I have started tarting this map up. I had plans to add more islands, roads and stuff outside the city proper but to be honest I started to get bored with it – drawing all those buildings did my head in. Here is what it looks like now. I might come back to it when I get some more inspiration.
The observant may find the estate of Senio the Necromancer just out of town.
I found an old flash drive with some RPG material I have done over the years and have been having fun trawling through it. This city was the location of many adventures I ran using Hero System and Harnmaster. I had hoped I would find the base map that I worked on – I remember I originally saved it as a BMP file in MS Paint but couldn’t find the full sized version – just this small copy. Will have a go at redoing it next week if I cannot find the original.
Crossroads is a city of canals and bridges. My mate Mark (Markdoc on the Hero Games forums) did a neat picture of a big bridge covered in houses and towers for a city in his fabulous Gothick Empires setting. I stole it and plonked a close copy of it in the middle of my own version of Venice as The Great Bridge. I just have to find it – I know I have it saved somewhere.
A map of a walled estate for your Fantasy Roleplaying games. In my FRPG this was the home of Senio, a necromancer. I started drawing this years ago and lost it. I found an old flash drive and found a whole pile of role-playing resources for a short lived game I ran in 2011. So I have decided to tidy the map up and post it – who knows – someone may get some use out of it. This building could be used in a town or as a country estate.
Aerial View
The main building has a tower that rises four stories. There is a guard barracks (by the gate), stables and a small house garden. To the right of the gate is a small entry box for the gatekeeper.
Basement Level
A trapdoor from the kitchen leads to the storage cellar. The basement level of the tower contains cells, an ‘inquiry area’, storage and a small crypt. There is a secret room in the south wall.
Ground Level
To the left of the gates is a guard room and the bunkroom for up to four guards. A small sentry box stands to the right of the gate. In the paved courtyard there is a well and a water trough. A shed containing a wagon and a four stall stable are opposite the main house. Behind the stables is a small kitchen garden. The outdoor privy sits against the back wall. Double doors lead into the main house/tower. This level contains the kitchen, servants sleeping area and storage, a cloakroom and the main dining room.
First Floor
This level contains bedrooms, studies and lounges. A set of double doors open onto a small balcony (above the main entrance). Lots of elaborate hangings and comfortable beds. Who said a necromancer can’t be a good host?
Second Floor
The Tower contains Senio’s main workspace and laboratory. The two other spaces are attics accessed by trapdoors from the rooms below them.
Third and Fourth Floors
The third level contains two rooms currently unused. I am sure that you can find a use for them. The fourth floor is an attic space accessed by trapdoor from level three.
I was playing with Google Earth and using overlays to create a spherical view of my fantasy map. These are the results. I was going to add clouds and sun effects but for some reason I now cannot get Google Earth overlays to cover the entire globe with the image. More experimentation necessary. I forgot to take the equator line off the map too. Oh well. Just noticed that.
Southern Polar Ocean
Northern Polar Ocean
I have always enjoyed map making. I have decided to get back to work on my fantasy world that has been kicking around in one form or another – mostly on paper – for decades. I am sure every GM has one or two of these tucked away in a folder.
First off the blank that I will use for all subsequent maps. Maps drawn with MS-Paint and PAINT.net.
A map showing basic topography and labels.
In the 1970s I discovered the Raven, Swordsmistress of Chaos books by Richard Kirk. Richard Kirk was actually two people – Angus Wells and Robert Holdstock. They wrote five books in this fantasy series, and I am somewhat disappointed that they didn’t finish it. When it comes to this series we are not talking about high brow literature here, but fairly good swashbuckling sword and sorcery. The main protagonist is Raven, a slave girl who is destined to be the ‘pivot upon which the world turns’ and the harbinger of Chaos. Exactly why I am not sure. She has a supporting cast of friends and lovers and they battle various alien, evil and nefarious schemes over the course of the five book series. A lot is made of the descriptions of sex but to be honest, perhaps I was desensitised by all the Penthouse Letters I read as a teenager because I found it pretty tame. That being said, Raven was ambidextrous and definitely played for both teams. One of the things I loved about the books were the covers by Chris Achilleos, one of the great fantasy and sci-fi artists of the last century.
