Hel Valley - My First Overland Map

My First attempt at an Overland Map, with some background notes of the area.. comments welcome, if folks want to use the map, please feel free to do so..

Photobucket

Notes:

I've created an area known as Hel Valley, named after the River Helga flowing through it, and forming up into a few lakes there, Lake Helg, Lake Helgan and the Lakes of Tears. The Legendary settlement of Truth is located south east but central to the rough path that traverses the known settlements in the area, namely Tannock (a foresters outpost where logging and hunting are big pursuits), through Truth, and onto the small lakeside town of Helgan. Truth is straddled either side by the two main forests of the area, The Forest of Midday, and Midnight Forest. The darker pine forest of Midnight has been known to harbour creatures of unknown origin, presumed from the rakish mountains in the north. Midday forest hosts a wealth of good hunting and resources for the Legendary encampment. Each forest has a circle of stones of unknown origin, presumably places of whorship or sacrifice. Moon henge is a dark structure made from obsidian rock shards assembled in a crescent shape, whereas Sunhenge is a perfect circle of smooth white sandstone. On the road south of Truth, there lies the Seer's Tor, a mystical tower closed by magics of some sort.

To the north west of Truth, lies the Zol mountains, encasing the deadly Ruins of Zol, death and decay seep through the area, few adventurers go there, even fewer return. To the north of Helgan lies the Skol Mounds, and it is said that a Caved area exists there where Cave Orcs and Trolls patrol. West of the Skol Mounds, lies ancient burial chambers almost totally sealed these form the Dry Barrowlands, and many nomads use the region as an assembly area before heading futher North. These nomads tend to be hostile and roam in brigand packs. Further West past the Dae ridge mountains lies Daereh's Stronghold, a maximum fortified castle housing the Daereh family, little is known of these people, rumours from the nomads have it that they drink the blood of man and animal at night. Passing further West the area is overshadowed by the active Volcano Mount Phoenix, spewing lava constantly feeding the ever growing Phoenix Mountain range that guards the road off West.

As you can see there are numerous areas that could become adventuring interests, plus two additional townships, and skirmishes with roaming Bandits.

Comments

  • jaerdaphjaerdaph Traveler
    Great work for a first map!
  • Good first map Fade. Just noticed some overlapping symbols in the top corner of the border and the absence of symbols down the side. You can get the border in front of these so then you could take the forest all the way to the map border like you have on the left side of the map. Only other tips I could think of would be to put a fill area under the hills/mountain areas in a grey or brown to match in. There are some good maps in the download section that show this, also perhaps add some hills next to the mountains so that the terrain isn't such a drop off as such and it softens the transition to plains areas.

    They are just aesthetic adjustments really, so good effort on your first overland map.

    Cheers
  • 6 days later
  • Thank you for your comments, much appreciated. I'll certainly have a look around.
Sign In or Register to comment.