Today's maps are a bit of a cheat, but I'm still at my fiancee's mother's house until this evening, so
they'll have to do.



When I get home I'll finish putting this map and the City States maps together. I also have just
one small part to do on the smooth contours version of Ylaruam, so I'll be posting it later too. That
leaves just the Atruaghin Plateau to go. Of course, I'm still researching my revised version of that, so I'm
not sure that smoothing out the plateau is a priority right now. (Though it's relatively easy to do.)

The good news is that most of my work has stopped, or stops this week, for the spring holidays. So
hopefully I'm going to have a lot more time to work on maps and stuff over the next month.

I just finished and uploaded the Ylaruam map with smoothed out plateaus. You can see it near the start
of this thread, or click here.

And I have also pasted together the Gulf of Hule, which actually took a lot more work than I thought it
would - over an hour.



Eventually I will be using the Red Steel maps to add to the Dragon maps. Most notably they provide good
(albeit quite general) details of what lies inland of the Savage Coast. For now, I just referred to them for
details of the areas of ocean that I added in, including the edges of the borders of Narvaez, Gargona,
Almarron and Cimarron.

One problem is that the scans of the Red Steel maps in the PDF that I bought are not very good. If
anyone can help me out with a better scan of those maps, it would be very helpful.

Very nice map!

Thorf-
I am continually impressed with the quality of the maps you are making. These maps alone are the reason I started checking out this forum more frequently.

Thanks for sharing your great work!

__________________
In the year AC995, Traianus Decius Aureus- Praetorian Legate, Equites Laurifer, twice honored with Triumphs, bearer of the Corona Civica, Corona Muralis and Corona Obsidionalis -delivered the motherland from the Thyatian occupation and was raised to the purple by the Praetorian Guard and the Legions. Long may he reign with strength and wisdom.

Amazing! Thank you Thorf!

Don't know about the PDF version, but have you checked the versions released here on the Wizards site a long time ago? It has a map, and I think it's pretty good quality, IIRC.

Voyage of the Princess Ark Maps of the SC:
http://www.mystara.addr.com/maps/votpamaps.htm

Other Maps (Ironwolf's maps follow VotPA closely):
http://www.mystara.addr.com/maps/savage_coast/savage_coast.htm

__________________
Mystara in 3D VRML <-- Updated with screenshots. Thanks Shawn!

The PDF version has the map, but of course it's in pieces, and fitting it together is even more problematic than usual, because it doesn't have a useful hex grid to line things up with.

Unfortunately, the Savage Coast downloads don't include the poster maps that came with Red Steel. And worst of all, I never got round to buying the actual books myself, so I haven't even seen the poster maps other than in the PDFs...


Thanks for the links. I've already been using the Voyages of the Princess Ark maps, as you can see by the sources I've listed. But the Red Steel maps are different - no hex grid, and since they're poster maps, they show all the inland terrain too. As far as I know, they are not posted anywhere online.

Ironwolf almost certainly made reference to the Red Steel maps too, as evidenced by his additions to the Princess Ark maps (the northern border of Guadalante, to name one example).

Sorry guys, but there's going to be a break for the next few days. I have my last class for this term tomorrow, and therefore the last visit to my school until probably late May. That alone makes me incredibly busy, but as it turns out I will be busier still. I was planning on going to Tokyo next week for an interview at the British Embassy (I have to get a certain document to allow me to get married here), but it has been brought forward, and I will instead be leaving tomorrow right after work!

I'll be back on Thursday night, late. In any case, it's looking as if I won't get back into the way of things until next week. So, for now I'm going to plan to take a break until Monday.

By the way, it was exactly one month ago today that I started posting maps. So my first batch of daily maps lasted a whole month!

One last thing. As a little bonus prize for you all for staying with me up until now, here is a very simple, provisional version of that map I've been working on for the last few weeks. It's full of uncorrected mistakes, doesn't have any of the recent revisions (palette, contours, etc.) and is in the old low resolution. But it ought to let you get a feel for what the finished one will look like.

(Note: I know there are lots of errors in this map, but don't worry about them for now. Most of them have in fact been corrected already, and the final version, hopefully in a few weeks, will include the corrections and more.)

