schedule. The campaign I was going to start on Friday (right after literally touching down from my work trip to Texas/Mexico an hour before) got cancelled last minute, as two of my three players were having car trouble and weren’t going to be able to arrive. I rescheduled tentatively for this coming week, but now it’s been pushed back one more week due to the two of three players’ availability again. I need to reread The Skinsaw Murders, since I’m hoping to adopt some of it for the session, but just for my own sake, I thought that if I’m going to reread that, I should reread Burnt Offerings, the module that precedes it before I do. I’m kinda inclined to reread the entire Rise of the Runelords campaign of six modules, honestly. Last time I read it, I read the Anniversary Edition where it was updated to the Pathfinder rules, with new art and a few expanded elements, but this time, I’m going through in the OG 3.5 version in the individual “magazine”-like format. There’s some really bad “cubist anime” art in this version that they didn’t carry forward, and I might actually miss stuff (not that I’ll remember or notice it) that was filled out in the revised version.

Anyway, that’s rambly. The point is, What am I going to do next? First, before the end of the week, I want to make two new videos; one will be an explanation of the new areas I’ve added on my newest version of the map: Porhomok, Nizrekh, Hyperborea, Gunaakt, and “Easternesse”, a neologism I created from Tolkien’s usage of Westernesse, which is also his own neologism based on Middle English from words like Lyonesse and Elvenesse. However, Easternesse isn’t meant to be a setting element that anyone actually goes and explores; that would be silly. It’s more a just-so story that explains why certain things in the setting are the way that they are. Gunaakt is also not going to be an element that I want to develop, other than to mention that it exists and it’s the source of the orcling race. Like Khand on the Middle-earth map, it’s just a label, and the Variags that come from it, while the source of a lot of intriguing and hot speculation from fans, never got any development in its own right. Gunaakt will be the same. It’s just there as a reference, and a place where the orclings come from, but I have no intention of adding more to the development of Gunaakt itself than I have already done.

I’ll also revisit what I’ve already said about Nizrekh, and possibly add to it, although I certainly don’t have any immediate plans for anything to ever be set in Nizrekh. However, I do want to talk briefly about some minor changes to the Leng and Pnath area up north of the Goldenwolds, and targets for future development include my newly added Hyperborean region (located up above Burlharrow, outside of the scope of the original map, but closer than I originally intended it to be. I may yet move it further north yet before I’m done with it…) and Porhomok. Porhomok is a brand newly defined region. Hyperborea has been around for a long time, albeit undeveloped, and Nizrekh and Gunaakt too, but Porhomok is new. The word is a combination of some stuff I looked up in a Hungarian dictionary, and I expect, which makes sense given its location, that the people of Porhomok are distantly related in some way or another to the Tarushans. The main reason for the introduction of Porhomok as a region, however, is to allow myself to have classical pirate themed stuff in a classic Golden Age of piracy tropical, or at least subtropical, environment. I may well call the coastline the Corsair Coast, and it’ll have a bunch of anarchic city-states, maybe even of more northerly based peoples. Timischer and hillmen foreigners with their Tortuga-like settlements; the natives of Porhomok being more like savages in the interior swamps, bayous and maybe even outright jungles. The people of Porhomok could be seen, at least deep in the boonies, as the classic adventure story savage; headhunters, cannibals, and the like, like you see in old 50s movies like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, for instance.

Then, I’ll make a different video also hopefully later this week, where I start talking about some of my setting’s ”supervillains.” I’m not sure if I want to start with a summary of all of them first, or do them one video at a time, but the characters I intend to cover include:

  • Amrruk the Ancient, the “Oozemaster” who almost certainly belongs in the swamps either around Innsborough in Timischburg, or near the Corsair Coast.
  • The Flying Dutchman (who obviously needs a new name), an undead pirate captain
  • Hutran Kutir, the Hex-King and “founder” of Baal Hamazi, who still lingers as an undead lich
  • Jairan Neferirkare, kind of Soul-catcher or The Lady from The Black Company is the main inspiration.
  • Kadashman, He Who Peers Into the Void, based on the alienist concept from old 3e material; a strange and disturbing transhuman creature of some kind.
  • Kefte Taran, the Witch-lich. Not her real name; I just like it as a catchy rhyme
  • Master of Vermin, an unnamed disturbing individual, probably the creator in some way or other of the ratmen
  • Seggeir Sherihum, the Mind-Wizard. Same concept as Kathulos, the villain of Robert E. Howard’s Skull-face. Maybe I should just use that name.

Speaking of that last guy, the Mind-Wizards of the Daemon Wastes will almost certainly not end up being of the Daemon Wastes after all, but related more to the south, Nizrekh or the Corsair Coast. I’ll probably do something else, or at least feature a different villain (and therefore title). But the campaign seed I have in mind for the Daemon Wastes would work quite well with a Mind-Wizard, so maybe it can travel between the Daemon Wastes and either Nizrekh or the Corsair Coast.

Undead pirate ship at Port


Monday, October 07, 2024

New map

I’m doing more of my “blogging” as “vlogging” on Youtube. It’s still just as rambly and incoherent and more for my own benefit than for anyone else’s as my blog is, but it’s a different format, obviously, and I’m having a bit of fun doing dictation into my phone, and then adding some video and a backing track to it to make it look like a documentary slide-show, kinda. I even add grainy image manipulation and some VHS-like tracking effects. This is just for fun to make the whole thing look old and scratchy. It also covers up a lot of the crappy audio on my recording; by adding a scratchy record effect and visual cues that reinforce it, the whole thing looks like an old movie, and nobody expects old movies to sound super crisp. Frankly, I find the whole effort more fun than typing blog posts, although it’s more work and is more time-consuming. And my audio is even more rambly  than my typing; at least I can go back and easily edit typing!

In any case, there’s a few streams of things that I want to update and work on in the next relatively little bit:

First, I didn’t end up running my game on Friday. One guy had car trouble, and wasn’t going to be available. He was bringing his fiancé. With two of my three players out, it didn’t make sense to try and do some one on one with the other guy, and I wouldn’t have wanted to anyway. So first off, I’m going to try and get caught up on what I need to read to run more smoothly. I put off re-reading The Skinsaw Murders, but I want to do that so that I’m not just completely winging it without stocking my barrel—metaphorically speaking—with enough apples to get me through the session. I’m also reading a number of other things; the Power Behind the Throne Companion from the Warhammer “remix” of The Enemy Within campaign, and Manual of the Planes from 3e. I started reading that in anticipation of my business trip, because I always bring that on business trips, but it turns out that I didn’t read it at all while away. But I’ve read it some before and since the trip. (I also finished a Simon R. Green novel; I've got two more in the same omnibus to read before I can put that back on my shelf.)

