Ancient Realms of Greyhawk!
Blackadder23
Traveler
Presenting my map of the Flanaess (World of Greyhawk), created with the Ancient Realms style from the October annual. Special thanks to forum user Shessar, the continental outlines of whose Greyhawk map I traced because I'm a lazy S.O.B., and of course to Gary and Darlene for creating this fantastic world in the first place.
Full Sized Map
FCW file
Full Sized Map
FCW file
Comments
Cheers,
~Dogtag
BTW, I am going through all of the annuals in turn, creating maps appropriate for my world Myirandios, which I will post shortly.
Happy Xmas to you all here on the forum. (It is Xmas Day here in Australia - warm with a wonderful view of the ocean)
I have noticed problems downloading Mediafire files the past few days. I was trying to download Hero & Daughter, a free Japanese RPG which has an English translation hosted on Mediafire, earlier and had the same problem I had when trying to download the map files. (Wanted to look at the game since an animated series based on it is coming out in January.)
The map is also slightly larger (as close to 4' x 3' as possible) and exported at maximum quality, because I'm probably going to print it for actual game use after the first of the year! The full sized map is available at the following link:
Full Sized Map
Happy New Year to all cartographers and Greyhawk fans!
Oh, and your revised version looks brilliant!
Happy New Year!
~Dogtag
Dogtag, I guess the Wild Coast region is just the hot birthplace for adventurers in the Flanaess.
Here is the final version of this map. It just has a few trivial changes over the last map, fixing things like mountains overlapping river mouths, plus a tiny amount of work "by hand"; I changed a couple dozen pixels that weren't quite the way I wanted. Anyway, this is definitely the final version - I'm sending it to be printed, and after I do that I refuse to nitpick it any more. Happy gaming in Greyhawk!
Big Final Map
(I'm laughing a little at the second half of your comment because this is my version of a classic D&D world map by Darlene Pekul, and the original frequently gets the exact same criticism you voiced about rivers starting in the middle of nowhere. I decided to be faithful to the original rather than try to "fix" the problem. You're definitely not alone in finding it odd though!)
Best explanation for many things in many situations
Some rivers in the real world do start at springs (for example, the Rhume in Germany) or in marshy lands. They don't all flow down mountains. I would guess that this is supposed to be the explanation of some of the rivers on the Greyhawk map (for example, the Blackwater, Dulsi, and Opicm all have the Cold Marshes as their source). Some of the others may indicate higher elevations in some parts of the map; for example, there may be a plateau in the North Province that forms the source of the Trask and Flanmi Rivers. Another possibility is that the "rogue" rivers are fed by tributaries too small to show on a continental map.
I wonder: did anyone ever just ask Darlene or Gary what was intended by the rivers that appear to begin in the middle of nowhere on the Greyhawk map? I'm pretty sure both were aware how rivers typically flow, so they must have had SOMETHING in mind...
Darlene's maps do not contain any elevation information (other than mountains). If you assume that all of the "green" areas on her map represent the same identical elevation, then the confusion is warranted. But clearly that is not the case. There may be many 1000's of feet of elevation change within those areas. It is simply not shown. Where those rivers begin must represent the highest elevation in that area.
What would truly be confusing is if those rivers didn't exist. Rainfall has to go somewhere. Some gets absorbed, some stays where it falls forming contained lakes, most flows to lower elevations.
If someone really wants to "fix" the perceived problem, that would require adding detailed topological information. That would make clear why those rivers start where they do, but would destroy the aesthetics of the map.
I'm sure this explanation is probably correct.
To be honest I've never worried about it. Darlene's map is beautiful and it's a great, evocative setting for gaming. That's all I care about.
Why, if the characters dig down far enough... they might find scrith. Scrith, the substance on the bottom of 'The Ring World' by Larry Niven.