Cool to see all this work done. My campaign will be returning to Darokin this Spring, and in my other campaign I wlll be DMing a short session in a civil war -state Darokin. These will be extremely useful.

To make this thread useful in a more permanent manner, perhaps someone involved could collate the information into a document and send it to to Shawn's Vaults? There's already a lot of usefull stuff on Darokin, and this would complement it nicely.

This sounds perfectly reasonable to me. On a map, they would be Westmark and Eastmark, but anyone passing through the second would probably get blank looks, or a smirk, if they used those names. I'll definitely have to note this in my slowly coalescing resource on Darokin.

Geoff

Just a heads up that I have updated the Darokin map.



I'm sure there will be some comments on the names I ended up using. I'm still open for changes.

First up, WOW to the new style and the inclusion of neighbouring countries.

Regarding province names...

- I'm not sure Ardelphia was actually a separate territory from the Lakeside borderlands. It certainly deserves to be though, given the geographical distance. In any case, it should be marked as a borderland.
- I strongly believe the various "marches" lands should be adjacent (see my explanation for why upthread). This applies to "The Marches", "Northmark", and "Southmark".
- There's no historical basis for having a march-styled land where Southmark is.
- Kudos on having the good sense to use "Canolbarth" instead of "Alfheim" for that borderland.
- "Amsorak", "Northshire", and "Camaelle" probably need to be identified explicitly as borderlands.

Ardelphia was destroyed in 846 AC, over 80 years before the Great Merger, so there were never any Borderlands when it was still a populated city. As such, I kind of question the naming of that region as "Ardelphia", simply because it seems unlikely (to me) that they would name a region after a city that they never even bothered to rebuild or reclaim (it's one of their biggest failures).

Also, East Dwarfgate might be termed the Emerlas (or some versoin of that), as that is how that region is known to the elves. Then again, maybe not.

Fenhold is a lot bigger than it is depicted in CM8. That goes back to the idea that the borderlands should actually be broken into smaller administrative units, though, I suppose.

If a land is named "Ardelphia Borderland", it would be an Alamo-esque reference, rather than being named after the city as a living entity.

Maybe the region was already known as "Ardelphia", the town and the countryside too.

I like the work very very much. But I miss Farstead Dominion.

I like very much the neighbouring countries! Now we have a complete Darokin - Alfheim - Upper Broken Lands map! Quite nice, and you can travel a lot

I suppose, it just seems strange to me that 80+ years after the fact, and after the nation has undergone a major political transformation, that the region would be known after a city that has not been inhabited in a generation or two, rather than, say after a particular noble who rules there or his dominion, or so forth. I would find the latter situation far more likely. After all, if Ardelphia has not been reclaimed in all of that time, it seems that the central focus of the inhabitants of the region are more on some other area- a village, or other aspect of the region (maybe they're vintners, or something, and the area is named Vinland)- rather than a ruined, long-dead, given up to the ghost and no longer a concern of anyone city.

I live i Rome, Italy. Here, in the countryside, there is a village, better, a village runis. The village was abandoned in (I think) late 1800, becouse of a plague. It was called "Monterano". The village was in great part digged in tufa. I and my palyers was there some times to explore some ancient ruins and feel as our PCs when they explore a dungeon. The area outside the ruined village is called "Canale Monterano" (meaning somethin like Monterano Hollow, Monterano Deep and Monterano Canyon), just after the village name. (you can see some picture of what it's like today here: Monterano = Old Ardelphia

[Link dead — try this Google Search instead —Thorf, February 2021]

Nobody lives there, nobody is interested in it. And more than 2 generations.

So, I see nothing strange about it...

Glad you approve.

It does take a long time to set them up, and republishing them also takes a while, so I probably won't be updating them very often. (Then again, I didn't anyway! )

This was a simple result of our choice of the name "Lakeside"; the Ardelphia region is not "lakeside" by any stretch of the imagination.

So, we either have to find a more all-inclusive name, or split the region in two. As the Ardelphia region has two forts and a very dangerous border, it seemed natural to make it the heart of the new (borderland) region.