Secondly, I want to flesh out the next four Cult of Undeath fronts. That shouldn’t take too long if I can just buckle down and do it. Then I can decide what the next project is; Mind-Wizards of the Daemon Wastes, or some of the other ones that I’ve considered adding. Cult of Undeath didn’t end up being very vampire focused after all, and is only kind of in the eastern portion of Timischburg. That’s ironic to me, because years ago I invented Timischburg specifically to be the (as then conceived) Cult of Undeath setting in toto, but as the campaign has changed focus, my game and world-building efforts have changed focus, etc… well, it is what it is.

Thirdly, I have an EFX map drawn and a new DFX map. The new DFX map is actually kind of a draft, although I didn’t necessarily intend it to be when I started it. It’s a bit more Tolkien-style, and I added some more stuff on many of the edges, although they’re not very detailed. Much like how Tolkien’s map has South Gondor and Khand and Rhûn and Forodwaith, etc. on his map but they’re not anything except labels and blank land forms, that’s what I’ve got so far too. Mostly. But I do want to talk just a little bit about the new areas that I’ve added and expand on them in the next few weeks; Gunaakt—the orcling homeland which I’ve mentioned many times, as well as Hyperborea and Nizrekh, two places that I’ve also mentioned off-hand many times. I also added a new territory Porhomok, which is really meant to be, more than anything else, a place for the current crop of Nizrekhi to have come from who aren’t actual Atlanteans, but people who come to the ruins of Atlantis in the wake of its destruction. Porhomok also gives me an opportunity to develop a more tropical seafaring center; a place for classic pirate stuff, jungles, and all that; something that otherwise the Three Realms simply didn’t offer—but which I really kind of wanted to have anyway. And then finally, I have a reason on the eastern edge of the map for the ending of the coming of more people from the Old Countries; Normaund, Carlovingia, etc. Nobody else can come. There’s a major barrier that cuts off travel, which I’ve never really talked about, but now I’ve added, so what we've got is all we're going to get. No more immigrants from the Old Countries anymore.

So I have a little bit of world-building guidance on this new map. I’m actually planning on scanning both of those maps later today, and I’ll post there here when I do. Maybe I’ll even modify this post and add them then.

I’ve also got my “solo play” experience to launch, and sadly, I’m considering yet another stream, where I detail some NPCs and villains in more detail; some backstory and background. Maybe even character sheets, although that won’t be super helpful to anyone else, I don’t think. This is stuff that I want to do because even people who aren’t at all interested in my setting or my rules could still find interesting and useful. I think I'm going to start with Alys, but I want to do more "super-villains" of the setting; the Heresiarchs and more. I'd love to talk about the mind-wizards just a bit, and Jairan Neferirkare, and Hutran Kutir and more. After I figure out for sure which ones from my original list I'm actually interested in pursuing.

UPDATE: Got one of the images OK. The librarian scanning them for me screwed up the EFX map and cut it off. And of course the files arrived a pdfs that I then had to convert to an image format, which isn't quite as easy as it should be. Sigh.

Government employees. At least she was more friendly than your typical DMV lady.



Monday, May 20, 2024

Map styles (and new Dark Fantasy X map incoming?)

Looking at some old maps, because I'm thinking of drawing another version of the setting map. I currently have three versions of the setting map. By setting map, I mean general overviews of all of the DFX setting as a whole, as opposed to maps that I'm making specifically for campaigns. One of the maps was never meant to be more than a sketchy first draft, though, and the other was a one-off electronically generated map because I had a one month subscription to Inkarnate. But I still refer to them from time to time, and not just the later draft that replaced the sketchy draft. This new one will be a second "second draft" when I draw it.

This is an interesting approach, because rather than there being one, "canonical" map of the setting, I end up with various maps, all of which offer differences, some of them fairly significant, and I refuse to take a stand on the canonicity of any of them. The campaign specific maps are canonical for the campaigns that I'd be running, but once in another context, they would no longer be. Why would I do such a thing? Well, I like maps for their own sake so it's always fun to draw more, it's nearly impossible to get them to match up as well as I'd like anyway, so I embrace the differences, and I like having a variety of interpretations. In real life, prior to modern surveying being readily available, maps were not exact, although the mapmakers did their best to capture what they saw and measured and observed. These differences and variations offer an interesting approach, where perception of distance and scale and size could vary by the observer and the effect of having differing choices to go to could be a feature rather than a bug. Plus, my current maps prioritize a little too much the Hill Country, and I feel like Timischburg and Baal Hamazi have become somewhat shrunk from their original incarnations on the sketchy map, or even from the material that they made up before. The Boneyard and the Goldenwolds are fairly open and empty and yet take up loads of space that I kind of need for other features, which are in contrast, too crowded. 

That said, as I've said many times before, my conception of how to draw fantasy maps was hugely influenced by the Christopher Tolkien maps of Middle-earth, as I saw them in the old Ballantine copies that I first had, printed in the 80s, with the Darrell K. Sweet cover art. Although it was obvious that there were some differences between that map and the larger one in the hardcover version of Unfinished Tales, I never gave much thought to the difference until recently. Let me go through a variety of Middle-earth maps that I'm familiar with and discuss where they came from.

This is the original Christopher Tolkien map, first done in 1953 for the first edition printings, and as I said, printed in color (such as it is) with Unfinished Tales. This is often called "The General Map of Middle-earth". At some point after 1970 it was slightly modified and a few river names and other features that didn't originally feature on the first version were added to the map as it was printed subsequently.

In 1980, Christopher Tolkien redrew the map, cropped a few portions off (especially in the south) and added more features that hadn't been present in the original version of the map. Because it was completely redrawn, it has some additional stylistic changes, but otherwise looks quite similar. This was what was included in, for example, my first printings of the books that I had, and is therefore the most familiar to me. The image below is that version, although obviously my version didn't have any red ink since it was printed in a mass market paperback. This one is often called "The West of Middle-earth" and it replaced the above map as the de facto standard. Few, if any, subsequent maps don't treat this version as the canonical version to follow. Not only had a few features been added in, but a few other errors were corrected, such as the spelling of Nan Curunir, for instance.


