Some background.

The original sentient inhabitants of Tatilana were the Drakona and the Muru

The Drakona are six-limbed creatures, with a pair of wings, and a tail. Their body is segmented into three distinct parts –

a)     The head, which has almost 230o rotation, and contains the organs of taste, smell and sight and hearing, along with the brain.

b)     A thorax which contains 2 lungs, and a heart and electric organ responsible for creating the energy for manipulation of the electromagnetic spectrum, and another organ responsible for immune responses. The upper four limbs are attached to the thorax, and the digits have special nerve endings that enable the direct use of electromagnetic energy.

c)     An abdomen, which contains

a.      the alimentary canal

b.     a purifying organ – combining functions of a kidney, liver and spleen.

c.      various hormone producing organs,

d.     the organ which produces the blood cells responsible for transporting oxygen.

e.      the sexual organs which produce the gametes for reproduction, and the equivalent of a uterus for both sexes, which are both able to lay eggs.

f.       a tail attached which has poison spurs on it. The toxins produced mainly causing neuro-paralysis.

g.     The lower two limbs, which enable it to walk upright

h.     A pair of wings, which are only useful for gliding. Their main function seems to be in sexual display. The female has fairly plain, usually shades of green, wings, while the male sports larger wings with various iridescent colours of blue, red, green and purple (rather like the colourful beetles of Earth).

Their ‘skin’ is light weight chitinous material (similar to insects on earth), which is also very hard, and acts as an exoskeleton – they do not have bones. There is a patch of leathery skin on their front abdomen, and the joints between the head, thorax and abdomen allow for flexible movement.

They live mainly in tropical and subtropical regions, as they are somewhat cold-blooded. Their blood is yellow, due to the pigment used to carry oxygen in their circulatory system. They are omnivorous, and love cooking complicated recipes.

They reproduce by egg-laying, and have a two stage life cycle – they are a larval form, which then hardens, and from that emerge fully developed Drakona, which in turn lay eggs which hatch larva. About 1 in 10,000 develop into huge dragon-like creatures, with huge wings that enable proper flight. They are thankfully sterile, but are capable of inflicting great damage.

They have a complex social system, and their language is both sibilant and harsh. They had developed to an early urban civilization by the time of the arrival of humans – see below.

The Muru are a totally marine race, inhabiting the depths of the oceans, with one subspecies adapted for shallow waters. They have a preference for colder waters, but migrate to equatorial latitudes for breeding. They have streamlined bodies, and four limbs used for grasping, and two vestigial legs. They are covered by a thin chitinous exoskeleton and have gill-like structures and an ability to extract oxygen from water. They have a semi-urbanized civilization and herd other marine animals. They are totally carnivorous, and use their electromagnetic abilities to obtain and prepare food. Their body pattern follows that of the Drakona.

From an evolutionary aspect, the Muru derived from marine genera, that also gave rise to land dwellers, and eventually the Drakona, in the same way fish gave rise to land dwelling animals on earth.

Arrival of the Davaraz

About 25,000 years ago, a colonizing spacefaring rave of Davaraz landed on Tatilana. They were an albino, radiation-resistant, race of small stature, adapted for underground dwelling. As a result, they did not compete with the Drakona or Muru, and instead hollowed out realms beneath the mountains, and had some perfunctory trade with the above land dwelling Drakona. How this underground race ever developed space travel is unknown, but may have had something to do with their fondness for working with such materials as uranium and thorium and cobalt – which evidently were in plentiful supply in their home world.

The Davaraz are about 1.2 m tall, four limbed, hairless except for beards on the males and a long ropy strand of thick hair on the females. They are a very pale white, with skin similar to humans, eyes which are large, green irises, and very well adapted to night and underground vision. They tend to be blinded by any normal lighting, and get severely debilitating pain if encountering bright light. As mentioned above, they are very radio-resistant, with their cells being surrounded by cell walls that protect the genetic material within from being subject to radiation damage.

Arrival of Humans

About 15,000 years ago, a colony ship of humans with thousands of frozen embryos, crash-landed on Tatilana, on the Ukadarlia continent. They had already used some genetic midifying techniques on various humans, and this continued after they established their first base on Ukadarlia. They were aggressive against the native Drakona, and soon a long war raged between the two races.

