Ah!

That's what I thought you might have meant. Whew!

A friend of mine actually pointed out yesterday that most traditional fantasy illustrations have dragons painted in a way that spaces their eyes so far apart on either side of their head that they wouldn't have any 3D vision or sense of depth.

Makes for pretty catastrophic landings by dragons weighing several tons, huh?

;-) Jesper

I can't guarantee anything for the next few days (weeks?), I'm afraid. Something awful happened this weekend, and it's going to take some time to get over. (There just isn't any smiley that matches this feeling.)

Don't worry, that's not to say I won't post any maps, but it might well not be possible to post one each day for a while.

Feel Well, Thorf.
And take your time.

Thorf, I hope that you're doing OK.
I found a map in PWA3 that I scanned in and will send you that has the cavern walls for the SE territorities. You could probably just trace it to update your version. IMO, it removes even more of the "hexiness".

Ah, someone noticed.

I came across that map while looking through the Poor Wizard's Almanacs recently for maps. I had forgotten that there was such a map out there.

In any case, thanks for the scan! I will eventually make another version of the map using that map as a base for the cavern walls. One interesting thing about that map is that it gives the Shadow Elves' caverns a much smoother edge than the Broken Lands caverns. If I remember rightly, the Poor Wizard's Almanac Broken Lands map is more smoothed off than the hex map too, though.

Thanks for the well wishes.

You could always chalk the smoother SE caverns off to the tunnelshapers among the SE (which aren't present among the 'noids).

As for the PWA Broken Lands map... got me on that one.

Here's the next map.

Funny you mention that, because that was the reasoning behind my last post. I considered making the caverns much smoother on my cavern wall map too, but eventually decided to go for rougher, more cavern-like walls.

Hey Thorf!

Just wanted to tell you that I am still enjoying your maps! Sorry to hear about the troubles in your life, but keep those maps coming when you have time, alright?

Håvard

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Håvard

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Bravo with the latest, Thorf!

I think you'll find, as I did, slight disagreement with hexs in the portions where the Bayou, Easter Herath, and Wallara overlap with regard to light forest. And speaking of unreconcilable river systems... We have a tributary of the Venom River coming out of the Bayou and across the Orc's Head Peninsula to the Western Sea. Now there is something I can't figure out as hard as I try.

Hey Thorf, should the small islands off the coast of Terra Leãoça get a hex in the legend... whatever they are?

They look like sand bars as they are now. Is that what they are supposed to be? If that is the case, they would be shifting constantly making for some very treacherous waters to sail near!

According to the legend on the Dragon maps, they are shoals. Today's map actually has them marked as such on the map, too. And I believe there are more of them on the Arm of the Immortals 24 mile per hex map too. I'll update my Legend when I can; I've been needing to update it for a while, especially with underground hexes.

Ah! Well... still dangerous for sailing any where near them, right? Down right treacherous, you'd say, eh? Nigh-on 40 vessels gone down there in resent memory is what they tell me.

Sorry Thorf. Just some stupid humour from a tired friend. Hoping all the best for you. As much as I love seeing these maps, don't let it mess up your personal life; no matter how much we BEG, and PLEAD, and GET DOWN ON OUR KNEES AND CRY, don't let it become another chore or burden for you. If it isn't fun, take a breather.

Sorry again; still tired.

Don't worry, what happened had nothing to do with mapping. Actually I have the next week or so all done now too. In the long term for this project, I'll probably have more time than I thought I would.

Regarding what happened, let's just say that in January my fiancee and I had a nice surprise, but on Sunday someone somewhere hit the reset switch. Apparently this was not the time, but hopefully it will come again soon. It's very sad, but I don't want to fill this thread with it.

My deepest sympathies to you and your fiancée Thorf.
Take your time to cuddle each other and recover... and don't you ever dare stop thinking of a brighter tomorrow!

Please accept my sympathies, too, Thorf.

Geoff

My sympathies Thorf, to you and your fiancée. First and foremost, make sure you look after your lady.