As to where the split should go, it could be above Bronsdale, or it could be further along towards Amsorak province.

I'm fine with that, but in that case we need new names for the regions currently marked Northmark and Southmark. The reason I used them where I did was simply for lack of names. Northmark et al seem like rather generic names for regions without anything else of note, so in the absence of another name I put them in.

(I may have missed some names in this thread, though - there have been quite a few lists, and while I tried to take the best from all of them, it was a bit confusing at times.)

In any case, what would you rename them to?

That was an easy call. I don't like the idea of using another country's name as the name of a region - borderland or not. Hence my preference for Nethlinn over Atruaghin, etc.

I think I decided halfway through the map that including "Borderland" in the region name was going a bit far. I don't think they would have that in their official name. Perhaps I should mark them all with "(Borderland)" after their name, as I think I originally intended.

The very lack of effort to rebuild suggests to me that the whole region is largely uninhabited/abandoned, aside from the military installations. I agree that if the region was resettled the name might be changed, but as Arcanda said, abandoned areas tend to retain their original names. Look at the Scottish island of St. Kilda, which was abandoned long ago but retains its name regardless.

In the end, it depends on how we think the nation deals with failure: do they tend to brush it under the rug and forget about it, or do they want to keep it fresh in their memories so as not to repeat the same mistakes? Ardelphia has always struck me as the latter kind.

That would be nice, because then we could have two distinct names rather than an east/west pair. But do you think the name is used in Darokin?

Yes, that is definitely true. The name is there right now because people wanted to see it on the map, I think, but really it should be a sub-dominion in a larger borderland region, with a different overall name. Of course, that would remove the name "Fenhold" from the 8 mile per hex map altogether...

Hmm, it's a difficult call. Drawing in Fenhold on this level of map would make it the only sub-dominion marked. And yet naming the whole region as such goes against our knowledge of the area as presented in CM9.

Perhaps we could kill two birds with one stone, and divide one of the smaller borderlands regions (the equivalent of two 24 mile hexes - there are a couple like that) in two. Mark one of them Fenhold, the other Farstead.

It would be nice

Wow Thorf, the updated map is wonderful!

I definitely like the decision of not subdividing Borderlands Regions on the map and to use the charge of Magistrate of the Borders as a sort of "governor" over many smaller Boderlands dominions.

However, I'm still a bit unsure about Fenhold position. I think the barony should be located in the Borderlands Region labeled "Canolbarth Borderland". The central hex of Fenhold Barony IMHO should be the third 8-miles hex south of Glowtree Good Magic Point, in Alfheim, becouse:

1) the northernmost 8-mile hex of Fenhold Barony seems to be heavy forested (from CM9's map);

2) the trade road featured in Fenhold's map (still from CM9) seems to cut the barony in half (while the road seems to cut the Fenhold of your map too much north).

If so, I'd call the Borderlands Region east of Dolos by another name.

Only my two-cents suggestion, anyway!

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And what about Altan Tepes Borderland?
In the original map it seems there is a borderland north of Selenica and an other one east of Selenica.

Also I keep on wishing for Farstead as it is my favourite. And the town of Alleybrooke too

But we are speacking of details... the work is one of the greatest ones

That sounds fine to me. It's either there, or the current location of Dolos - which would obviously be problematic.

If we put Fenhold in there, though, we will split the Canolbarth Borderlands into three parts. There's no established way to show that Fenhold is a sub-dominion of the whole borderland region.

The easy way out would be to keep one of the regions Canolbarth, make up a new name for the other, and ignore the whole sub-dominion thing, at least as far as the map is concerned.

That still leaves us with an unnamed region (the one currently labelled Fenhold on my map). And we also need to place Farstead, which has much looser conditions for placement.