Towards the end of this 100 year conflict, the humans developed more modifications producing the strong war-like carnivorous and cannibalistic Grimir (orc-like), and the long-lived, somewhat self-repairing Aeifa, who could regrow limbs.

The main modifications made involved all the human races – first, an ability to metabolize sulphur better, as this planet has a higher concentration of sulphur in its make up than earth, which affected all living things. So the modifications were applied also to animals and plants that the earthlings had brought with them, though few of these survived. Only potatoes, barley, sugarcane, and cacao plants flourished, along with a few other herb-like plants (at least there was chocolate, beer and rum); and of the animals, only camels and their relatives survived in numbers enough to flourish. Thes animals have subsequently been bred to fulfill many functions – beasts of burden, war animals, pets, dairy and meat providers, wool providers, etc. Many of these functions had already been apparent in the versatile camel, but were greatly improved and enhanced, resulting in camels as big as elephants, and as small as medium dogs.

The second modification was to replicate the ability to use various wavelengths of the electromagentic spectrum in all humans. However, it seemed this ability was expressed mainly in females, as it was expressed on the X chromosome as a recessive suite of genes, requiring two X chromosomes to actually express the ability, although a few males did also have some albeit weak, ability in what came to be called etherics. This naturally led to a female-centric society, and eventually matriarchal systems of various types dominated the whole of the human races.

At the final stroke, the humans decided to cool the climate enough to destroy enough of the Drakona sufficiently to enable the humans to take over their lands with ease. But the project went awry, and the result was a cataclysmic Ice age, which almost wiped out the Drakona, and severely depopulated the humans. Most of developed technology was lost, and a rapid decline of civilization began.

After about 5000 years, the Ice Age retreated, and both humans and to a lesser extent, the Drakona, recovered and began to rebuild their civilizations. 

I have started on a project which I hope will get published next year. It is set on the continent of Ukadarlia on the world of Dashamargo, with the initial focus being on the NE of the continent, and the nation of Kelenahavan in particular.

These are the maps so far. In addition there will be geographical, historical, political and cultural notes, as well as notes on the various races, ethnicities, fauna and flora and unique 'monsters'. As well, I hope there will be at least 2o adventures, with a common thread to make a full campaign, as well as many other adventure hooks, and character profiles.

Anyway, here is a map of the world, as created in FT3.

Some more progress - it is now my current project, aiming to finish by end of January.

Today's work - added some of the docks.

I have also altered the Vertshusen map in the atlas to the city in my campaign - Vejorvik.

here is the link to the original city I did, in the Atlas.

Browse Maps - Vertshusen City - ProFantasy Community Atlas

Larger map in the gallery.

Image Gallery: Continent of Ukadarlia — ProFantasy Community Forum

There is also an article by Remy Monsen as well.

Command of the Week - Fill with Symbols (Week 50) — ProFantasy Community Forum

I also make a lot of use of Symbols in area.

Command of the Week - Symbols in Area (Week 52) — ProFantasy Community Forum

This may also help in setting up your own catalogues for using Symbols in area.

Profantasy's Map-Making Journal » Blog Archive » Random Settlements – Modifying Symbol Properties to Suit the Occasion

And this explains how to use exclusion commands as well for Symbols in area, and Fill with symbols.

Exclusion Commands

Ever needed to fill a polygon with symbols, but exclude the area overlapping with another polygon? CC3+ now includes a couple of exclusion commands that lets you do just this; CONTOURSMX, FORESTX and SYMFILLX. These three commands all behave exactly as their normal counterpart, the only difference is that they will ask you to select entities two times. The first set of entities you select are the ones to be affected by the command, and the second set defines those entities that will be excluded from the command. Below is an example using the Fill with Symbols (FOREST) command. The first image shows three polygons (A forest area with two lakes) before filling anything. The second image shows what happens when using the regular Fill with Symbols on the forest polygon, while the third shows what happens if we use FORESTX instead and define the two lakes as excluded. Except for the fact that you are asked to select entities twice with FORESTX, it behaves the same as the regular Fill with Symbols command. (To change settings for FORESTX, go to Draw -> Fill With Symbols first to load whatever setting you wish to use, but click close instead of Run Now).