Eagerly awaiting the update legend, I hope you'll be updating your downloadable CS files as well. But no hurry. Take time with your own priorities.

And a note of a correction, it looks like you might have missed the symbol for the Ruins of Gnar.

Something I was mulling... would it be appropriate to develop a new hex design for jungle terrain mixed with hills. As it is now, the hills surrounding the swamp in the center of the Orc's Head Jungle at the 24 mile hex map are marked as deciduous forrested hills... seemingly at odds with a location in the midst of a tropical jungle... maybe call it jungled hills?


Regards,
Eric Anondson

My sympathies Thorf.... Take care of yourself and your fiancee

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Thanks for the support, everyone. I'll let you know how we're doing.


Yep, those are both on my list.


I think if I remember right the error lies in the original map for that one, but I don't have time to check until later tonight. The Dragon map had just the caption, and Red Steel added in the symbol - as far as I can remember.

Edit: Nope, I just somehow missed adding the symbol. Thanks for catching this!


I've wondered about this for a while too. Introducing a Jungle Hills hex would be nice, but it would also mean a lot of work judging/guessing which areas should be revised with the new hex. Mostly that could probably be dealt with in the same way as the deciduous/evergreen split, because there seems to be a line of latitude where forests turn to jungle on Mystara.

I assume the Shady River is the border between Shazak and Cay - would it be appropriate to add a red line running along the river?

Another fine map - I can't say how much I appreciate seeing the Savage Coast maps joined together like this! For me, it was a major letdown, after buying the Red Steel boxed set, to see that the maps were not in hex format. I think the ultimate thrill will be to see the whole thing as one large map, once it's all done.

Geoff

The Cay-Shazak border is on the Fensway River... according to the Red Steel maps.

I just noticed that the 72 mile hex map of the Sea of Dread region does have a jungled hills hex symbol. You can see there that it is used to mark as jungle hills the forested hills of the Serpent Peninsula. The same areas that the Champions of Mystara maps show using the regular deciduous forest hills.

Just an FYI!

In that case that map definitely needs a border line drawn.

In a hurry again today. I also updated the Herath/reptile kingdoms map with that border from Red Steel and the missing symbol.

Fantastic work still, Thorf! I really hope you're able to put these Savage Coast / Orc's Head maps together it one (or maybe even just two or three) larger maps. That would be amazingly fantastic!

I'm currently working on the extended versions of these maps, using Red Steel and Savage Baronies to fill in the terrain to the north. Things are going a bit slowly though, due to spending a lot of time at my mother in law's and also to an Illustrator crash which destroyed two hours of work two nights ago. Given all that's happened this week, I really wanted to scream when that happened...

Anyway, when I get home today I will catch up on those two hours again, and in doing so I'll finish the first pass on the Dragon maps. I'd like to say it would be quicker the second time, but unfortunately the legwork on these maps can't really be done any faster.

After that, the next task is to convert the Dragon 196 Orc's Head Peninsula 24 mile per hex map to 8 miles per hex. Amazingly, this seems to be the only full map of the peninsula, although parts of it are shown on Red Steel, Savage Baronies and Orc's Head Peninsula maps.

On the subject of conversion, I think that the towers around Herath should be expanded to Western Herath. This area has never been shown in detail on any map - both Dragon 196 and the Savage Baronies map are large scale maps, and so don't show details like towers. It seems to me most likely that the line of defence would be maintained, especially bordering on the orcish tribes of the Orc's Head.

Finally, I'll move on to enhancing the maps with the Red Steel and Savage Baronies non hex maps.

Other tasks currently on my list, in no particular order, include finishing up the Known World 8 and 24 mile per hex maps, Sind 8 mile per hex, sorting out the Heldann mess, Wendar 8 mile per hex, Denagoth 8 mile per hex, Norwold 24 mile per hex with terrain properly marked in, Alphatia and Isle of Dawn 24 mile per hex, a couple of 72 mile per hex maps, Undersea, Southern Iciria, Azca, Nithia, Milenia, and some line art maps like the world map and so on.

As you can see, I have enough to keep me busy for the foreseeable future.