New Project: Anchoromé Conversion

[MarkusTay]

First, a little background. Anchoromé is a continent in the Forgotten Realms. However, technically it is NOT a continent in the Forgotten realms (confused yet?) The name itself derives from an island Chain created by the Realms creator Ed greenwood to the west of the main campaign area (Faerûn). A product came out years ago called the Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas, and that product showed several other continents (but not really the island chain Mr. Greenwood imagined). In the FR Campaign setting book that came out in 2001 a world map was included, which basically reconfirmed the basic shapes of those other continents presented in the FRIA. Most fans of the setting have accepted the western continent as Anchoromé (the name itself is setting-canon), but AFAIK it has never been made official. This is what it looks like in a truncated pic from the FRCS book -



This is what another (unknown) fan of the setting did with it: we in the community try to compliment each other's work by sticking as close as possible to other people's renditions in order to keep some uniformity, even though what we do is considered non-official (although some of my own work has become official).

Anonymous Anchorome' map

Now I introduce you the other part of this project - the continent of Laerakond, which mysteriously appeared to the west of Faerûn in 4th edition:



A lot of fans of the setting were... less then pleased... with the complete lack of detail. I decided to spruce it up a bit and give it a '3e feel'. I posted This Map awhile back here - I was rather proud of it at the time. Its mostly just textures I lifted from the official map, and mountains I re-formed from the official one to make them work for me. Its about half pasted bits and half-drawn.

Unfortunately a lot of folks still don't like Laerakond (the actual name the land goes by according to it's inhabitants). Not only is the shape a bit unrealistic, but I lot of people don't want the world map to change (and I can't say I blame them). Ergo, I am attempting to fit Laerakond into the existing continent of Anchorome. The idea is to get all the fluff to still work, despite the geography changes. I also tried to keep as close to that other guys model as I could - I just shifted his Lakes & rivers around a bit, and lost a couple of rivers where returned Abeir's bodies of water needed to go. Here is what I have done so far:

Current WIP

The settlements are really just placeholders for now - they may change as I tweak things. Ignore where I started to darken the coastline - that was an experiment that I unfortunately saved. I also can't help the unrealistic round lake - that is part of the setting (some primordial 'God' was cast down to earth there, or some such). I am trying to stick to the same color palette as the official 3e maps, even though I plan on changing the style, so as to keep the 'FR feel'. I'm going increase the resolution today (on a smaller area) and start adding in the mountains. Any comments/advice are greatly appreciated.