In 1994, Stephen Raw was hired to redraw the maps yet again, although he follows this "The West of Middle-earth" prototype extremely closely, and the main difference is that this new map was formulated for clearer printing in the mass market paperback environment; Christopher's maps didn't always print well when miniaturized and printed on cheap paper with cheap ink. The point wasn't at all to change anything, just to make them technologically a little easier to deal with. I'm also not aware of Raw having used any red ink, so it appears that that iconic affectation came to an end here.


This is what you are most likely to see in any modern printing of the books, but as noted and as you can see yourself, it's similar enough to the 1980 Christopher Tolkien redrawing that you could be forgiven for not even noticing that it's not the same map.

Finally, for Peter Jackson's movies, the map was redrawn yet again, color was added, and it is perhaps a bit more decorative, but is also so similar that other than the fancy fonts and few other decorative flourishes, you could be forgiven for thinking that is merely a digital edit of the Christopher Tolkien map. 

Which, actually, I can't confirm that it isn't. I can't find any credit for who drew it. I'll throw it out there. Obviously it arrived too late on the scene to have impacted my own map drawing techniques, which were mostly crystalized in the 80s, but which I've tinkered with a little bit here and there, but there are a few things that it does well enough that I've kind of adapted them more recently in place of what I was doing. This is especially true for the coastlines. I've seen this style of coastline spread throughout the fantasy mapmaking internet in general, and I presume that this is ultimately the source for it.

There are also a couple of other maps that I have, one or two of which I'll post here, that are noteworthy. One of them is a scan of the Pauline Baynes map, which was made in the 1960s, while Tolkien was still alive. It's a poster map, made as a promotional item, and it's pretty nifty, but other than color and the little illustrations in the bubbles, doesn't add anything that the Christopher Tolkien 1980s map didn't do just as well.

The next two, I'm not sure of the provenance of them, but they're in my folder and I found them online somewhere. I highlight them merely because I want to talk about a few minor stylistic differences, not because the content is, of course, really any different.


This looks to merely be an edit of the Stephen Raw map, with a border added, some parchment looking color layer put on as well, and most of the water lines removed.


First off; again, not focusing on the content but the stylistic differences between them, let's look at what they choose to do for some of the elements.

Mountains. In almost all of them, mountains are stylized and drawn; illustrative more than cartographic. This is now the default for almost all fantasy maps; they looks like little isometric mountains with shading and stuff on them. While many fantasy maps have the light source to the West (i.e., shadows on the right) Christopher did it the other way, and that's always been my default too. The mountains are also quite exaggerated and pointy, and have a fair bit of variety. Although my own drawings of them had simple black shading, that's probably because that's all that I could see in the shrunken and cheap printings of the mass market paperbacks. I've since been a bit more detailed and "pretty" with my mountains and shading, and that actually looks more like the originals than I thought.

Hills. While largely similar to mountains except lower, some of the hills have much less defined shading; in fact, in the original Christopher Tolkien map from the 50s, many of the hills don't have any shading at all. My own hills have often been too moundlike and boring, but as I've gotten older and more experienced, they became more like some of the later versions of the mountains—just smaller and lower.

Forests. I never really liked the approach Christopher Tolkien took of drawing massive clumps of stylized individual trees. Not that it doesn't look fine; I did that on some early maps when I was in junior high, and I quickly found the process time-consuming, tedious and frustrating. I think I may be more open to it now, as my "cloud forest" approach has become fairly tedious too, just in order to get it that leafy look instead of a puffy cloudy look. I also really like the approach taken in the movie version of the map, although I've never tried to do that one myself. It doesn't look hard, and it looks pretty good. Christopher Tolkien seems to have used a similar style in a map of Beleriand that he drew, so that's probably why it was used again here. It actually has more of an old J. R. R. Tolkien drawn The Hobbit map look to it as well, so it's an interesting callback. The final version shown above has a more "dispersed tree" forest look.. Lots of maps use a similar style, but I've never been a huge fan unless your trees are dispersed but close enough together that they don't look like it, so it's very tedious with lots of trees needing to be drawn.

Coastlines. I also did coastlines like the 1980 Christopher Tolkien map for a little while until I thought that all of these extraneous lines were... well, extraneous. I didn't really pay attention before, but the original Christopher Tolkien map didn't have those, so it was an artifact of a relatively brief window of time, I suppose. But I really like the coastline approach that the movie version of the map does, which is also similar to what the bottom "wrinkled parchment" version looks like. 

Rivers, settlements and roads. All versions are pretty similar here. Rivers are thick lines, getting thicker as they get wider, settlements are usually just little icons; squares, although occasionally a triangle or little tower-like icon, and roads are dotted lines. In the movie version of the map, roads are dashed lines and done in red ink like the lettering., and each settlement is an individualized little icon... but I like the little squares or circles just fine.

Lettering. In all versions of the map, the lettering has a hand drawn look, although in the more "professional" versions below, they probably aren't actually hand drawn. The red lettering is also a unique affectation, so much so that black hand drawn maps with red lettering gives a map a distinctive Tolkienesque look.

Negative space. All of the versions of the map also make considerable use of white space, and don't overdo decorative or other details; many entire regions are detailed by nothing so much as a label, like Minhiriath, Enedwaith, Forodwaith, Harondar, etc. I've actually started filling in more of these with at least some small details, just to give the map more of a "full" feel, but I understand the appeal of the blank space map. The Lord of the Rings maps were specifically designed to showcase areas that were part of the plot of either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings or were mentioned in the appendices or in offhand references in the text. This isn't necessarily meant to imply that there wasn't anything in the empty spaces of the map, merely that there wasn't anything that was mentioned. My maps don't quite serve the same purpose, so large blank spots isn't really what I'm going for.