Click here to see the map.



And with that - see you next Monday!!

Thorf, I can't seem to find the Lost City of the Cynidiceans (B4) on your Ylaruam map. Was it left out for a reason or simply - pardon the pun - lost?

__________________
Mortepierre Malepeste
Dwarven Necro.. er.. Student of Anatomy

I haven't marked it on yet because it's not marked on any of the official versions of the 8 mile per hex map. It is marked on the Expert Set map (or maybe X1 - I don't recall offhand), so when I eventually get to including information from 24 mile per hex maps too, I'll add it in.

Thanks for noticing!

Well, Monday has been and gone here, and I haven't posted a map for you yet. I had a busy week and weekend, with a friend visiting from the States, and my last day of lots of work is tomorrow. So I'm afraid you're going to have to wait until tomorrow for me to start posting maps again.

But... I do have a pretty cool map to start things off again. So be sure to check back here tomorrow!

I have an unexpected spare moment, so here is today's map, much earlier than I expected.



As you can see, it's an upgraded version of my previous map. It took a while to add in the walls, but I think it
was well worth doing. The walls themselves are basically just random squiggles. Mostly I kept them quite
simple, but you can see an example of more complex squiggles in the bottom right, where I went all out for the
last few lines.

I like the cavern wall map version- I always wanted to do something like this with Gaz13's map myself, but never got around to it. Have you thought about adding connecting caverns in place of the trail markers? To get something even more like the Gaz10 maps?

NICE! I definately prefer the cavern wall version over the straight hex sides. Well done.

Yes, I thought about doing this, but I have two issues with changing the dotted lines into proper tunnels. The first is that it will take a long, long time to do, which of course is the primary reason that I left the tunnels as they are. The second is that I'm not sure whether they would really be any better drawn in with cavern walls. Or rather, I'm loath to introduce another feature that looks precisely accurate but is in fact exaggerated - in this case, the tunnel width would be grossly exaggerated in most cases.

On the other hand I agree it would at least look better, so I will probably draw them in eventually.

I'm a little surprised no one has commented on the City of the Stars cavern yet. I'm strongly considering revising it to fit the style of the other caverns, even though that would also mean revising the detailed 2 mile per hex map of that cavern, from which the current version was derived. The problem is that the current cavern fits the hexes just a little bit too well for my liking.

Tonight I did most of my revised Atruaghin map. I still have to sort out the border between the Turtle Clan and the Tiger Clan, but otherwise it's complete.

In doing so I noticed a number of things about the maps. First, GAZ14's Atruaghin Plateau doesn't really fit any of the 24 mile per hex plateaus. I initially thought that it was just missing the bit in the middle, but actually it's just an entirely different shape altogether. Bits fit together here and there, but in the end I decided to go with a hybrid form of the Wrath of the Immortals plateau and the GAZ14 plateau, averaging out both outlines to create a new one that resembles both, while matching neither perfectly.

Second, the small islands in the bay, marked on all 24 mile per hex maps, are totally out of scale on the GAZ14 map. Since the GAZ14 islands are extremely hexy, I decided to go with the bigger islands. This makes the bay more interesting as well as bringing it into line with the larger scale maps. In the process I fixed the border discrepancies, which are many and rather drastic on GAZ14's map.

Last, as I believe Andrew has pointed out before, the Turtle Clan and the Tiger Clan don't have a lot of space, and are rather crushed together. Surely the Turtle Clan should have been wiped out by now. Also, I noticed that all the battle sites were marked inside Tiger Clan territory. This would presumably mean that they like to draw their enemies into their own territory before fighting, or they fight amongst themselves a lot. Or maybe that the Turtles are the aggressive tribe after all!

It would seem better to put the battle sites close to the Turtle Clan, preferably within their territory, since generally they are the ones being attacked. I'm also considering widening the space between them and the Tigers, while spacing out each tribe's villages a little more. This alone should solve the problem of extra space - although I did like Andrew's Viper Tribe ruins idea too.

I will post the map either tomorrow or Thursday, depending on how things go. Either way, I'm definitely back to posting maps daily again so check back tomorrow for another one.

Great maps Thorf.

