My Map: Let Me Show You It

James at Grognardia posted an endearing map which his 14-year-old self drew for a D&D campaign. I love maps; I love looking at them, drawing them and thinking about them - which I'm sure is a trait I share with 95% of the role playing fraternity - and James' has made me think about sharing one of my own.

Unfortunately, I have none which my 14 year old self drew here with me in Japan. I wish I did. They would be mighty embarrassing to look over now, of course; when I was 13 or 14 I was still very much of the Forest of Death/Mountains of Doom/Desert of Destruction Fighting Fantasy school of place-naming. Nevertheless, it would have been fun to look at a few of the old campaign settings. (There must be a hundred or more in my parents' loft.)

So in lieu of one of my older efforts, here's a very recent one, from a play-by-post game I'm still running. It's a map of Moluche, the seven hobgoblin Kritocracies by the sea, and their surroundings:


This is done with my current favourite method of map creation: taking snapshots from Google Earth and rotating, chopping and variously mutilating them into something workable. The seven Kritocracies are Mapuche, Nguluche, Koniyiin, Koninguun, Pefimi, Peynguun and Peymuun. To the south is a wilderness area dominated by primitive Lizardfolk tribes, and to the South-East the lands of the Duergar. Moluche has been devastated by centuries of internecine strife between the Kritocracies. Much of it is now a desolate wasteland, strewn with the detritus of war - abandoned fortifications and trenches, mass graveyards, and exhausted mines. Only Peymuun, the richest and most powerful, retains its forest cover to any extent.

I wish I could remember where I took the snapshot from. I believe it is somewhere in the Arabian peninsula, rotated at an angle, although I could be wrong.