Very briefly, because this is already a longish post with a lot of images, here's a map of the Warhammer Old World, or at least a portion of it. I found this online, but I have the majority of this same area in an old White Dwarf from the early/mid 90s, and the vintage of the map has to be late 80s or early 90s, although I don't know who drew it or exactly when it first appeared in print. As you can see, it clearly follows most of the drawing conventions of Christopher Tolkien. A few notable comments or exceptions:

  • It uses the original Christopher Tolkien coastlines style, without lines going out all the way into the water, although otherwise the redrawn 1980 map is closer in style.
  • Forests are drawn a bit differently, but honestly it looks nearly as tedious regardless.
  • The lettering isn't red. The khaki land and light blue water color was added, I presume, later; the original version in my White Dwarf is just black and white. The lettering is also typeface, not hand drawn in appearance. I presume the original is just black and white.
  • The map is a bit fuller in general than the Middle-earth maps, with much less white space.
  • The map is also more illustrative. A lot more features are drawn, not necessarily with labels, and the features are also more decorative. Look at the big ledge east of the mountains in the south, or the Plain of Bones, for example. Or even just features scattered throughout the Dark Lands in general, like the Sentinels, or the Flayed Rock.
  • The images in the ocean are clearly copied and pasted from other illustrations that Warhammer had already commissioned elsewhere, and don't originally belong to the map at all. 

My redrawn setting map will probably be mostly like this Warhammer map. I'll try and do forests like they are in the movie version of LotR, as well as coastlines that way, but otherwise, the Warhammer map is the closest analog. Keeping in mind that the Warhammer map is deliberately and obviously attempting to do things like they were done by Christopher Tolkien in the first place.

I do also have a couple of 05 Pixma Micron red pens, so I'm thinking of doing the lettering in red, and everything else in black, a la Christopher Tolkien as well. 

Saturday, July 15, 2023

Annotated Shadows Over Garenport map

Let's annotate my new SHADOWS OVER GARENPORT map, shall we? Most of the important locations are detailed a little bit in the 5x5 supercut, or the original posts, but I'll briefly mention them here too, as well as the other areas that are either newly labeled, or which the 5x5s don't assume the PCs will get to, just for background info.

As noted in the last post, this is ~95% or so of the Hill Country. Technically there's an expansion region just to the west of this map, with some ranches and homesteads on the western slopes of the Sabertooth Mountains, in the so-called Cactus Balds dry foothills. That said, there isn't anything developed there from my point of view yet other than that there are dry foothills called the Cactus Balds between the Sabertooth Mountains and the Boneyard desert basin, and that hillmen settlers live thinly in said hills, so you're not missing much. The Boneyard, the Indash Salt Sea, and the northern attachments to the Baal Hamazi section of the map (really Lower Kurushat in this case) would be to the northwest of this section of the map, and Timischburg is to the southwest, west of the Knifetop Mountains. I've never mapped out anything to the north, east or south of this, but Hyperborea would (eventually) be found north of here, Gunaakt would (eventually) be found to the south, and "the Old Country" lands where the hillmen and Timischers ancestors ultimately came from are somewhere vaguely to the east, including Normaund, Skeldale, Carlovingia, Culmerland and Brynach.

Some of those areas are out of scope for the entire setting, and while they'll be vaguely referenced, I'll never do any development of them at all. And, of course, some of them will be further developed in the next two campaign plans, as I make them.

Northumbria This is one of the two largest component areas of the Hill Country, and mostly falls under the political and social orbit of the large city Garenport. The Umber River is considered the dividing line between Northumbria and Southumbria overall, although once the river empties into Waychester Bay it doesn't quite work that way anymore; Northumbria also contains the Garenkarst Peninsula down to the southern edge of the two bays of the Darkling Sea.

Southumbria This is the other major component area of the Hill Country, and is similarly under the influence of its biggest city, Barrowmere, on the shores of the large Lake Byewick. Whereas the elites of Northumbria recall the privileged position of nobility and royals in the courts of the Old Countries and look to recreate them somewhat, the Southumbrians are more dedicated culturally to the flatter, less hierarchical society that the hillmen have always enjoyed since leaving the Old Countries. Important landed gentry, successful merchants, artisans, and political leaders, etc. certainly have more influence than others, but in theory, there is nothing preventing anyone from reaching those ranks if they're hard working, ambitious and a little lucky, so they resist the self-styled Grand Duke of Garenport and his ambitions to unite the Hill Country into a Hill Kingdom with himself as the first king, driving an important political wedge between an otherwise united hillmen people.

Wolfwood Serving effectively as the northern edge of the developed setting, and a formidable barrier to travel further north, the Wolfwood is largely trackless, gigantic, full of dangerous wildlife, monsters, bandits and savages, and more. It represents the epitome of dangerous and untamable wilderness, and PCs wandering under its outer eaves will find that it shares features with Tolkien's Mirkwood, The Old Forest, Fangorn Forest, and the great Black Forests of Germanic mythology which were an effective boundary to their known world in the earliest Middle Ages.

Great Bight An area that is having some very tentative settlement by hillmen looking to escape the crowds and politics of the south. This is a combination of a natural bight in the woods, along with some felling of trees and clearing of land to expand it slightly. There aren't as yet any reliable roads, villages or towns in this area, but it's not completely unsettled either, and if wandering this area, you'll find it a mix of open wilderness and small homestead farmers of hardy hillmen.

East Marches While Northumbria and Southumbria are the two main regions of the Hill Country, there are two smaller and less culturally significant smaller regions too, the East and West Marches. The East Marches are north and east of the Darkling Sea. Cayminster is a significant port city that serves as a kind of gateway to the East Marches, although its still aligned with Garenport, and is considered part of Northumbria proper. The real center of the "movement" if you will of the East Marches is Burlharrow, a modest city or largish town with a fairly independent minded populace that is both still somewhat dependent economically on trade with Garenport (through Cayminster) yet also more and more resentful of its influence, and pulling away from it in ways that they can.

Woodrow's Hamlets A new settlement that the Sovereign faction in Burlharrow is encouraging growth in. Mostly its disaffected Northumbrians, leaving their cities behind, who are driving the settlement of this fairly clement and fertile farmland on the eastern shores of the Darkling Sea. But some of their own Marcher people are relocated to this area, as well as Southumbrians and others, and it is a place to watch for future development.