Here are some suggestions for the Karameikos map.

Rifllian. On careful inspection of GAZ1 and the trail map, the shading seems to be heavy forest.

Riverfork keep. I would move it south 1 hex so that it commanded the confluence of the rivers.

Original mapping errors by TSR.
Kelvin is at the confluence of the Volaga and Shutturgal rivers and should be moved south 1 hex to reflect this (reference Gaz1 detail of Kelvin)

Threshold is situated west of the river waterolde, and south of a lake (reference Gaz1 detail of Threshold). So need more water in the Threshold hex.

Castellan Keep - I've started a thread about this. IMC I'ved always moved it out of the moutains downriver

My personal preference is to give the plateau as much area as possible. I think the clans require a lot of room to roam around in. Still, I'm interested to see what your version ends up looking like. If Andrew's map has a larger area for the plateau, I'll be sticking with that one, but by creating another vision of what the plateau may be like, you provide another option for people to exercise their preference.


What if those battles were in Turtle Clan Territory when they occured, perhaps changing the shape of the borders. This likely has happened many times in the past; the border shifting and slanting back and forth.

Replies later, for now I only have time to post a map.



There will be a second map for the 1004 AC version tomorrow or the day after.

Comparing this map with X11's Wendar and Denagoth is rather interesting.

Otherwise, this map is full of errors and took me ages to make because remaking a map full of errors takes
more motivation than usual... Adjusting the borders so that they are wrong was especially galling.

Anyway, more of this dicussion later when I have time.

It is a great map, Thorf, but can you please add the names of all the isles in the Empire of Thyatis and not just half of them?

Keep up the great work!

(Looking forward to the AC 1004 map, because I don't use WotI )

:-) Jesper

Good catch. When I made the Gazetteer maps I didn't have a separate heavy forest hex colour, hence the mistake. I've fixed it in my files.


Judging by the position of the trails in the area (as shown on TM1), I'd say the current position is fine - the trails presumably indicate the best places to cross the rivers, in which case Riverfork Keep is placed with one ford in front of it and two behind.



Yes, you're right. The detail map of Kelvin does indeed clearly show it to be at the confluence of the rivers. Unfortunately none of the official maps have this marked correctly.

Further investigation into this issue brought up even more problems. It seems that the original names of the Windrush and Hillfollow Rivers each have multiple versions, and indeed the position of the rivers has changed over time too. The Expert Set originally had the three rivers meeting in the same place, with Kelvin situated there. This was later changed for GAZ1's map, and that version has been used ever since, with the Windrush meeting the Hillfollow before joining up with the Highreach. It looks as if Kelvin remained at the original confluence of the three rivers, though.

As for the names, GAZ1's map provided the names Waterolde and Shutturgal. However, the text refers to Shutturga and Wufwolde. The detail map of Threshold sticks with the hex map's Waterolde, the Kelvin detail map keeps the text's Shutturga. Later, TM1 included Shutturgal, but changed Waterolde to Waterholde. Finally Karameikos: Kingdom of Adventure kept Shutturga and Wufwolde in the text, but eliminated them altogether from the map. It seems to me that Wufwolde is the most likely name, because the hills around the river are the Wufwolde Hills. As for Shutturgal, it could go either way but Shutturga seems to be better represented.

Yes, it seems that Karameikos is not nearly as simple a map as we all thought...



You're right again, apparently there is a Windrush (Waterolde/Waterholde/Wufwolde) Lake north of Threshold. In actual fact this is marked on the map in B10, but I really don't want to bring B10 into this conversation. I'm having nightmares about dealing with it already.

(To cut a long story short, as far as I can see B10 has Threshold where Verge is now located. This is a big headache.)


You are of course free to do this, and your reasoning may be sound, but as far as I am concerned the description in the Gazetteer fits the location pretty well, so I'll follow my usual policy in making these maps, which is to only change things if there is overwhelming evidence that they are wrong.

Thanks for all these corrections by the way! I very much appreciate it.


There probably won't be a huge difference between Andrew's map and mine, although I haven't compared them much yet. If anything, Andrew's version of the plateau will be smaller than mine, I think, because I believe he kept his map faithful to the 8 mile per hex map while adding the middle of the plateau back in, and the 8 mile per hex plateau is actually inherently smaller than the 24 mile per hex versions.