Looking at PC1, here's what I have found:

• There is a town called Alleybrooke "on the trade route to Selenica". Probable locations for this town: between Dolos and Nemiston, maybe close to the location we discussed for Fenhold. It could go on the tiny stretch of road in the Cruth area.
• Farstead can be placed anywhere in Darokin in a forested area. PC1 suggests near the Dreamlands, but states that elsewhere is okay too.
• The map of Farstead shows clear land with the village of Farstead, and forests close by to the south. A river flows through the forest and past the town. That's all - unlike Fenhold, it's very flexible in regards to placement.
• PC1 also shows two small villages, Tallwoode and Grundale, two hexes and three hexes respectively south of the Dreamlands.

So... We have quite a few things still to add from there.

One solution would be to make Comaelle one 24 mile hex including Tallwoode and Grundale, and make the other half Farstead.

Any thoughts?

And what about Altan Tepes Borderland?
In the original map it seems there is a borderland north of Selenica and an other one east of Selenica.

Also I keep on wishing for Farstead as it is my favourite. And the town of Alleybrooke too

But we are speacking of details... the work is one of the greatest ones

The 8 mile per hex map includes an area not shown on the 24 mile per hex map, which links the two borderlands. I have chosen to leave them linked, under the name Altan Tepes Borderlands, since they are almost all mountains anyway.

Hehe, I was writing my post about these while you posted this. Any preferences for where to put them?

This seems the best solution to me. 8-miles map doesn't need to show anything, so once we've reached consensus over the precise location of Fenhold, we can go with the larger Borderlands Regions without any problem.

The "Fenhold" Borderlands Region would then need another name - but at the moment I've no nice ideas...

The same is true for Farstead. I'd put the town of Alleybrooke along the Darokin-Selenica road, at the point in which the trail coming north from Fort Cruth crosses the road itself; there, or in the Borderlands Region labeled 'Fenhold' at the moment.

The domain of Farstead seems better be located in the Comaelle or "Fenhold" Borderlands Region (perhaps the former could work better). Anyway, again - as with Fenhold -, I'd not split the whole region.

If Fenhold is to be a sub-borderland of Canolbarth Borderland, Farstead could replace Fenhold in the map. And Alleybrooke could be in one of the 3 flatland hexes near Dragontree.

Tallwoode and Grundale would be a nice addon. But... what about the active hsiao complex? It would be really nice to have a hsiao town too in Comælle

I just uploaded the new, updated version of the map.

I split Comaelle into two halves, making one the dominion of Comaelle, with the villages of Tallwoode and Grundale. The other half is now Farstead, with the village of Farstead.

Further up, I added Alleybrooke in the best looking location, and then I cheated and tweaked the borders to include it in our last nameless region. By doing so, of course, I was able to use Alleybrooke as the region name.

(Regarding the tweak I made to the borders: it doesn't disagree with the 24 mile per hex map, it's just that it crosses a 24 mile hex, and is therefore impossible to display at the smaller scale. However, it should be noted that the majority of official maps don't restrict their 8 mile per hex maps by trying to keep them easy to convert to 24 mile per hex scale.)

Lastly, I added Fenhold (village and dominion), and changed the hex below the village to swamp. I skirted the issue of dividing the Canolbarth Borderlands by simply repeating the caption. Under the circumstances, I think it seems clear that Comaelle, Farstead and Fenhold are established dominions in the Canolbarth Borderlands, while the other areas remain either unsettled or undocumented.

While making these revisions, I have redone all the borderland captions. Due to space issues, I shrunk the borderland province captions, while also adding (Borderland) to those without "Borderlands" in their title already.

And finally, I revised some of the province names.

Oh, about the Hsiao complex - I would love to be able to add it in, but it would really make that already extremely crowded area even worse. Moreover, there are too many of them marked on the PC1 map. I think it's much better to leave them on the large scale (1 mile per hex!) map. It's not that they aren't there on the 8 mile per hex map; they're just too small to see.

I'm thinking about doing the PC1 and PC4 large scale maps quite soon, by the way...

Drooling...

But...
Farstead is indicated as a Dominion, not a Borderland...


Anyway...
It seems very logical to me that on the Darokin City - Selenica road there were horse chagne stations. It is a carovan road, maybe the most important in the Known World. So it is obvious to expect to find horse change, and maybe also inns and taverns.
And eventually also villages. In the new map you must travel 10 hexes from Darokin to Grundale to find the first civilized place. And there is no rest between...Grundale, Farstead and Dolos are very good to exchange horses and to have a nap.