Darkling Sea A very large freshwater sea, comparable in size to the Great Lakes; the main body being more or less Lake Superior sized, while the Waychester Bay and Waybight are respectively like an attached Lake Huron and Lake Michigan hanging down from it. Because it's a more Western themed lake, it's not meant to imply that it would look like Michigan or Ontario, simply that that's about the size it is. The water is warmer than the Great Lakes. Maybe prehistoric Lake Bonneville would be a better comparison, or an extra large Black Sea during the Ancient Greece period. The water is fresh, not too cold, full of fish, and not overly stormy, making it a fairly reliable and fast thoroughfare relative to traveling by land around it. Most of the cities, towns and sleepy fishing villages on it are hillmen in nature, owing fealty or at least a tributary relationship to either Northumbria or Southumbria, but Lomar is the big exception.

Chersky Island A previously abandoned island on the Darkling Sea. Relatively large, capable of supporting a number of small villages, it had been largely ignored by the hillmen except for a handful of hermits or loners, and even Kurushat and Baal Hamazi when they swept over the area in the past did little with it (the Hamazin built a few forts, but they were only occupied for relatively few years). More recently, orcling refugees have petitioned the various local governments to be allowed to settle on it so that they wouldn't bother the locals as they migrated northwards by forming ghettoes or other hot spots for unrest among the hillmen, and now there are several small villages of orclings who farm, fish and otherwise keep to themselves, attempting to build an independent new nation in the region.

Cayminster An important trading city on the northern shores of the Darkling Sea. It's pretty bustling, and serves as "the gateway to the East Marches" not to mention anyone else who traffics for any reason in the northern reaches of the sea. As well as being an important port city, it's also a major hub on the Eastern portion of the Great Northern Road. It is almost completely hillmen in ethnicity, and has close political and social ties with Garenport.

Burlharrow As mentioned above in the East Marches entry, Burlharrow is the hub and center of activity for the entire East Marches region, which is politically and socially kind of a break-away region, refusing to bend the knee to the elites of Garenport, yet still needing them economically. 

Lomar Another important city on the northwestern edge of the Darkling Sea. Although many hillmen live here as an important plurality, it is really a city of the graymen, fleeing the wreck of Old Hyperborea. The original arrivals, settlers and founders of the city were from the civilized city-state of Zobna within Hyperborea. The Zobnans are friendly with the hillmen, welcoming many of them in their city (and many of them traveling, trading and otherwise traipsing across the Hill Country in turn) and the culture of Lomar has become largely syncretic; many Hillmen customs, political ideas, and even fashions have become second-nature to the Zobnans of Lomar. However, there is also a more recently arrived plurality of Old Hyperboreans from the city-state of Nyx, and they are much more jingoistic, and unwilling to assimilate to hillmen customs, or even Zobnan customs, causing a great deal of social and political conflict in Lomar. See the graymen racial deep dive for more information (note that I wrote that before I adopted the name of graymen, so I still call them just Hyperboreans.)

Calak A notorious orcling pirate haven on Chersky Island

Barion, Wrynn, Edenna and Roclus Peaceful (mostly) villages of orcling farmers and fishers on Chersky Island.

Kavust Prairie A wide expanse of fairly dry grassland stretching far to the east of the Darkling Sea. Sometimes called the Great Eastern Desert (although desert in this case shouldn't be taken too literally; think of the Great Plains prior to the advent of windmill driven wells, making the land unsuitable for much of anything except buffalo hunting) it presents a formidable barrier to travel to the east. Although the founders of the the Hill Country and even the elite class of Timischburg originally came from the east, they did so in generations past when the climate was a little wetter and cooler, making travel more manageable. As the Kavust Prairie has become drier, it is nearly impossible to cross easily. Dry electrical storms, lightning strikes and wildfires are common deep in the prairie. Dangerous wildlife and reputed haunted sections make it even worse. It's been many years since regular immigrants from the Old Countries crossed over to the Three Realms.

Great Northern Road An ancient highway built before the arrival of the hillmen that travels all the way from Burlharrow to Vuukrat and beyond to the shores of the sea in Baal Hamazi, built and otherwise maintained by the Hamazin and Kurushat empires, it originally went only as far as Lomar. The extension from Lomar to Cayminster is relatively newly built; for many years traffic between the two was done rather by ship (and much of it still is.) This new section is still somewhat primitive compared to the paved stone ancient sections of the road. The road from Cayminster to Burlharrow is now considered the easternmost extent of the Great Northern Road, but in reality, that road existed already before the connection between Lomar and Cayminster was built, so it got "grandfathered" into the Great Northern Road designation by fiat. In reality, this section is better maintained and more heavily traveling than the preceding section between Lomar and Cayminster. However, as the threat of orcling piracy on the Darkling Sea has become more serious, more and more merchants and travelers are preferring the road to the sea, so traffic has seen an uptick in recent years.

Only the eastern half of the Great Northern Road shows up on this map, of course, but it extends considerably farther to the west.

Plateau of Leng This mysterious geographic feature is more than just an imposing physical feature, it is also a magnet for queerness and dark sorcery, and evil people and things have been known to live there since time immemorial. Luckily, they are mostly content to stay high up on their plateau, so little is known about this place, other than to avoid it. In any case, it doesn't feature in the campaign, so I'll not elaborate too much on it here, other than to point out that it is known to be inhabited by cannibals, ghouls, and even more foul creatures. Although not shown on this map, the benighted city of Kadath of the Great Ones is located here, and the infamous Vale of Pnath; a deep cleft on the top of the plateau.

Bucknerfeld Built around and even within the caldera of an old extinct volcano at the northern edge of the Sabertooth Mountains, and close to the salt flats where once the shore of the receding Indash Salt Sea (to the west of this map) came, Bucknerfeld is another fairly cosmopolitan city. Although currently considered a hillman expansion settlement, its position on the Great Northern Road means that leftovers from the Hamazin and Kurushat empire still linger here too. It is the most important (and most northerly, so far) city of the West Marches, which mostly extend south of here along the Cactus Balds, foothills of the Sabertooth Mountains on the western slopes.

Sabertooth Mountains A large mountain range, similar to parts of the Rockies or Alps that separates the Hill Country from the lands to the west of it (except see Bucknerfeld above.) Rough, difficult to travel through or even to, they are an imposing and effective barrier to the west, with few passes, all of which are difficult to find and cross. However, to both the north and south of the range, the land is lower, and the Great Northern Road passes just to the north of the range, and the Fenroad that crosses through Eltdown connects Southumbria to Timischburg.

