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Another old D&D map: the titular Keep on the Borderlands:
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Oct 11, 2022 01:27
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7 7 7 7 7 7 7 7a 7b 7c 7 7 7 7 It probably means random encounter or empty room or something with a few annotations, but I'd like to pretend it's something specific that some crazy castle owner just filled their place with. Taking a tour of the castle: "If you will follow me, this room is the wine cellar. Next door, we have a wine cellar. Just down the hall, is, yeah, another wine cellar. Look, there's not much to do around here but sit around and get hosed up, okay?"
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Oct 13, 2022 02:01
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No discussion of dungeon maps is complete without bringing up the Tomb of Horrors: A lot has been written about this dungeon: about the difference between fair and unfair difficulty; about how the dungeon was conceived and what it says about the Gygax's playgroup; about how prevalent PC death should be in a TTRPG; about how the 'poem' that's supposed to guide the players is one of the worst attempts at poetry. Today I want to talk about aesthetics. To me, one thing Tomb of Horrors fails to do is set a theme other than "gently caress you". It's just a series of corridors and rooms filled with traps, with the only notable details being their counter-intuitiveness and lethality. Other than the Green Devil, nothing about this dungeon sticks out as memorable; it's just a blur of insta-kill gotcha traps. In spite of this, Tomb of Horror's lethal reputation was enough to carry it into legendary status in D&D. Not only has it been reprinted in every edition, but it's gotten two direct sequel adventures and a prequel of sorts. The first is "Return to the Tomb of Horrors" for 2nd Edition D&D. It builds out the backstory of the jerk that built the Tomb of Horrors, Acererak, and what he hopes to accomplish with a dungeon death trap. It also adds locations to the Tomb's ensemble. The first is the metal-named Skull City, an evil necromancer college that's been built up around the entrance to the Tomb. Unfortunately I couldn't find a map of this city (at least not from the 2e Module). The Tomb itself is still there, ready to ruin the PC's day, but now it comes with a secret ending: by following the right steps, the Green Devil turns into a portal. Yeah, now the adventure wants you to get into the big mouth! If they do, the PCs don't go to the recycling bin, but to the next leg of the adventure: the lost city of Moil.  I think this is an example of a map being used for a cool moment. Imagine going through the Tomb of Horrors, somehow you survive, and against all common sense you go into the Green Devil...and the DM pulls out that map? Even before he starts describing what my character sees, I'd be wondering if I would of preferred it if he had said 'lol, roll new characters'. While not the conclusion of the Return to Tomb of Horrors, Moil is definitely the highlight imo. If you want to read more about it, check out the review from FATAL & Friends: https://writeups.letsyouandhimfight.com/dad-lost-my-ipod/return-to-the-tomb-of-horrors/ The 4th Edition Tomb of Horrors is a continuation of the story from Return: Acererak is foiled, but he survives to be a jerkface another day. For his new plan, he actually cannibalizes the magic that powered the original Tomb, but it continues to serves as a conduit of sorts to the new dungeons that he's set up. Eventually, the PCs have to trek out to the ruins of Skull City and venture into the now abandoned tomb to put the pieces all together. As Moil was in the 2nd Edition module, the Abandoned Tomb is the highlight of this module, because the players will have been psyching themselves up the entire adventure path to setting foot in D&D most infamous dungeon...and the place is loving dead. The Green Devil has been pilfered, all the pitfalls are uncovered, secret doors hang ajar, etc. The module has enough self-confidence to just lean back and let the player's imagination do all the work. SirPhoebos fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Oct 13, 2022 |
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Oct 13, 2022 02:32
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 As a kid I occasionally thought about what lands share borders
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Oct 14, 2022 16:23
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why does world 2 have a big roman numeral 3 on it
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Oct 15, 2022 00:31
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III for super mario bros 3
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Oct 15, 2022 00:42
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When I was a kid I thought it was because that's where you get the 3rd warp whistle
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Oct 15, 2022 03:19
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That makes me wonder how the map plays into the "it's all just a stage show" aspect of the game. The straight lines, abstract details, and lack of scale kind of reminds me of a transit map.