And here is the final version of the map - I will see if I can find a place in the Atlas for it.

Then open Watabou city annual style. Pick the dimensions you want - get this from the scale in the generator.

Then inset the dxf file.Scale it as non visual by factor of 2.5 (not 400 - it no longer appears as a dot!). Use 0,0 as the point to scale from.

Next step - convert all from lines to paths (right click the Explode button). DO NOT FORGET THIS

Now we need to move all elements apart from the buildings to their relevant sheets and layers. I do it in this order, but it doesn't really matter which so long as you remove all elements apart from the buildings to their relevant sheets/layers.

1. Water: Turn Seas into closed polygon, move to sheet WATER/RIVERS, layer Water/Rivers. Use whatever fill you like. Turn River into a path of fixed width, fill whatever you like (or a actual smooth polygon, giving difereing widths along the course of the river, making it perhaps more natural, and perhaps allowing for some river islands). I do not use Change like Draw Tools for this - I got weird results (someone might like to check this out).
2. Roads: Again, I turn the roads into a path of fixed width, fill pattern what I like. Again, I got weird results using the Change like Draw tools. This isn't too problematic, since there are only ever 2-6 roads. Put them on the sheet ROADS layer Roads. I actually add a ROADS PAVED sheet, with no Edge Fade effect because sometimes i want a stone road to be 'neat' at the edges.
3. Walls: I do use Change Like Draw Tools for this - it works well. Make sure you select Sheet WALLS, and layer City Walls before doing this, though.
4. Towers: I do these each separately (I actually hide all but the IMPORT, WALLS and TOWER and TOWER TOP sheets, just to make it easier). I do use the Draw Tools, (NOT Change like Draw Tools), but it is sometimes a bit trial and error to get the right dimensions. First, work on the Round towers: Once I have 1 tower right, I then copy that to all the other round towers, to keep the dimensions consistent (unless I deliberately want to make some bigger and even taller). Nest the square towers- usually the gate. I draw 2 towers with the distance apart from them being the width of the road, then add a WALL between them, narrower than the City Walls, to act as both a gate AND a maker to align them correctly to the walls. Again, I use the copy command to keep things consistent.
5. Bridges. I make these either as a separate entity on a new BRIDGE sheet (in the map below I have used a BRIDGE sheet with a shadow effect, and a BRIDGE TOP sheet for railings, with an outer glow effect).
6. Docks: I add a DOCKS Sheet, with Shadow effect, and outer glow (or just a black outline as in the map below).
7. Greens: I add a sheet called PARKS, and transfer all greens to that sheet, Layer vegetation. Fill as desired.
8. Fields: I transfer all furrows to the FIELDS FURROWS sheet, unless I decide to use a field fill that has furrows you can align as you wish. otherwise, follow the procedure as per the annual 157.
9. Buildings: Hide all Sheets except IMPORT. Choose layer Buildings. Right click Explode button and change everything from Paths to Polys. Now change the fill to the desired fill - Watabou annual uses the Brown stone dark fill. Next add an outline to all the buildings, the press P for previous and move all the outlines to CITY BLOCK OUTLINE Sheet. I actually rename City Block to BUILDINGS, and City Block Outlines to BUILDINGS OUTLINES, and add a sheet BUILDINGS HIGH (which I transfer the large buildings to - remember to hide the outlines before you do this though!). The renaming isn't necessary, but since I like to have a different sheet for different size buildings, I prefer the name Buildings - my OCD showing! Of course, I add a Wall direction shadow to the BUILDINGS HIGH Sheet, with higher value than for the hoi polloi buildings. I find doing it this way, and NOT using the Change Like Draw Tool tool actually produces a cleaner result. But I am interested in what you people think.
10. I actually change the sheet effects for the CITY BLOCK and CITY BLOCK OUTLINE as follows: The CITY BLOCK (or BUILDINGS) sheet had only the Wall shadow directional effect - delete the Glow effects, but copy the Outside Glow effect to the CITY BLOCK OUTLINE (or BUILDING OUTLINE) sheet instead.

Now I have got the following - easy to add all the other bits to the map now.