Anyway, you'll see very soon I hope.



That's a possibility, yes. Although there isn't that much land for the border to shift back and forth in. Also, one of the battles (mid 8th Century) is right next to one of the Tiger Clan villages. I guess it could be a newer village...

With the increased space, though, I think I will probably space the battles out a lot more.

I guess I should make this clearer when I post, but this map is a replica rather than an updated map. It includes all the errors and omissions that came with the original, which in the case of this map is a lot:

• Atruaghin islands – the islands in the bay are in different positions from those in GAZ14, and are larger too. Champions of Mystara later duplicates this "error", as does the AD&D 24 mile per hex map. Personally, I prefer the bigger islands.
• Atruaghin plateau – this map shows the whole Atruaghin plateau for the first time in this scale. It confirms the inaccuracy of GAZ14’s 8 mile per hex map.
• Borders – the borders for most countries on the map are inaccurate when compared with the 8 mile per hex Gazetteer maps. They are also very different from the borders in the original Expert Set map. Indeed, the borders shown on this map are inconsistent with virtually all other maps.
• Chandbali trail – this trail leading off the Akesoli-Mahasabad road/trail is missing.
• Glantri-Wendar border – the border shown on this map is very different from the GAZ3 border. Large sections of mountains and forested hills have been ceded to Wendar.
• Jaibul’s border – the southern border of Jaibul goes too far south when compared to the Champions of Mystara map. Since this map shows only the edge of Jaibul, it’s likely that this map holds the mistake.
• Jaibul trails – the two trails leading south and west from Jaibul are missing from the edge of this map.
• Latehar – this Sindhi town is shown as a city. Both other sources have Latehar as a town. Addition-ally, it is shown as a plains town in the mountains. In Dragon 169 it was a hill town, and in Champions of Mystara it is a mountain town.
• Latehar trail – the trail leaing northwest from Latehar, which should be visible leaving the edge of the map, is missing.
• Mis-spellings and Typos – Bengarian Hermitage (Bensarian Hermitage), Briddleton (Bridleton), Cinsa-men-Noo (Cinsa-Men-Noo), Forth Cruth (Fort Cruth), Surra-man-Raa (Surra-Man-Raa), Tel-al-Kebir (Tel al Kebir).
• River Devoki – this seasonal river on the Adri Varma Plateau is missing. Presumably it was added in Champions of Mystara.
• Shipping lanes – the shipping lanes along the Sind and Jaibul coast have been moved one hex out to sea. Champions of Mystara later puts them back in their original Dragon 169 position.
• Sind-Jaibul border – the Jaibul border extends two hexes further east into the sea, and the Sind border one hex further east than either Dragon 169 or Champions of Mystara show.

And I haven't even finished this list. Other points include the positioning of settlements (Thyatis City and the towns along the coast, for example), the hex type chosen for numerous hexes, and so on. All in all, it's without a doubt the worst map TSR made for Mystara. By a long way.

So, no small surprise that they forgot to label a few Thyatian islands.

Edit: Oh yeah, and I'm surprised no one noticed the "Lake Dast" label in the middle of the Wendar. That one was of course my mistake...

Another great map Thorf.



I'll have to dig out all the relevant modules and go through them with a fine tooth comb, and come up with a consistant naming standard for my campaign.
Thanks TSR.
Thanks Thorf Now at last I have a decent electronic replica of the original maps to play with

I'd almost forgotten about this. I did a version of Karameikos with the "Lost Valley" from B10 drawn in (available on the Vaults, though they seem to be down today), and then tried to do a 1 mi/hex map of the Verge/Threshold region and noticed the same thing.

Threshold is definitely in the wrong location on the large scale map, Verge should be higher up, and that river should actually go higher up into the mountains than it does.

Unfortunately, the problem is compounded by the fact that the hex maps in B10 (the most detailed of the region) are oriented differently than the traditional hex maps!

I may have a version (in 8 mi/hex) where I corrected that. Not sure. In any case, I think we just have to chalk that one up to differences in scale, and just deal with the differences when using smaller map scales if you do.