I like the Darokin map more and more with every day!

You really deserved a NPCin Serraine!

You and Arcanda both raise some interesting arguments, and I will stand corrected on the Ardelphia issue.

Hard to say. There is at least one human village in the region (I think it lay within the Alfheim border, though), and one dwarvish village in the vicinity (distinctly outside the Alfheim border, from my reworkings of the O2 map). I wouldn't be at all surprised if they used the elvish term for the place- or some Common language derivative- simply due to their proximity to Canolbarth, and their distance from other human/Darokinian communities.

Could be- but I see the difficulties you suggest being an argument against it as well. I'd personally like to see the smaller divisions, but then you run the risk of a) cluttering the map, and b) complicating the Borderland distinctions. Tough call on this one.

I thought it was pretty ambiguous. The description of Lord Brennan made me think he sounded like a magistrate of the borderlands, though. Plus, PC1 recommended for it to be near the Dreamlands.

Did you want Farstead to be one of the Heartlands? Perhaps the one that I labelled as Alleybrooke, for example? That is certainly possible, and easy enough to do.

Well, remember that just because there is no village marked does not mean that there is no village there; settlements smaller than a few hundred are generally not marked on the 8 mile per hex maps. You can be sure indeed that there will be inns, stables, small villages and so on all along the major trade routes at regular intervals - including the Darokin-Selenica road.

Of course, if anyone wants to name a few for marking, now would be a good time... But you can only fit so much on the map before it starts to get really crowded.

Hehe. I couldn't have come so far on this map without help from you and everyone else here.

I failed to mention my other (far less compelling) argument, which is that I have always had a liking for Ardelphia. I don't know if it's the idea of a big ruined city, or just the great potential for adventure there, but it has always intrigued me.

The other slight worry I had is if the Emerlas region extends that far out, to the Rockhome border.

In any case, for now I marked it on.

Again, for now I marked them on. I think marking a few borderland dominions should be fine, but if we were to mark them all on, things would really get quite hideously cluttered. Just look at the Comaelle/Farstead region next to the Dreamlands... I wouldn't want things to get that cluttered all over.

has a final list been agreed upon here?

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No one has replied to my last update of the map. Tactit approval, perhaps?

Seriously, it would be nice to get it finalised. Does anyone have any comments for the current version? Bear in mind that in order for me to change anything, you have to give me something to change it to, as well as just pointing out the mistake or criticism.

I totally like the new map.

Apart from the bit with "The Marches" and "Northmark", I'm happy with it. A march and a mark are basicaly the same thing, and not only are these two areas geographically disparate, but you have one named in a way that would suggest the other is merely a part of it.

I don't think there is a problem with them being separated geographically - there are various examples of that in real world placenames.

However, as I said before, unless you provide an alternate name, there's not much I can do. What would you call them? The best solution would be to have an entirely new name for the area currently labelled Northmark. Alternatively, we could call them Northmark and Southmark, or more probably Westmark and Eastmark.

I definitely like the new version of the map.

Only two things ( ):

- the Emerlas region, according to O2, should lay completely within Alfheim borders, so IMO it's unlikely that the Darokinian government had named one of the two Orclands Borderlands Regions "Emerlas". I'd rather go with the previous names, i.e. East and West Dwarfgate - or, better, Upper and Lower Dwarfgate.

- O2 shows a dwarven village located along Alfheim border, in the northernmost Orclands Borderlands Region. It's called "Granitgape", IIRC. On the Italian MMB we've explained the presence of dwarves in this area of the Orclands with the project developed by the Wyrwarf clan of Rockhome, to propose a more open attitude toward other races, and elves in particular (the present Wyrwarf clanmaster in an elf-friend). So, we've placed some more dwarven communities an the area (200 people in all). These communities are small fortress-like villages that have much more ties with the dwarven enclave in Alfheim Town than with their motherland.

