My first CC official map
Good day all,
I have owned CC since way back but I never actually made my own maps, I was an avid FR player in the day and bought CC to augment the use of the CD with the realm maps all pre done. I started with the scaled down CC Campaign Mapper, and upgraded from there, have kept my CC/DD/CD from there up to date.
Recently though with the advent of CC3 I began to play and decided to that I would map out my new campaign world Daede with CC3. Of course as always one thing led to another, and the project got delayed, changed and finally began about 6months ago. It is a Pathfinder rule set world, with everything custom from the 18 playable races to the world it self. I started by designing the races and basic lore, than some historic world lore to give me a feel, I then created every playable race in Lone Wolf's Hero Lab, with the editor, this means my players can use Hero Lab to run their characters as if it were a officially released update. I then bought Lone Wolf's Realm Works, and began work on my campaign world from the management point of view. I did some hand sketching, and use the lore of my races to then get an idea for my world. The initial world was influenced some from the MMO Vanguard, but as it evolved I now have as it is three massive continents, a Northern "Nordic" influenced, a Tropical Jungle "Amazon" influenced, and finally a arid "Egyptian" influenced continent.
Now to the meat of the thread, and my pride and joy, my first ever serious attempt at overland CC mapping.
I present to you the Continent of Daedrea, home of the Daedrea Humans, Mountain Dwarves, Yetica, Hominex, Varnule Giants, and the Wild Elves.
I have owned CC since way back but I never actually made my own maps, I was an avid FR player in the day and bought CC to augment the use of the CD with the realm maps all pre done. I started with the scaled down CC Campaign Mapper, and upgraded from there, have kept my CC/DD/CD from there up to date.
Recently though with the advent of CC3 I began to play and decided to that I would map out my new campaign world Daede with CC3. Of course as always one thing led to another, and the project got delayed, changed and finally began about 6months ago. It is a Pathfinder rule set world, with everything custom from the 18 playable races to the world it self. I started by designing the races and basic lore, than some historic world lore to give me a feel, I then created every playable race in Lone Wolf's Hero Lab, with the editor, this means my players can use Hero Lab to run their characters as if it were a officially released update. I then bought Lone Wolf's Realm Works, and began work on my campaign world from the management point of view. I did some hand sketching, and use the lore of my races to then get an idea for my world. The initial world was influenced some from the MMO Vanguard, but as it evolved I now have as it is three massive continents, a Northern "Nordic" influenced, a Tropical Jungle "Amazon" influenced, and finally a arid "Egyptian" influenced continent.
Now to the meat of the thread, and my pride and joy, my first ever serious attempt at overland CC mapping.
I present to you the Continent of Daedrea, home of the Daedrea Humans, Mountain Dwarves, Yetica, Hominex, Varnule Giants, and the Wild Elves.
Comments
I was earlier this evening trying to create some of the small battle maps for Chapter 1.1 of my storyline and I do not understand a feature with DD3. Everything snaps to the grid offset, rather than everything being on a 5 foot square it is in the center or doors across the grid lines not centered in the 5' gridline, this is wholly frustrating because I do not know why. I know the world isn't snapped to a perfect grid, but lets face it, it just easier that way for gaming, and as soon as you bring reality into a RPG argument you have already lost!
So any tips, constructive critique, or tricks would be greatly appreciated, just keep them in L-A-Y-M-A-N-S terms please, so I can grasp and maybe learn from some of the unbelievably talented mappers posting here.
I've seen rivers split, I've also seen rivers that split and rejoin sometime later on. Terrain determines the way a river flows and if there is enough water above some kind of restriction then a split can most definitely occur. It may not be as common as merging rivers, but it can happen.
On the other hand, I think the lakes may be a little large and a little too close to the ocean. But I'm not sure on the scale either. I'd move the lakes closer to the mountains or at least some of them and even put some up in the mountains. Some of the lakes look like they are ready to bust out and become part of the ocean.
On the rivers, yes they can actually split in real life, its known as "River Bifurcation", we have a few natural examples in Canada. However to Mateus's credit it is actually rare in nature, most are man made. And good eyes, it is in Daedrea as well. A bifurcation point was done to split the mighty Daedrea River to aid in the irrigation of crops. They only have a 4ish month growing season, so they needed the river to split to expand the farmland, and the "Frost Root" production potential.
Viking another good eye, though I agree they are close (its 1000kmx1000km scale) the far western and far eastern lakes are actually brack, they are shown at its high points after the stormy spring season, when the salt water has been driven over land and drains into the lakes, slowly over summer, fall, and winter it will shallow out to about 2/3rds their size on map.
The hills are always snowed over but I have not figured out how to make that look good yet.
Daedrea is blanketed under snow for about 5-6 months of the year, though the sea never freezes below Westland and Eastport due to the tropical currents drive up to the shore, the sea is open year in the southern regions.
One option for the large lakes would be to draw them at their "normal" sizes and draw out the boundaries of the flood zones during the thaw. The flood zones could be a lighter green to denote the potential spread or even just a dashed line to denote the limits.