Teros: An Epic Campaign Setting, World Map Sketch...need help!

[Coolplayer]

Hello all. Currently I'm developing a huge (and I do mean huge, about the size of Jupiter) campaign setting for dungeons and dragons. This world will be designed for basically limitless adventures because I wanted to make an EPIC campaign world setting. Here is the World Map Sketch I came up with. Keep in mind, this is only one hemisphere of the world.

terossketchworldmapsmall.jpg

Now basically the concept is the following as I've been working on the worlds regions and locations as far as INFORMATION goes. I definately want a professional looking map and probably sub maps for each region. I've put certain locations on this sketch simply for the world creation process. Once all this is finished, I plan on submitting everything to WoTC and trust me if you decide to help on it, you will definately get credit where credit is due:

In a time now lost in the memories of many, the mass of desolate landscape brought itself upon the world of Teros. Some say it was judgement for the corruption that had seethed it's way into the world, while others say it was a natural event. Speculation of the reason runs rampant through the minds of the Terronians, and the vast difference of the various cultures show just that.

What everyone agrees on is that the Dark Crusade was the first event that assured the people of Teros that this foreign land was not one of peace and life, but one of death and power beyond what any had ever seen in recorded history.

Devils and demons, the unliving, twisted beings beyond imagination began to make their appearance from beyond the Great Divide. It was at first thought to be impassible and many died trying to finally break this myth a few hundred years ago. Now, the terrible abominations that have killed thousands seem to at a stalemate with the forces of good. Men of the purest hearts, winged angels from the heavens, and knight kings of the utmost respect have made their presence known in Teros. It would seem that the gods themselves would have mortals play a role in their fate, causing a standstill...for now.

It has been over 500 years since the last battle of the Dark Crusade, and now a great shadow begins to move towards the Great Star. It appeared from beyond and inches slowly over the sky, inspiring awe in it's great silence...

A more detailed history for DM's will be provided, but this history is basically what any player could and would know about the history of the world when beginning play.

Now unfortunately some of the right side of the map was cut off when I scanned it in, but you can get the gist of what I'm talking about. Teros is on the right and the Unknown Lands are on the left.

I plan on doing a more detailed sketch of this hemisphere now that I have a basic draft of it complete. Any helps/comments/etc will be greatly appreciated.

[Gidde]

Hiya coolplayer! Have some rep for your first map post (at least that I've seen). The sketch looks great so far, but I think you may have some scale issues. If you really want this world to be the size of Jupiter, the hemisphere you've mapped would be about 140,000 miles across. Making your elven forest about the size of the entire earth (if the earth was laid out flat; if you plopped the earth in front of it it would actually be 2 of our planet wide). Soooo ... you may want to either scale down the world, or add a LOT more stuff

[Lukc]

I did the same kind of thing for a campaign when I was younger - I made the world huge. Basically a Dyson sphere around a very weak red-dwarf. At a certain point I realised that it was so mind-numbingly huge that I really didn't *need* it that big.

Welcome to the mappity guild and hope to see you develop your map.

[Coolplayer]

Well one reason I want it huge is so there can be forests and mountain ranges large enough to support communities of huge/colossal creatures. I really don't want to scale it down at all. I do however plan on adding more things to the map to take up that space. The sketch is a draft and very general simply so I could get a lay out of the idea in my head. I mean you can make a world that's huge and just have the legend with the distance bar reflect how large it is am I right? I want epic long journeys. Teleportation will undoubtidly be used frequently (in areas where it can) but otherwise I want it to take months for a party to reach a destination (with random encounters, plenty of RP in between, side quests in between etc). I just think a larger world makes i more epic in terms of being able to play around with it a lot more. A city of hundreds of thousands of titans for example would have to be very very large. A mountain range able to support thousands of a particular dragon type, etc. That or I could just scrap it and see if someone on here would be willing to let me use a map that's already finished for the setting. *Shrug*

[Gidde]

Well, I certainly wouldn't say to scrap it! If huge is what you want, go for it! I just wanted to make sure you knew what you were in for, having run into a similar problem myself before

[Joshua]

I think you've made a valiant start and that you should see it through! In the end, only you know if it'll work for your campaign or not (and sometimes, even the GM doesn't know!) but if that's what you're looking for, give it a shot.

[Lukc]

Absolutely don't scrap it! I'm just saying it overwhelmed me

[urxed]

I think you should try to make a very general layout on a big piece of paper, choose one part of that world and maybe narrow it down to a piece of your world as large as... well, the middle parts of Europe or maybe half of USA. Start out with that, make a map over the area and start making maps of the surrounding areas and so on.
To make a world as large as Jupiter is a humongous load of work if you want it detailed. If you want all of your stuff in one map, and you also want it to be detailed you need some kind of super computer - otherwise "normal" big mountains won't even show on you map, in comparison to the titan-cities or thousand-dragon-mountains.

I'm making a map that is probably as large as one fifth of, say, italy or sweden - the size of it is 158 meg and it's not even very detailed.

So my suggestion and advice is:
1. General layout
2. Choose an area
3. Map the hell out of it!
5. Repeat - and use each map in conjunction with the others to describe epic awesome adventures.

Believe me, you'll want to add a thousand things and you'll want the possibilities to change and add lot's of stuff - starting out small in a big world is not wrong.

I definitely want to see this happen! I love huge worlds - but also consider the details in everything, every culture, every people, every creature - how do they get along or DON'T get along, what about war, what about magic and nature? Has the world changed over time, is there still unexplored areas (there should be in a world as large as yours!)?

[Coolplayer]

Yes urxed. The world has changed over time and because it is so huge, there are different pantheons for basically every part of the world. There are also unexplored areas. I don't have a problem coming up with lore and flavor (I guess that's where my experience as a DM comes in) I just suck as a cartographer.

I like your suggestions though so I think I will start on one region. I've been working on The two northern most island masses which will collectively be known as the Frozen Lands. Anyone interested in helping me do a map for that area? Maybe something with an arctic feel to it? Ideas?

[rdanhenry]

I thought someone else would have pointed this out by now, but that is definitely not a map of a hemisphere. If that's half the world, then your world is flat. You can invoke magic and/or divine fiat to handle having a Jupiter-sized world that's terrestrial enough for humans to live on, but you can't escape basic geometry. A world map of a globe has to take projection into account, even if just in a rough way. Frankly, since you're doing very wild fantasy anyway, I'd go ahead with a flat world. Or if you want to be exotic, a cylinder with unpassable icecaps at both poles.

Chris Columbus and Marco Polo seem to have managed fairly epic journeys on an Earth-sized world, though.