- Joshuan's Almanac makes mention of a Darokinian village named "Letitia", which would be located near Fort Lakeside (it's attacked by orcs and Darokinian troops come from said fort in its relief).

Okay... I only just had a look at the module now, and I agree with you. Andrew did mention that it was not necessarily a good idea.

It looks to me as if the region in question is the very northern point of Alfheim - which is indeed what the description in O2 says too. As for the name, "The Emerlas", it is very ambiguous as to whether it refers to only the forest, or to the whole area including hills and such... But I would tend towards the former, since the hills do have their own name.

Therefore, I will restore the Dwarfgate names. I do like to steer clear of directions as much as possible, but I'm not sure that Upper and Lower would be good in this case... On the other hand, Greater and Lesser might work, because West Dwarfgate is a bit bigger.

This is interesting... O2 also mentions a human village called Scrubton. However, both Scrubton and Granitgape are destroyed just before the adventure in O2 begins. I suppose that is no reason not to add them on, although I'm not convinced that they are significant enough to add to the map at this scale. Also, Scrubton appears to be inside the forest, and both villages would be right next to each other on the 8 mile per hex map.

We might well consider adding the "Misty Hills" label, though.

That is interesting, because it would give us a village in an otherwise empty area. Good find!

Another possibility (I'm looking at the module right now), is to play off of the "Misty Hills" name that seems to be applied to the area outside the Emerlas proper (which, indeed, does seem to be only the Canolbarth area). Maybe something with "Mist" in the name? Mistleton, Mistdown, something like that?

The problem there is that the hills are only a relatively small feature of an area unquestionably dominated by the Dwarfgate Mountains.

But who goes on the mountains? Hills are so misty that nobody ever adventures farter, and so "mist" and "hills" are the only landmarks people knows.
That may be an idea. After all, names are not givent for whar a think is, but after what it appears.
That's why "Dwarf" is a strange name for the area. Ther are orcs, there are trolls... no dwarves at all. I know it is the mountain range just before Rockhome, but Rockhome is sooooooooo far away. The name Dwarfgate suggest a mountain pass, a major road to go to Rockhome. Instead you find bands of raiding orcs and no road at all...

Then why don't we go simply with Lesser/Greater or East/West Orclands?

Anyway, I'd add the "Misty Hills" label to the map.

I'd like to see the Misty Hills label appear as well; as a geographic label not a political region's label though. Sounds like a good addition that gives the area a little personality.

As for the dwarfgate Mts, I postulated that dwarves did exist in those mountains for some time and were usually the ones that the humans and elves interacted with in the past. Therefore, the mountains were seen as the gateway for the dwarves. Of course, the humanoids eventually forced them out some 500 years ago but as far as the humans are concerned, those mountains are the place from which the dwarves came forth. (The humanoid settlements were founded on some of the old dwarven ones).

Also, those mountains are seen as massive protective walls that surround the dwarven nation, so I see no reason why the name wouldn't persist. The lesser/greater option sounds pretty good to me; we don't have many uses of lesser/greater in Mystaran geography so why not use it?

'Orcland' sounds much more like a slang type of label in that they plague that part of Darokin (note that it doesn't appear on the gaz's map although described in the 'places of interest'). This is a situation Darokin would love to see remedied.

One last thing to think about is the fact that names of places are not always or nessessarily an 'accurate' description of their current state.

With all this discussion of the Orclands, I'm surprised no one noticed my error in labelling them as borderland regions!

I've fixed it in the latest update, along with a couple of other changes. For now I changed The Marches and Northmark to Westmark and Eastmark, but that means we have Eastmark next to Eastwind.

The other changes are Nethlinn is now a name suffixed with (Borderland), and I tweaked some borders, especially between Alfheim and Karameikos, to make them fit better with the edges of the mountains. Note that this has placed Armstead in a heartland region, which I didn't initially want to do, but it seems to make sense for the mountains to be the natural border there.

Edit: I won't be uploading the update just yet, because I am in the process of upgrading my web space. Hopefully I will get it uploaded to the new server later in the week.

