WIP: The World of Elric, Classic Fantasy Style
jmabbott
🖼️ 39 images Mapmaker
Hi Folks,
Here's my WIP of the world map for an upcoming campaign. Based on Colin Driver's map from Mongoose Publishing's, Runequest II Elric of Melnibone sourcebook.
Loads of labeling and borders to do yet...
My apologies for the low resolution but it's a big map! - 4900 x 3100 miles!
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and 3 others.
Comments
Here's a bit of an update. I'll be using this as the initial player map in Maptools. This is 49"x31"" and saved at 70ppi to keep it under the 10.0mb size limit. For Maptools I'll save it at 100ppi. It's not a lot of difference in resolution but should make it nicer to look at when zoomed in.
I'm thinking for the regional maps to keep with the old-school feel, I might do them with the revised Pete Fenlon style. I've not tried that style yet...
And that's just a portion of the world. Has there ever been any feedback that relates approximately how big the entire world is?
Awesome map, by the way!
Firstly, thanks Seycyrus (and everyone else who likes/loves this piece thus far😉).
In regards to your question; not really. I assume that is about the size of our earth (as Elric blowing the Horn of Fate ends this particular age and 'resets' the world to ours).
It is assumed the Dharzi came from beyond 'The Unknown East'. Beyond the southern edge of the continent is the 'stuff of Chaos' awaiting a champion of Law to carve out new lands... To the north are the frozen lands and to the west...?
As far as I'm aware, and I'm no scholar just a fan of the stories, the northern continent and 'Unknown East' are roughly analogous to Europe, therefore, based on our worlds geography the Southern Continent would likely be North Africa and the western Canada/North America.
I'm nearly done, just have to check the spelling for some of the remaining labels (I'm getting old and can't remember them!), the writing on the source map is not that clear.
@jmabbott I'm not sure what the vertical geographical feature in the lower central part of the map is? In the first map, i clealy see it is two barrier islands - but in the second it looks like just mountains without a coastline.
They are "The
Ragged PillarsRoaring Rocks", mountains jutting out of the ocean. Where they join with their land based brethren they form a barrier to the eastern lands.I don't think there's anything canonical from the original stories regarding either the size or nature of Elric's world. There's an impression (which is repeated in places online) that whatever the world is, it may not have a fixed size or shape, as it simply extends into the chaos surrounding it. Some have speculated this could mean Elric's world is flat, and it does seem likely if not intended as flat, it's almost certainly not spherical either.
Chaosium, in their Stormbringer and Elric RPGs, expanded upon the stories to flesh the world out more, but even they don't seem to have defined the entire world in a map. The 1996 "Atlas of the Young Kingdoms, Vol. 1: The Northern Continent", p. 7 (Richard Watts, et al., for the Elric RPG then), mentions the Plane of the Young Kingdoms (i.e. not a world as such) as being a flat disc, oval in form, around 15,000 miles/24,000 km east-west by 5,000 miles/8,000 km north-south. Can't be sure from memory now, but I think this is about as detailed as they got for defining the entire world/plane.
Hi All,
I'm calling this one just about done.
I saved it as a 100ppi jpeg at 49"x31 and it developed some weird artifact through the compass rose. Anyone any ideas on why?
Here is Google Drive link (the file is too big to upload here): Elric Map
I fixed a couple of minor things that were bugging me and played around with the Blend Mode for the symbols and terrain, I think it looks pretty good.
Here is the 'final'low-res version...
@Monsen Any idea on the artifact issue in my previous post? Also, can you point me to your article/tutorial on exporting a large map in pieces and stitching it together, I can't for the life of me remember where that is... I tried to export this, first at 300ppi, rectangular section JPEG 49" x 31" but it's way too big for the rendering engine, when I tried at 200ppi as a BMP it caused CC3+ to hang...
The article is found in annual 129 - Large exports.
Not sure about the line in the compass. almost look like a miter line, caused by sharp turns between two nodes, maybe some overflow happens with the calculation at that export resolution?
@Monsen Thanks Remy! I'll have a crack at halving or quartering the map, doing my best not to intersect any major features...
A final, final update. I reduced the physical size of the map to save at 200ppi for printing and I adjusted the mountains and made some other minor tweaks. I'm very happy now with how this turned out. This is the 100ppi version for Maptools/VTTs.
Well, as usual for me, the final, final version isn't...
I sent the author of the Elric of Melnibone rule books I'm using (Lawrence Whitacker, who is also the owner of the company I do cartography for) a copy and he graciously pointed out a couple of typos...
Rather than re-post, they're very, very minor, I'll just upload the corrected version to my gallery.
The final, final map is here: https://forum.profantasy.com/profile/gallery/6719/jmabbott/176