To the template for this revised annual, I would add the following sheets: PARKS, BRIDGE, BRIDGE TOP, DOCKS, BUILDINGS HIGH; and the following Layer: Cartouches. I would also change the sheet effects for the CITY BLOCK and CITY BLOCK OUTLINES as indicated above (and change the names to BUILDINGS AND BUILDINGS OUTLINE)

I will finish this map off later.

I really want comments and suggestions on this please. I would love to be able for us all to use the Watabou stuff easily again.

I have finished the write-up for this island, and it is ready to go to Monsen for inclusion in the Atlas, once the site of the Sea-Elf outpost is validated by @Royal Scribe .

Sites of Interest

The Navagio Reef , or Ship’s Graveyard, is aptly named. Overall, there are at least 7 major shipwrecks still visible on the reef.

Menina: This small fishing village is the only populated area on the island. It numbers 526 hardy fisherfolk, whose only export is the delicious reef squid, called Jalomori. They subsist on the fruits of the sea = squid, fish, shellfish, and even the occasional seal who have a colony in the southern part of the surrounding reef. The island is rather isolated from the mainland, but there is a monthly service from Tartateos, which buys most of its exports.

Jamila (abandoned): An abandoned fishing village. The real reason for its abandonment over 20 years ago is uncertain, but horror tales of denizens from the atoll lagoon dragging all the females to the depths is the most retold cause. Certainly it may explain why at the end, there were only 15 men still living in the village. And in fact, one old man remains, swearing revenge for the loss of his wife and 2 daughters.

Kakosmagos Tower (ruins): a ruined edifice far predating any other settlement or structure on the island. Many myths about it abound – but the reality is that it is the lair of an amphibious frog-like monster family of five – who actually were the cause of the slaughter of the females from Jamila, which are the ideal medium for incubation of the eggs of the monsters. Luckily, only 25 ‘tadpoles’ have ever hatched, but in about a decade, when these slow developing and long lived horrors mature, the whole island is in terrible danger. The original purpose was the home of a family of three ‘marine biologists’ who dappled in hybridization of land and marine life forms – and the Froggies, as they are called, were born!!

Thermopiges Hot Springs: A most unusual geologic feature are these 5 hot springs, carrying heated seawater from an underground magma vent to the surface with occasional scalding geysers. In these hot pools, a family of semi-intelligent fire salamanders thrive. Whether they are a danger to humans remains to be tested.

Well of Life: This is yet another spring, but here the water is heavily laden with minerals which truly do have a healing power, though repeated drinking gives the skin a silvery hue.

Arachni Woods: This creepy forest is the home of huge spiders with very long spindly legs, and a paralyzing poison. Luckily, they prefer fish to human flesh, though on several occasions over the last decades, human children have been captured, and one even eaten by the creatures before rescue could occur. They are very difficult to catch due to their high agility, and as they mostly leave humans alone, humans mainly leave them alone.

Channel Light (ruins): an old abandoned lighthouse. As the fisherfolk know their way around very well, the lack of a light helps keep would-be pirates away. However, it has served a more sinister purpose over past decades – when lit, it promises safe passage for any approaching vessels, only for the light to be extinguished, then a false light being lit some time later, resulting in the wreck of the vessel and thus providing useful items for the fisherfolk. However, under more recent leadership at Memina, this wrecking behaviour has been stopped.

Drowned Fishers’ Cairn: This cairn represents possibly the most important spiritual focus of the island. Every person lost at sea is represented by a rock with the name and ancestry of the drowned victim, place amid ceremony on a growing mound of such rocks. Many believe this prevents the drowned spirits form haunting the island and driving away the fish and jalomori. In recent years, belief has also arisen that they are now protective spirits and those who adhere to this belief adorn the cairn with shells every full moon.

Mermaid Grotto: This reef, which is largely coral, with underwater grottos, is the home for sea-dwelling creatures – be they mermaids, undines, sea-elves, no one knows for sure, as they keep themselves hidden. They are fickle in nature – sometimes luring ships to a watery grave, hence the wrecks; sometime saving sailors from drowning. Overall, there are at least 7 major shipwrecks still visible on the reef.

Sea-Elf Outpost: See the relevant map for further notes.

Some more drawtools. All work with the change drawtools command as well, on appropriate lines or polygons.

Not sure why the fence didn't show so well on the jpg, when it did on the fcw. It may need work