Some of you may remember these images of Kate Bush that are based on the Achilleos artwork used on the book covers. She was a hotty then and still is.
Anyways, I always liked the world the series was set in. The World was dominate by the Worldheart Ocean. Around it were the various nations and lands of Raven’s world. Beyond the known lands were mountains, snow, ice and mist – which was never really explained. The known world was like a bubble and everything outside was chaos. The preeminent state was the Altanate, with it’s cities and gold. Sly is home to tribes of black skinned warriors, Ishkar to blonde hotties (this was Raven’s home after all ) and a rift full of lost cities, jungles and half-human beastmen. The South is characterised by deserts and grasslands. The land of Xandrone is where tribes herd and ride giant war cows called Xand. The Lost Lands is where you find your fairly traditional S&S barbarian and tribal states. The North is home to great craftsmen in metal in the land of Quwhon. The island of Kragg was a viking type culture. The mysterious Isles of Kharwhan is home to a cabal of sorcerers whose machinations seem to piss Raven off no end while she continues to do whatever it is that they want. If that sounds confusing it is because it is. All in all you find all the usual tropes required in good old fashioned Sword and Sorcery. If you want to spend an hour chilling out I still think these stories are fun. Just don’t take them seriously.
So here is my take on the map that was included in the Raven books.
I had a request to post an unlabelled version of my Beasts and Barbarians role-playing game map. Well, here you go.
The original map and my expanded version of the game world can be found in this post.
https://woolshedwargamer.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/beasts-and-barbarians-roleplaying-game/
I have been a role-player for longer than I have been a wargamer. Admittedly, as kids in the late sixties and early seventies we didn’t use dice but were more into Live Action Role Playing – fighting off Germans and Japanese invaders in the back yard for the most part. In my teens I discovered what we now call roleplaying – with paper and dice. I was hooked and it has been a hobby that has run alongside my wargaming interests ever since.I have not done much in recent years – much to the chagrin of my RP-friends who keep hassling me to get ‘something going’ again.
So…what to play. I have had a hankering for a simple Sword and Sorcery campaign – something like Conan the Barbarian. I played around with creating my own world (I am an avid map-drawer since I was a kid) but just couldn’t find the time to get my arse into gear and get something created. I also have pretty much used either the Hero System or Harnmaster for most of the last thirty years and decided that a break from those was required. Fortuitously, last year I discovered Beasts and Barbarians, by Umberto Pignatelli.
This is a fully fledged fantasy world set in the Dread Sea Dominions. Pretty much all the classic Sword and Sorcery tropes are included, with some nice touches. Steel is a relic metal from an earlier, more advanced civilisation – most people are using bronze and iron at best. Wildebeast riding Black barbarians from the Ivory Savannah fight scaled cataphract riders, fierce Mongol-like nomads call the Valk swarm in from the unknown East, a large decadent Empire (or two) that have seen better days and are now just corrupted shadows of their former selves, and of course, there are black haired, mightily thewed barbarians with smouldering blue eyes from the cold grey hills of the north (and that is just the women).
The game uses the Savage Worlds rule set – which if you have not played it is a great, simple set of rules that can be adapted for any genre. They are built around ease of play and the fact that player characters are heroes. They easily chop their way through minions until they are standing in piles of reeking gore, leaving them battered and bruised for the final confrontation with the big bad guy of the session.
There are a heap of free adventures available, and a growing compendium of supplements that further flesh out the game world. The entire lot is available as PDF files which is my preferred way of buying roleplaying product now – it takes up a hell of a lot less shelf-space for starters. The artwork is very cool. Some examples.
The game book has a simple hand-drawn map that is pretty cool as far as it goes.
I decided that the world needed fleshing out. In a form of role-playing solitary vice, I decided to expand the original map and add a bit more of the world (well my version of it anyway). I have not even made a character or NPC up for this game and already I am thinking about mapping the other continents as well.
Full Size Map
Now I have to get the guys together to make some characters, fill a flagon and get gaming.
Wargaming and Roleplaying in the wilds of rural New Zealand
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Club di wargame e boardgame, a Roma dal 1976
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