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Oct 15, 2022 23:59
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That's much more directly the intent of Mario Odyssey's map. There's also a fancy map that features in the game art. An arctic projection with full longitude and latitude demarcations to get a nice circular look to evoke going around the world and also provide more aesthetic. There's a lot of classic traveling stuff in the game like stickers for a suitcase, and this is just an atlas to denote that somebody in the game is doing some navigating even if the player isn't really.  You can get a better look at the landmasses on the globe anyways. https://twitter.com/supermario_uk/status/895628885261418497 I think they did the best they could to make sure that their world doesn't look anything like Earth even with the most creative apocalypse. There's not many references to real-world places in the game. New Donk City is pretty New York-ish, Bowser's Castle is a traditional Japanese castle, and Tostarena is kind of a melange of Egypt and Mexico, but that's about it. There's no cultural references in the Luncheon Kingdom.
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Oct 16, 2022 01:12
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Robot Style posted:That makes me wonder how the map plays into the "it's all just a stage show" aspect of the game. The straight lines, abstract details, and lack of scale kind of reminds me of a transit map. Talk about places that don't exist, Overwatch 2's Toronto Map has a TTC map that is fantasy of the highest magnatude  Lol a queen street subway line? Hah!
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Oct 16, 2022 06:18
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Robot Style posted:That makes me wonder how the map plays into the "it's all just a stage show" aspect of the game. The straight lines, abstract details, and lack of scale kind of reminds me of a transit map. In the NES era they worried about "is game fun" and sometimes not even that
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Oct 17, 2022 01:15
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 I really like that the counterweight continent is called that because although its small, its full of gold, and so balances the entire disc.  Fatty fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Oct 18, 2022 |
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Oct 17, 2022 20:53
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Fatty posted:
Spectrum ROM System variables Prev: 5CB0 Up: Map Next: 5CB4 5CB2: RAMTOP - Address of last byte of BASIC system area Initialised by the routine at NEW, and used by the routine at CLEAR. RAMTOP 5CB2 DEFW $FF57
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Oct 22, 2022 22:10
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Unkempt posted:Spectrum ROM System variables Oh god damnit
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Oct 24, 2022 13:02
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So here's a whole thing. There's a webcomic called Latchkey Kingdom. I think the creator has been on SA at some point, I don't know if I've seen them at all recently. It is actually set in a world established in a previous webcomic, which was okay, but has a lot more young artist experimenting with aesthetics energy, so it's a lot rougher. I liked it. It was called 70 Seas, and its original website is dead, but there's backups on DrunkDuck and the Internet Archive, and also purchasable on Gumroad. The main premise of the world beyond being a fantasy pastiche full of animal people is that the world is almost entirely water, and all the landmasses float long its surface, meaning that all the land is constantly moving and needs elaborate charts to keep track of.  The comic's more elaborate explanation:   And so through the comic there's a number of maps depicting the moving islands and the situations they cause.  A weather pattern that makes ships convenient to rob (as well as a certain island nation isolated inside of the weather pattern).  There's a couple pages done up like encyclopedia entries on countries that denote their paths across the globe.    In the final big arc of the comic, there's a whole thing about the country for which the cast are privateers for calling back all of its ships as the motherland passes by the place where a Ghengis Khan-type guy is threatening to attack. A bit of a content warning: no rape takes place in the comic, but they do talk about it. Not very direct about it though. It's a lot more mature about the subject than I'd normally expect with an old webcomic. Also something of note about the maps is that I personally struggle with coming up with good fake names for things, but I feel like this author really has fun with it. A whole lot of slightly-changed real names. The current webcomic that succeeded it, Latchkey Kingdom, takes place on just one landmass and is sort of a smaller scale, but also is more well done and manages a lot more characters. I'll post those later.
