November/December 2015 Challenge: The Island of Gnoff
Here is Chick's return request to me for a map, after I gave her a top down city. It involved a couple personal emails to get the full story. So here is the request and my first layout of the island with her response. Sounds like fun!
To Ric:
I need a map of an island, the island is 20-30 miles across, rough coastlines with few landing spots, and surrounded by a permanent thick fog, but you only map the roughly 6 x 6 mile portion that contains one landing area on the South side and the rest of the stuff I’ve described below. Let the rest of the island flow off the map, assumed to be more forest and craggy hills.
The island is wilderness, mostly rocky and hilly, with lots of crags and defiles and passes, but no real mountains. Trees and forests intersperse with the rocky outcrops. A few small rivers flow from highlands to the sea, including one from the lake.
On the island are the following locations:
· A landable strip of beach.
· A few-miles-long Y-shaped rocky defile leading up into the hills that widens and narrows.
· One leg of the Y ends with a wide spot and a dragon weyr high in the cliffside.
· A small town, totally in ruins, lies a bit beyond the end of the other leg of the Y in the island’s interior.
· A large Palace of the Gods, complete with a large lawn, very large orchard, other gardens, and a stairway to the heavens, settled next to a large lake in a verdant valley.
· A large lake next to the Palace, fed by twin waterfalls springing from caves on the cliffs above it that looks like eyes in a face.
· Drowned in the lake is a large castle, connected to the Palace by an underground passageway.
· Some reasonably large clearings and open country subject to possible attacks from above scattered around the island.
· A few tight thick forest areas subject to ambushes scattered around the island.
The two main buildings are the Palace of the Gods and the drowned castle in the lake, connected to each other by the underground passage. I’d like one blow up, of the valley with the Lake/Waterfalls, Palace, Orchards and Gardens, Castle under the lake, and the passage between them. I will leave it to you if you want to map the interiors of these.
As the party enters the island on the south end and travels north, they enter the defile and first meet the dragon on the right Y branch. That path ends and they have to go back to the Y. The left branch leads out of the defile and a little further on to the ruins. From the ruins, they travel through rough country, encountering the gargoyles in a rocky clearing. From the gargoyles, they travel on and eventually come down the path into the valley. The rest of their adventure happens in the valley, so nothing more of the island needs to be depicted.
You are welcome to use greyscale or color as you wish. The map should be primarily horizontal, but otherwise you can size it as you wish to fit the map you create.
### Latest WIP ###
Here is the initial layout of the area on the map, with Chicks reply.
The layout looks fine, except the outlet stream from the lake needs to go some direction other than where the party comes in to the valley. Other streams from the highlands are fine, but remember this is only a quarter or less of the island.
Not much detail needed for the gargoyles for my purposes, so do whatever you like for the challenge benefit. The scale seems fine. Brog’s head sticking out of his cave works perfectly.
I think I need to add one little thing. In my adventure, I just let the party choose which direction they took on the Y and that was the one that led to Brog. Now with a specific map, I need the party to go to Brog first, so can you build a barrier, maybe a thick forest on the left path that they won’t realize until later is another branch of the Y?
Gnoff.jpg
Please put the castle in the middle of the lake, the lake was created specifically for that purpose. I love the canyons and crags, and Brog's cave looks perfect!
