This post catches Yore up to all of the Ice Courts material I’ve finished to date. I’m still working on historical events (a couple to go) and relationships/wants (lots to go). As always, the headers are steps from Worlds Without Number [paid link]. Create six nations or groups of importance. Ahlsheyan (“all-SHAY-ahn,” linguistic touchstone: Proto-Turkic), a […]
The Ice Courts, part 2: nations and gods Read More »
Writing yesterday’s post about banked fires and leaving countries partially unmapped made me realize how much I’ve thought about this stuff over the past several months, and how non-obvious some of it might be to anyone outside my personal flesh-prison. I’m sort of mapping Godsbarrow the least efficient way possible . . . but stitching
Godsbarrow: Why not create a world map first? Read More »
I never get the roads, rivers, etc. on the “tile” boundaries quite right, but nonetheless I get a thrill out of seeing Godsbarrow start to come together as each region is added to the larger map. Here’s a (clumsily) stitched-together map showing the first four regions: the Unlucky Isles (where I started, top center), the
Godsbarrow map: the first four regions (plus noodling on banked fires) Read More »
Happy new year, Yore readers! My fourth region in Godsbarrow is two map “tiles” wide, sitting south of the Unlucky Isles and the Gilded Lands. It’s the map where most of Ahlsheyan sits, plus the rest of Lonþyr and most of the rest of Yrfeđe — and new nations, of course. As you can see
Godsbarrow’s Ice Courts region: overview and geographic features Read More »
I’ve been more in the mood for cartography than writing, so I’ve finished — at least in draft form — the map for the Ice Courts before the region write-up is done. The Ice Courts sit just south of the Unlucky Isles and the Gilded Lands, and this region occupies two map “tiles.” (You can
Map of the Ice Courts, Godsbarrow’s fourth region Read More »
I’ve reached the kingdom creation step in Worlds Without Number (paid link), and decided to zoom in on one caθna (province) in Brundir, Sanχu. (WWN notes that “kingdom” can mean anything you want it to in this context, from a city to a stretch of wasteland to an actual nation.) If I were about to
Zooming in to the province level: Sanχu, a caθna in eastern Brundir Read More »
I’m closing in on a fully developed region of Godsbarrow now — and honestly, this is the first time in 30+ years of gaming that I’ve had this much of a world developed to this extent. It’s an awesome feeling, and Worlds Without Number (paid link) continues to deliver. Not only that, but five weeks
The Unlucky Isles, “The Region,” part five: relationships and wants Read More »
Over the course of working through Worlds Without Number‘s steps for developing the Unlucky Isles as a region, I’ve thought a fair bit about national boundaries and how to make them interesting fuel for gaming. Worldographer’s snap-to-hex borders require a million little points and clicks, and I always fuck something up — so I went
Building the Unlucky Isles: “The Region,” part four Read More »
Like all of the advice in Worlds Without Number, the stuff about cities gets straight to the point: put the capital in the center of the best arable land, on water; put other cities on water, and near resources; if you stick one in the middle of nowhere, assume there’s a kingdom-level water source not
Building the Unlucky Isles: “The Region,” part three Read More »
This morning in the shower it hit me that in a region called “the Unlucky Isles,” with six kingdoms, only three of those kingdoms were fully contained within the Isles (the other three stretch off the map) — and one of those is “fantasy Switzerland.” Would that generate enough local conflict to fuel adventures? But
Building the Unlucky Isles: “The Region,” part two Read More »