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Oct 29, 2022 00:18
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 I made this one yesterday- it's a fun way of coming up with genuinely interesting coastlines for your next Generi Fantasy World(TM). Any guesses? It's a topological map of the moon, with the sea level set to the 2km datum, and earth-like climate zones. (And upside down from the POV of you northern hemisphere people, I guess.) Completely impossible of course, but it looks great. You've got hell deserts, beautiful archipelagos, huge rivers, multiple mini-Mediterraneans, strategic straits & passes galore....
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Dec 17, 2022 04:17
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Tree Bucket posted:
I want to play Civ on that map.
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Dec 18, 2022 22:58
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Tree Bucket posted:
Very nice, what does the other hemisphere look like? It's always a fun mental exercise to consider what political borders will result from geography, major trade routes and conflict zones, etc.
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Dec 19, 2022 19:52
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twistedmentat posted:I want to play Civ on that map. My first thought too. I'll have to bash it together in World Builder. Vernii posted:Very nice, what does the other hemisphere look like? It's always a fun mental exercise to consider what political borders will result from geography, major trade routes and conflict zones, etc. Yeah, as soon as I finished it I started scribbling borders and cities and trade routes on it. Really fun. I haven't drawn up the other side yet, but the elevation maps I've seen have about 2/3 of the surface divided between northern highlands and southern lowlands with a nice sharp boundary between the two; the other third is a very messy mass of overlapping craters that would produce either hell mountains or lush archipelagos depending on where one sets the sea level.
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Dec 20, 2022 04:47
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Old stuff. Some of this guy's worldbuilding is a bit, huh, weird, but his maps are very interesting, especially his "Tilt!" series: http://www.worlddreambank.org/P/PLANETS.HTM YaketySass fucked around with this message at 08:10 on Dec 20, 2022 |
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Dec 20, 2022 08:06
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Yes! That's the ancient website that map of the moon reminded me of but I couldnt remember the right keywords for it to show up in search. Thanks.
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Dec 21, 2022 18:33
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YaketySass posted:Old stuff. Some of this guy's worldbuilding is a bit, huh, weird, but his maps are very interesting, especially his "Tilt!" series: Thanks for posting this! I ran across this years ago and also couldn't find it again. The Mediterranean Abyss in the Shiveria page is a really compelling world building idea to me: quote:Low sea levels permanently cut off the basin from the Atlantic, and the sea slowly evaporated, leaving a gigantic chasm more Martian than anything we know on Earth. At the bottom, 3-4 kilometers below sea level, a chain of warm salt lakes stretches 4000 kilometers, each luridly colored by different algae and halobacteria.
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Dec 21, 2022 19:55
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The Hothouse world of a 600ppm CO2 future is pretty good, even though the intro is hilariously (and most likely unawarely) ideological.  Its very impressive all these worlds are sculpted physical props.
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Dec 22, 2022 01:22
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YaketySass posted:Old stuff. Some of this guy's worldbuilding is a bit, huh, weird, but his maps are very interesting, especially his "Tilt!" series: I really like that dude's Lyr waterworld, it feels like it should have a sci-fi travelogue novel.
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Dec 24, 2022 17:30
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 How has nobody posted Earthsea yet? One of the best parts of reading Earthsea is flipping back to the map at the front of the book, and tracing Ged's paths around the world.
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Dec 25, 2022 21:02
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The map of Earthsea was literally the first thibg LeGuin created for the series.
