Aldeboran

Yesterday The Day before yesterday I posted some stuff about my homebrew world. I wasn’t posting it to propose a new game for me to participate in or run; I was just trying to distract myself with some wool-gathering on more pleasant topics than the class warfare that dominates Wisconsin and Michigan right now, or the tsunami in the East or the perfidy of American politicians and corporations…. I was trying to distract myself with more pleasant thoughts, even as I get ready to pay my yearly taxes (groan — I don’t mind paying, I just wish the powers that be did something better with the money).

At right is a map I made many years ago and upon which I set many campaigns. Compare it to yesterday’s map of the same continent (somewhat revised). I actually feel like I have A.D.D. when it comes to this map — I’ve redrawn it several times, and, for my ‘world building as occasional distraction’ thing, I’m not sure which version I would use.

As an introduction, in the center of the map is ‘Catatonia’ (“Catatonia” was a reference to the mythical geography of a parody of World War 2 in one of the episodes of ‘The Three Stooges’ (along with ‘Moronica’) rather than a reference to the the Welsh power pop group). The capital of Catatonia, the city of Eord, is one the shore of the Strait of Belar just below ‘The Sinking Lands’ and west of Bleekwood (on some maps renamed Blackwood) forest. Eord is my world’s ‘Blackmoor’ or ‘City of Greyhawk.’ It is one of those cities with a lot of traders, alchemists, guilds, etc., and is also the home to ‘The Golden Palm,’ an inn where many adventures start. Eord is also the location where the grandmaster of The Red Hand (an order of assassins) supposedly has his office (or her or it’s — no one is really sure…) . The famed adventurers, Karrl and Bluddo, usually can be found in Eord between adventures.

South of Eord is the village of Nibblot which appears in just about every fantasy game I have run since 1982 or so. “The Stumble Inn” is a popular starting point for most adventurers. Although a small town, Nibblot is a trading center and has most things and adventurer might need.

South of Silver Vale (Nibblot is in Silver Vale) lies ‘The Valley of the Fu.’ The Fu bird is a gigantic multicolored creature who causes misfortune to all who see it… usually by shitting on them. In this vicinity are also East Vale, Silver Vale, etc.

The Red Mountains (also in this vicinity) are home to the dreaded Red Dwarves… who are cannibals and thoroughly unreasonable savages who fatten themselves up by devouring all of the poets and landscape painters who come to be inspired by the scenic beauty of the Silver Vales and Red Mountains at dawn or dusk. Their tattered composition books, rain-soaked canvases with broken easels and well gnawed bones can be found if you check the underbrush near the popular ‘look out’ spots.

Northwest of Eord are ‘The Sinking Lands.’ These swampy lands are run by the Archmage of Mystik (that is the name of his town). Years ago we had a pasteboard model of ‘Mystik Seaport’ in Connecticut and I had always intended to use the little paper buildings as a setting since they were approximately the right size(we also had paper models of The Alamo and Monticello), but I never did and have no idea what happened to the paper models. The sinking lands are home to all sorts of monsters. On my older map, the City of Mystik seems to have been located in The Southron swamps but at some point I moved it to the Sinking Lands. Mystik and Eord have an uneasy relationship… mostly because while the Archmage is not an unreasonable person, most of his subjects view the humans and demihumans of Eord and The Vales as ‘food.’ Sometimes it sucks being human.

I’ll keep posting this kind of stuff (including details of the rules I’d like, etc.) for as long as it remains fun.