Well, here it is - for your criticism and enjoyment.



See my post from yesterday for comments on this map.

That I did.

I wasn't all that concerned with trying to follow the original maps, mistakes and all. I was running a Red Steel campaign and I needed maps that I could use. So when I ran into areas that weren't defined by hexes, I used the non-hex maps as a guideline, and extrapolated the areas.

Just to add to the general confusion, I also started a hex-mapping program also called "HexMapper". (Not to be confused with the HexMapper program Thorf used.) It was a GUI application written in C#, I did distribute a link to it on the Mystara boards last spring.

I never finished it, because it was for a UI class and I got enough done to pass with flying colors. I ran into optimization issues, and I also had to write my own version of Paint for it, a more daunting task than apparent. And finally, I really didn't get a lot of interest from people on the boards in the program. So, I felt no inclination to finish it. Since Thorf's work seems to be going over well, looks like I need not bother.

For the record, all the alterations to the Savage Coast maps I did, including the 8 mile per hex version of the Dark Jungle, are my own work. No need to go hunting down obscure sources.

Adamantyr

Nice- I like it a lot, especially with the rounded plateau contours. It doesn't seem that different from my map, except that there seems to be a bit more plateau near the middle-central on yours. IIRC, the reason I went with the version I have is because the reduced plateau size on my current version fit better with the "ends" so to speak- the eastern and western portions of the plateau that existed and seemed (more or less) to fit the larger scale version.

I also prefer your larger sized islands. I couldn't quite figure out what to do with them on my map, both due to the size differences between the 24 and 8 mile maps, as well as the displacement of their location due to adding several miles worth of coastline between the Tiger and Turtle clan lands. I agree with you that the larger islands seem more aesthetically pleasing. I'd be inclined to drop a Turtle Clan hold on one or more of them, frankly.

One suggestion I have, though- a couple of your Bear Clan towns are currently located atop the plateau itself. They should probably be moved directly to the edge of the plateau, as the Bear Clan holds are all supposed to be cliff dwellings.

Nice. I'm still comparing your map with Andrew's and I'm finding the differences interesting. There's many of them; mostly small ones, but that makes the maps fun to look at!

Now for some thoughts:
I like the larger islands. I still can't make up my mind if I prefer your location of the islands or the ones Andrew used. I noticed you smoothed out the Bay of Whales where the shore reaches its northern-most point.

The northern border is quite different between the maps. An earmark of the different approaches perhaps. I also thought that the southern border would come out around Whale Bone Island more (but I know you're following the WotI map on that).

I just got curious as to why or how the Roaring Lake got its name. Anybody know, or have a theory? I mean, I can easily see a river having the name "Roaring", but what about a lake? I wonder if the lake has a spot by the northern shores near the broken land where it becomes an underground river that flows to Lake Amsorak. Hmmmm...

Last thought (for now). I found it interesting that the border of the Tiger Clan sticks to the shoreline. I take that as an indication that the Tiger Clan do not take to the Sea at all.

Great looking map, Thorf!

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out as soon as the Vaults starts working again.


Thorf's theme so far has been to keep to the originals as much as possible, with corrections to be done later. But keeping the icons on the top of the plateau might be better anyhow. I've always thought that although they were on the cliff face, they were very close to the top, perhaps even cresting the edge to expand onto the top in some cases.

Edit: Alright, the Vaults are up again and I've seen those maps. I remember them from a long time ago and wasn't sure where they belonged. I thought they may have been of the Lost Valley, but I'm still not sure. Any help Andrew, I've been dying to find out for sure? And what is the scale?

I deliberately changed the northwestern border for personal reasons- primarily, I plan (down the road) to expand that Broken Lands territory between Sind and Atruaghin into the new homeland for the descendants of the Red Orcs that plagued both nations a long time ago.

Also, I just thought the existing borders there were odd- either one nation, the other, or neither (IMO) should lay claim to it- yet they were dividing up badland territory between them...



I was along the same lines myself. Actually, my work on combining the B8: Journey to the Rock map with the Sind/Atruaghin maps had the Roaring Lake feeding the lake outside of Tuma.