Goldenwold A grassy prairie that is mostly unsettled, although large tracts of farmlands on either side of the Umber River is growing year by year across it. As of now, it's mostly a barren big game land notable for large herds of buffalo, wild horse, and antelope, as well as the red cheetahs, red lions, sabertooths, cougars, bears, wolves, coyotes, and other predators that hunt them. Many hunters also come to take the enormous ivory tusks of the naked mammoths and hairy mastodons that still roam this territory as well, prompting some of the landed gentry in the area to push for some control of the territory so that they're not over-hunted.

Umber River The largest river of the region, providing irrigation to the farmlands between the Goldenwold and the Copper Hills, as well as the technical boundary between the regions of Northumbria and Southumbria—although the rural inhabitants of this region tend to care less about the politics of Barrowmere and Garenport, and don't particularly consider themselves overly loyal to either. In fact, many of them are somewhat impatient and exasperated with the political division between the two halves of their people, and believe that it should be done away with, and the Hill Country go back to being a united nation of one hillmen people. The river itself is not navigable, due to rapids, waterfalls, and an extended wooded area that is dangerous to cross, so few major settlements have sprung up along its sides as of yet.

Tazitta Hills An area of drier badlands, where hillmen are generally not welcome. The inhabitants, such as there are, of this area are leftover Tazitta tribesmen (hence the name) who were still here in scattered small bands when the hillmen arrived; although rumors of their ancient more powerful and prosperous polities of the past suggest that they were once a much more widespread and powerful and civilized people than the rump end of their populace that was left for the hillmen to discover.

Copper Hills An important part of the northernmost part of Southumbria, squeezed between the forests and the Umber River, the Copper Hills is an important source of mining for the Hill Country. In spite of the name, iron is more plentiful here than copper (although copper was found first, and is what first drew miners to the area) and even silver and gold mines have occasionally been found here, although generally believed to be mostly played out now. Two important towns anchor both ends of the hills; Pineytop and Cockrill's Hill, although many other smaller hamlets, villages and minor settlements are scattered throughout the hills. Both are a little bit more ethnically mixed than is normal for hillmen settlements, as in the past many orcs were employed as manual labor by the early miners. Many of these have moved on for Chersky Island, but a number still remain. It's also one of the places where woodwoses are more prone to gather in the Hill Country, and many were there before hillmen settlement had expanded very much. And, of course, many people of mixed hillmen and Tazitta blood live in the area, since the forest has lingering tribes of the secretive and clannish Tazitta people still wandering them in whatever numbers yet remain.

Waller's Grove, Roan's Mill, Rettersville and Benchley are all smaller towns nestled in the farmlands between the Copper Hills, the Umber River and the Waychester Bay. This area is collectively called the Northwoodshire, which I didn't have space to label on this map, and is an important part of the second column of the 5x5. Although on the northern edge of Southumbria, it is very typically Southumbrian; landed gentry own large tracts of land, worked by tenant farmers and small villages of artisans, traders, and other support staff, while away from these large plots, many independent smaller homesteaders make a riskier, yet potentially more profitable and certainly more independent living. As you get to the northern part of the Northwoodshire, the grassland is drier and less fertile, and traditional farming gives way to cattle (mostly) ranching. In spite of the independence of the homesteaders, they are friendly with the sharecroppers and landed gentry, because the Tazitta and others are not always peaceful, and a strong united hillman front is sometimes required for mutual protection.

Waychester Bay A major part of the Darkling Sea that swings deeply south on the west side of the Garenkarst Peninsula. Heavily traveled, and a major hub of trade between Northumbria and Southumbria.

Waybight A major part of the Darkling Sea that swings mostly south on the east side of the Garenkarst Peninsula. It is only lightly settled, and no significant towns exist on its shores.

Garenkarst Peninsula A large peninsula that is associated with Northumbria and Garenport in particular, in spite of its relatively southwards position. A (poor) road connects Garenport to eastern Southumbria across this peninsula, although by far most such traffic is by boat. Although green and covered in trees, this isn't very arable land, made up of rocky and steep limestone karst hills. Some few small settlements and homesteads are on the peninsula, though, as well as small herds of cattle, sheep and horses. The peninsula is also where many from the Garenport area go for game meat, which is plentiful here. The road is notorious for bandits which harry small groups or single travelers.

Garenkarst Woods The thickets part of the forest on the peninsula is the Garenkarst Woods. There are many possibly spurious stories told about witches in these woods. The portion called the Garenkarst Woods is more rolling rather than steep, but in reality the Garenkarst Woods and the Garen Hills are more a question of degree rather than clear separation.

Garen Hills The drier part of the hills that are steeper, rockier, and have fewer trees are traditionally called the Garen Hills, but as noted above, there isn't really a clear separation between the Garen Hills and and the Garenkarst Woods; the more easterly part is simply lower and less rocky and has thicker tree covering than the western part.

Garenport One of two of the largest and most important cities in the Hill Country, Garenport is the political and social center of Northumbria, and the self-styled Grand Duke who claims sovereignty over all of Northumbria lives here. His wealth and power extends to some degree throughout all of Northumbria and even beyond, although how well his subjects actually recognize his right to govern them varies considerably (although to be fair, where there is more skepticism of that right, it's a moot point, because that is usually the more rural and far-flung parts of the region anyway.) Garenport is more traditional in many ways, and looks back to the privilege of the nobles of the Old Countries, and seeks to replicate them in the Hill Country, whereas the character of the hillmen is somewhat skeptical of that entire concept; many of their ancestors having fled the Old Countries generations ago specifically to not be told what to do by self-important nobility. Garenport, as you can imagine, features heavily in the 5x5 for SHADOWS OVER GARENPORT, especially in the first column, and more information about goings-on in the city can be found in the 5x5 posts.

