I don’t know what your favorite subject was in school. In High School, it was probably English for me; In college, it had to be History, closely followed by Philosophy. For those reasons, we’re going to hit an entirely different subject today: Geography.
You see, I had a little Philosophical fun yesterday working on my little pantheon. Before that, I put some framework in for the History of the new campaign world, and I’m sure there’s more of that to come soon. But, sometimes, you’ve got to bite the bullet, hunker down, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, taste the cheese, kick the…
Right. You get it.
Anyways, where was I? Ah, yes. Geography. Creating geography in a new D&D campaign is, for most of us, a little bit like trying to make a copy of the Mona Lisa using a Woodstock Number 5. (That’s a really old typewriter, for those of you who are keeping track at home. See, the Woodstock was an amazing and revolutionary device, created in 1922, that… Whoops. Geography. Not History. Dammit.)
My point is, most of us aren’t great cartographers. We don’t have the right tools, much less the skills, to develop the geography of a campaign world the way it ought to be developed. Still, we have to try. After all, the adventurers have to have somewhere to go, don’t they?
So, we go back to our 41 questions. What’s there? Not a heck of a lot:
*phew*. That’s easy enough we can certainly answer 3 little questions. So, here are the answers for my new campaign world:
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Yes.
Fine, enough fooling around. Let’s see what I can get, shall we?
The world of Lenryn is as sharp and dangerous in its geography as it is in its way of life. Lenryn, at least the Known World, consists of two continents, joined by an archipelago that stretches for more than 100 miles. This region is known as “The Straits of Gorana,” with The Great Sea to the North and The Lesser Sea to the South. The continents are separated East to West, and slightly North to South. More than 90% of The Northeastern continent, Gorana, rests above the equator of Lenryn. Gorana runs over 3,000 miles East to West, and 1800 miles North to South. The Southwestern continent, Alrama, is split in half by the equator. Alrama runs approximately 1200 miles East to West, and around 900 miles North to South, and is elliptical in shape. Gorana is nearly twice as large as Alrama, and therefore the Southernmost tip of Gorana lines up, roughly, with the Southernmost tip of Alrama.
In the early campaign, adventures will take place exclusively on Alrama. Specifically, they will take place on the Northwest edge of Alrama, on a hooked peninsula 50 miles wide and 200 miles in length. The peninsula, sometimes called “The Dagger” or “Alrama’s Dagger” is sub-tropical in climate, being 200 miles north of the Equator. A range of mountains sits at the base of the peninsula, isolating it from much of the rest of the continent.
The campaign begins in a central portion of The Dagger. A small town, Halvinguard, has developed at the highest elevation of the peninsula, seated on an inland lake that flows out toward the sea. There are two other towns within 25 miles in each direction, with the towns creating an archipelago of their own, like Islands seated on a vast swamp. There are port towns at either end of the dagger, and there are barges that may travel upstream to bring in commerce to Halvinguard.
Now, a good cartographer could show you that on paper. I can’t. I tried Campaign Cartographer for a while, but I just wasn’t skilled. If anyone wants to give it a go, I’ll gladly feature your work here on the web site! Regardless, you get the general idea.
So, today, you should do the same. Give us the whole world, then a continent, then a region, then a locality. This should hopefully help to bring things further into focus for you.