[It is unclear if the version mentioned here was ever uploaded. The next version I can find is from a few years later. I'm including it here for reference, as it includes all the changes mentioned above. —Thorf, February 2021]

What about Corran Keep from WotI.
From Book #2 of WotI boxed set.
Pg 12: "The adventure takes place in the Silver Sieras Moutains on the border between the nations of Glantri and Darokin, not far from the noorthernmost tip of Lake Amsorak."
Pg 13: " Your trip takes you due north along a game trail into the Silver Sierras." and "At the end of the first day, you've travelled only a dozen miles."
The next day: "...you turn off the game-trail" east or west? "Young Noriad says that there was once a trail here, and shows you occasional crumbled trail markers to prove it...."
But there is no indication of how far the group is supposed to travel this day, but I am guessing 6-7 miles.
But where does it go on the map. From the description in the adventure-text the Keep can be located in several of the hexagons along the Darokin-Glantri border north of Fort Lakeside.

I placed it right along the border in my map of the Great Crater, and included the "Barony" of Baron Corran in the borderland domain that is around Lakeside.

(IMC, I had the disheartened Baron Corran, after losing his wife and son, give up his lands and title to one Corwyn Markone, of whom the current Corwyn Markone IV is the direct descendant.)

I can see from your map that have placed the ruin/keep 24 miles north-northeast of Fort Lakeside.
But that doesn't correspond with the description given in the WotI-boxed set. It is only 12 miles north, plus 6-7 miles in a western or eastern direction.

IIRC, it does correspond to the ruins in the 24 mile/hex map that is included in the WotI boxed set, though. I'll have to check later to be sure. (I am referring to the little inset map of the Great Crater on the larger, post-WotI map; I was pretty sure I placed it to correspond with that map. It may not necessarily match the description in the text, though- I hadn't thought to check that, but if the two locations don't match, there may have been a miscommunication with between the designer and cartographer. I'm intrigued, now, though. Wonder if I did get it wrong?)

*digs through a pile of maps*

Granted! That seems to be the case, but the same 24-mile hex divides into 7 8-mile hexes, which gives us 7 different locaions for the keep on the 8-mile scale.

Yeah, it's been a long time since I made that map, but IIRC, the reasoning behind my placement was due to the notation that a) is is close to the border with Glantri, and b) it is devastated by the meteor's impact (but, seemingly, not completely obliterated, since there are still ruins). The actual location could certainly be modified somewhat.

Thorf, I haven't forgotten about the names for those two "marches" provinces. It's just that right now I am a little swamped with things. I will get back to you on names for them soon, I promise.

Quote: WotI book #2 Pg. 80: "Ironically, its point of impact is dirrectly on the upon Corran Keep, on the Darokin/Glantri border."

The crater created by the impact is about 48 miles in diameter. But as far as can tell from the map(s) is the craters impact center in the hex nw of the keep.
But this still doesn't explain the difference between what is written in the adventure and what is printed on the map.
But it could be that the map suffers for being printed at a large scale, so there isn't room enough for all the details........ So that the Fort Lakeside and Corran Keep should have shared the same hex icon. But since it can't they drew the map, to give the direction to the tower, that is to the north of the fort.
I hope you can make sense of my ramblings....

Yep- it's a mess. I remember having the same problem. The text says it slams right on Corran, but the actual impact is somewhere in Glantri. I chose to go with the maps over the text in this case, since later products all utilize the same map (with the impact point inside of Glantri, and not on Corran.)

Well I think we'll have to agree that there are several possible locations for the keep.
But lets leave it up to Thorf to place it on the map.....
No seriously should we follow the description in the book or the placment printed on the map? (I know that the text was compiled by A. Allston, not a man with many fans on this board, but still... )
But I also know that my players were happy only to walk around 20 miles to get to the keep. Compared to what they othervise would have had to do.

double post

IMC its going to hit Nathrat (the fact that current PC's have a holding there has nothing to do with it whatsoever ), maybe Thorf could do a small map of the crater, and we can stick on it on the map where we want.

Regards
Gary

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Sounds like a good idea Gazza555 !!!!!