Chokewater Forest A large forest region that separates the Northwoodshire from the more southern part of Southumbria (sometimes flippantly called the Southwoodshire.) Although thick and overgrown, this isn't a particularly dangerous forest; and I mean that relatively. There are no large number of ghosts and hauntings, no werewolves, thurse tribes, woodwoses, necromancers, or other inordinate hazards; just thick woods, and potentially dangerous wildlife and bandits. It's still avoided, but mostly because it's difficult to get through (and the mundane hazards may be mundane, but will still ruin your day) meaning that there's only a fairly narrow corridor between the forest and the bay to travel from the south to the Northwoodshire. This constricted travel corridor is part of what causes the Northwoodshire to have a unique personality; it is relatively isolated and insulated from cultural or political problems or influences related to the rivalry between Barrowmere and Garenport. The Chokewater River runs through the forest, often running at various rates of flow, so that sometimes it's a little babbling brook over rounded stones, while other times it spreads in vast wetlands through the trees, making it another hazard of travel. To the western edge of this forest, the ground rises and becomes rockier, until it becomes literally a small mountain range, called the Chokewater Range (not labeled, but clearly marked). The tops of some peaks peek (no pun intended) out above the trees, but mostly they are completely blanketed by the forest. On the western slopes, however, the Chokewater Forest takes on a much more sinister nature, and this part of the vast woods is called the Haunted Forest.

Chokewater River See above. Running from the Chokewater Mountains, it passes through the Chokewater Forest, where you can easily see where it got its name. A small stub of it runs out of the forest across the cleared land and into the southern Waychester Bay. Here, an old stone bridge allows traffic to travel safely across the river along the road that connects the main part of Southumbria to the Northwoodshire.

Haunted Forest Read the full write-up here, but otherwise, I've copied and pasted (with some small edits to bring it up to date) the important part as follows: The territory of the Hill Country, up to at least the borders of what is today Timischburg, was probably first settled by early ancestors of the Wendaks.  Some few still live deep in the Haunted Forest and other remote areas of the territory, but it is here that their touch is the least disturbed. Cursed burial grounds, sacrificial altars, barrows and more leave their lingering taint on the ground, and there is a rumor that "sympathetic magic" ties the Wendaks to the land in a way that it does not for other peoples; the land itself, and some kind of genius loci favors them and occasionally actively fights against more recent interlopers.  In addition to a kind of vaguely defined genius loci haunting the region and making modern peoples uncomfortable deep in the forest, lingering semi-sentient spirits either cursed Wendaks or those whom they summoned in ancient times still linger, worn down to being little more than vague emotional resonances of hate and defensiveness, but which can occasionally embody themselves in bodies of earth and wood and stone, animate ill will in the animals and trees and brambles, or even appear as wraiths or wights of some kind.  These spirits are not organized by anything other than a general animus towards anything in the forest that is not Atlantean, and they are usually essentially mindless, possessing no thought, but only emotions such as hate and rage.

Evil empires of kemlings and surturs washed over the territory in the past as well.  They built fortresses and waypoints and roads, some of which still linger in the forest, and the evil influence of their sorceries still taint the territory around them.  The kemlings were descendants (in distant generations) from daemonic ancestors, and they used their dark magic to "burn out" pockets of resistance against the Wendaks.  While the genius loci of the forest has re-encroached on this territory to some degree, the curse of much of what the kemlings built still is there.

The modern population is not cursed or evil, of course, but their ability to have "settled" the forest is limited.  They have been more successful where they've cleared it, and turned it into farmland, and torn down the stones of whatever menhirs and henges or crumbling fortresses of the past might have been still there.  This has only happened to a small degree around the very fringe of the forest.

The latest to enter the forest, however, have been various dark sorcerers, witches and worse who, being driven out of civilized society, have sought refuge in the forest and established their own small, haunted demesnes deep in the woods.  Many of these are necromancers, or wizards who speak with other spirits besides the dead; strange fey spirits, or even daemons.

Therefore, the haunted forest has layers of hauntings, many of which are actually in open competition with each other.

Pickton One of the few settlements just outside of the forest, nestled in the arms of the western Chokewater Mountains, but south of the wide expanse of trees. Pickton is a lumber town, and provides much of the wood that makes its way to Barrowmere and beyond.

Lake Byewick A large freshwater lake, on the shores of which is Barrowmere, the political and cultural center of Southumbria. Some other towns are on other portions of the lake, but it is not necessary to travel by boat; the lake is large, but a modest coach ride will get you to the far side and to Willow Springs or Omsbury without too much trouble.

Barrowmere So named because of the ancient Kinzassalian barrows and marshes that surrounded Lake Byewick when the hillmen first arrived. This fertile land quickly grew in population, and today Barrowmere is one of the largest cities in all of the Hill Country, and rival to Garenport. As Garenport is the center of Northumbria, Barrowmere is the beating heart of Southumbria. Ruled by an elected Lord Mayor, the city is heavily focused on trades, crafts and artisanal industry, and powerful guilds, merchants or self-made wealthy hold sway. In fact, there's often ill-disguised contempt for the pretentions of the elites of the north, who claim to be nobles.

Omsbury A smaller city on the north shore of Lake Byewick. It is connected by a fairly direct road to Pickton, and lots of lumber and timber traffic on great wagons goes up and down this road. Omsbury processes some of this lumber, and has a thriving furniture industry. Many other logs are placed directly from the docks into the lake and poled along south to Barrowmere.

Willow Springs A market town on the eastern side of the lake, a little off the beaten path. It's become also a quaint resort town, and many wealthy merchants and politicians from Barrowmere keep luxurious cottages on the shores here

Knifetop Mountains Very steep and sharp mountains that, among other things, provide a barrier between the Hill Country and Timischburg in the southern edge. There are few passes, and most are out of the way and as difficult to even reach as they are to cross.

Eltdown A backwards and surly town on the edge of the fens. Important mostly because the only reliable road between Southumbria and Timischburg passes through the gap (the Fenroad mentioned above) between the Knifetop Mountains to the south and the Sabertooth Mountains to the north. However, travelers are cautioned to stay on the road, as the fens themselves have an evil reputation. The people of Eltdown don't have any particular loyalty to the Hill Country or Timischburg, and may be partly hybrid in their blood, although others claim that they are the remains of an even more ancient people that lingers. I have an older but still mostly accurate larger write-up of this location here.

Eltdown Fens Dark and foreboding swamps, fens and marshes that linger in the broad and vast hollow between the two imposing mountain ranges to the north and south. It is rumored that it was once a lake which has been slowly being overgrown and reverting to swampland. It is also rumored that a fell city of some ancient evil people lurks yet deep in the marsh, although if anyone has found it, they have not brought back any report of it. People generally avoid the fens, and those who do not are seen suspiciously as likely witches or sorcerers, meddling in things that they should not. The suspicious Eltdowners occasionally get overzealous if they hear of anyone wishing to explore the fens, and simply lynch them before they can bring more trouble down on the heads of the town.