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Dec 26, 2022 15:50
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The maps of Warhammer: Age of Sigmar are quite interesting. Long gone is the single Earth-like (but weird) map of Warhammer Fantasy that you can see in Total War Warhammer and the original post of this very thread. After its destruction, the different winds of magic coalesced over the passing eons into eight new planes of existence defined by the characteristics that embodied their dominant lore of magic. These planes are almost infinite in size and growing all the time, so you can fit your army or lore anywhere you want. Let's focus on Aqshy, the Realm of Fire, one of the most fleshed-out ones.  And specifically, one of its continents, The Great Parch, home of most of the civilized cities and one of the first places that Sigmar started to clean of Chaos (Open in a new window for a bigger view).  Let's enhance the map a little more, on the city of Brightspear.  A city that, of course, has its own map for your tabletop RPG adventures.  Just an example of many different parts of the Age of Sigmar worlds. And if you make your own maps, there's no one to tell you they are wrong.
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Jan 4, 2023 01:02
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Yea, Age of Sigmar maps are a fantasy map nerds dream. Each realm is dominated by one of the winds of magic, and that informs the locations, and they have a lot of fun with that. Because its this crazy high fantasy world where magics part of everything, you can have really inventive stuff going on. Also they're free to do stuff like have locations completely change as the meta story goes along. Like the city of Anvilguard was once part of Sigmars realm, but the locals were forced out when the Daughters of Khaine took over and is now their main stronghold.
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Jan 4, 2023 06:59
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I am a professional Maps person and my formal opinion is that this thread is really cool.
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Jan 27, 2023 19:32
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Age of Sigmar has good maps now. First edition was awful for a lot of reasons, including these Zyborne Clock rejects.  
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Jan 27, 2023 23:03
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I will never not be a fan of the Rain of Corpses raining directly out of the Death Lands. Very much so stupid it loops back around to cool. Good map.
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Jan 27, 2023 23:37
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Imagining corpses raining down like
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Jan 28, 2023 01:27
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grassy gnoll posted:Age of Sigmar has good maps now. First edition was awful for a lot of reasons, including these Zyborne Clock rejects. Ahhh, someone got paid to draw that.
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Jan 28, 2023 01:30
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mega dy posted:I am a professional Maps person and my formal opinion is that this thread is really cool. What, specifically or vaguely, do you do, and how did you manage to get the job? Genuinely curious, sorry if it's a derail, but something I've always been interested in.
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Jan 28, 2023 01:49
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 I'm a big fan of peoples' attempts to stich the entire pokémon world into a single coherent map
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Jan 28, 2023 20:28
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:
Aren't Pokémon regions pretty transparently equivalent to real world ones?
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Jan 28, 2023 20:47
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YaketySass posted:Aren't Pokémon regions pretty transparently equivalent to real world ones? All of the "main" games, sure. I still don't like Kanto and Johto being directly connected by land when you have to take a cruise ship to get between them, but I get it.   Most of the side games though don't really seem based on much of anything. Allegedly Pokemon Colosseum's setting is based on Arizona, but mostly there's a lot of weird islands that don't relate to much of anything (hence why that map has such a big clump of random poo poo). Ransei is clearly shaped like a Pokemon. Lental's a particularly bad offender because it needed to shove a bunch of radically different biomes into one archipeligo. Here're some maps from my favorite Pokemon game that don't seem to be based on anything.  
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Jan 28, 2023 21:48
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Jan 28, 2023 22:17
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YaketySass posted:Aren't Pokémon regions pretty transparently equivalent to real world ones? That's what makes pokémaps so cute to me. Especially when they include the spinoff game and anime filler arc regions. Why is Kanto larger than Spain and further from Kyushu than from Britain and MegaNewYork? Why is it possible to walk all the way from Kyoto to Paris? Why is Paris the literal City of Lights full of fashion models instead of a stinking poo poo pile? What happens in three years when there's a new adventure in pokéMexico? Where is pokéSouth America? Who cares, some intrepid soul is making a map.
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Jan 29, 2023 00:00
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 15:33 |
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:Why is Paris the literal City of Lights full of fashion models instead of a stinking poo poo pile? IIRC Japan think of Paris like western weebs think of Tokyo
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Jan 29, 2023 00:13
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