Chatterwash River (North and South Fork) A river that flows eastward from the Knifetop Mountains. The southern fork continues south out of the reckoning of the hillmen, but the north fork fails and dumps into a gigantic mire. Fertile farmland covers the land between the two forks, and feeds much of the lands between the Thursewood in the south and the Haunted and Chokewater Forests in the north.

Chatterwash Mire The ignominious end of the north fork of the Chatterwash River. A strange collection of outlaws and secretive cultists live deep in the swamp, making it dangerous to traverse except in large groups, especially at night. These people have a preternatural affinity to their terrain, and few even see them. They are superstitiously rumored to be unable to speak except in the calls of birds and animals, and to live exclusively on the blood of human (and demihuman) victims but these tales are not true. Probably.

Burham's Landing This town, more than most, is put off by the political conflict between Northumbria and Southumbria, since the majority of their livelihood is facilitating trade and travel between the two along the Waychester Bay. Travelers are a common sight on the street, and the people are fairly open and don't like to take sides.

Roanstead A smaller town that's a satellite, of sorts, to Burham's Landing. Nestled near the Thursewood Forest, it is also a garrison town, and Fort Roanstead is the original reason for the founding of the town. The training facility for the Hill Country Rangers is here. Northumbria isn't thrilled by that, but the Rangers have steadfastly refused to get involved in politics, and refuse to bow to either the power base of Garenport or Barrowmere either one.

Thursewood Forest A deep, dark and vast forest, notorious for the presence of the thurses that gave it it's name; bestial, savage humanoids that are generally believed to be unable to reasoned with or lived with at all. A generation ago, a large force of violent thurses attacked and burned down Rabb's Hill, which had been a thriving town before that. The fire ended up burning out of control and a large stretch of the forest remains an obvious burn area, with blackened dead trees and blackened ground, lightly covered with new growth. The thurses were themselves caught in their own blaze, and many died in the forest fire. The rallying Southumbrians killed or chased off the rest of them, and the thurses have been quiet since. Most believe that their numbers are greatly reduced since the Rabb's Hill Massacre, and that they are relatively powerless deep in the eaves of the forest.

Rabb's Hill A smaller settlement of brave and hardy souls is trying to rebuild Rabb's Hill, but it is a new venture, and remains both poor and poorly defended.

Orcling Trail The route that orcling refugees take from their homeland of Gunaakt to the north. Most of those that travel this trail are making for the Chersky Island far to the north, and have yet many leagues to travel. 

Ruins of Dunsbury Mostly just for the GM's reference. The Southumbrian column of the 5x5 has the PCs seeking an ancient gold idol hidden in the remains of a crumbling villa called Dunsbury near the Orcling trail.

Grym's Tower Mostly just a reference for the GM. Few people in the Hill Country remember the name of Jareth Grym, and of those, even fewer know his current whereabouts or activity, thinking him just an old bogeyman or serial killer story from a prior generation.

Shadows Over Garenport map

I finally—after many, many dumb delays—have printed my "finalized" version of the game rules and put it in a report folder, so I have a decent copy to refer to at the table. I also made, scanned, and slightly colorized my SHADOWS OVER GARENPORT campaign map (refer to the tag of the same name for more info). This is meant to be a tool for the game. It's not exactly the same as my overall campaign map; not only was I deliberately adding new details that came up during my 5x5 development, but I was adding them as I was sketching the pencil underdraft of this map as I thought of things that the map needed, or noticed instances of white space that were too big, begging the question of what is there, etc.

How is it a tool? Well, for me as the GM, it's a tool because it shows me the entire layout of the area in which the game will take place. But also, the traveling rules from the appendix require the players to have at least a general idea of the geography so that they can make plans on how to travel, what kind of route to take, etc. I'm going to presume that all of my PCs are generally familiar with the rough outline of the geography, so exploration will be more on the micro-level; i.e, nobody is going to discover an unknown major mountain range or lost civilization over the horizon, but knowing that there's a range of mountains, or hilly country, or a river, etc. doesn't mean that you know much about them other than that they're there, until you get there yourself and see for yourself what it's like.

The map also doesn't show a lot of micro-details. One can assume, for instance, that most well-traveled roads have small hamlets, villages, settlements, or at least coaching houses at regular intervals, and that there are a vast number of smaller roads, trails, paths, etc. that aren't marked at all, as well as smaller streams, ponds, lakes, bogs, etc. Even empty spaces have unmarked places of interest at fairly regular intervals. I've actually given a lot of thought to how to make overland travel in game be more interesting than it normally is. I've also done a fair bit of research as to what other developers; amateur or professional, have come up with. As a fan of hiking, road trips, and overland travel in general in real life, it seemed a shame to make it either boring, or something to be skipped over in game.

So it's a tool, but it's not meant to be the be all end all of geography of the campaign. It's still a rough guide, not an exact representation.

Note that this is mostly a re-defining of the Hill Country, because that's the major area of the SHADOWS OVER GARENPORT campaign. It's not exactly a one to one correspondence. The West Marches just west of the Sabertooth Mountains aren't shown at all for instance; and even the Sabertooths are truncated a bit east to west. The Cactus Balds and whatever (so far) unnamed settlements of the hillmen are on them is simply not shown, nor is it expected that this campaign would ever end up that way, since none of my 5x5 makes any mention of any of them whatsoever. 

Because the Hill Country is the most protagonist of the protagonist nations of the Three Realms, both of the next two 5x5s, although centered on one of the other three key component regions, will have at least one tie of some kind or another to these far-flung bastions of the Hill Country; I anticipate that the revised CULT OF UNDEATH will send the PCs for at least some kind of side quest into the southern Cactus Balds, and the MIND-WIZARDS OF THE DAEMON WASTES already assumes that the PCs were trying to make their way to Bucknerfeld; I'll eventually make sure they get to see those areas in those campaigns, even if just briefly.

Again, although the distinction is somewhat esoteric, this isn't meant to be a campaign setting map; it's a campaign map. It's utility is focused on running the specific campaign, not in being a reference for the setting overall.

In a future post, I may decide to annotate the map, with brief entries describing all of the named area on the map for reference.