Jörðgarð Map of Week #264 - Astmundur's and Torfheiður's Isle

[Mark Oliva]

astmundir_torfheidhur_isle_3000.jpg

The 266th Map of the Week is from the second Jörðgarð (TM) Trails adventure on the Fallen Empire Trail, "Draug Hunters." The map shows the hermitage of the scout Astmundur and his wife, the ranger Torfheiður, in the Misty Spring lake area. Misty Spring is a large lake that is fed by a spring. The lake is the source of the Fogwater River. Unknown to most, there are several populated islands upon the lake. It is a hidden area, constantly covered by a magical fog.

Key to the Map of the Island

1. Settlement

2. Trail to Dock

3. Dock

4. Ruins

You can get his map in two versions:

1. The Fractal Mapper (TM) 8 version in FMP format, fully editable (12 MB) from the Jörðgarð website.

2. As a JPG flat map of 3000 x 955 Pixels (2100 KB), available above.

Both versions are released for personal and commercial use under the Open Game License Version 1.0a, which you can read on the Jörðgarð website at:

http://www.vintyri.org/joerdhgardh/

Next Week: Astmundur's and Torfheiður's Settlement

[Mouse]

How do you do that? Once again, I'm itching to have a go at finishing this map myself - which is the intended purpose, isn't it. I really doubt that if I set about drawing a map a week without any effects, that people would even bother to glance at them, never mind wanting to finish any of them for themselves

[Mark Oliva]

How do you do that?

How do I do what?

Once again, I'm itching to have a go at finishing this map myself - which is the intended purpose, isn't it.

The intended purpose is to do whatever anyone wants with it, not just finishing it.

I really doubt that if I set about drawing a map a week without any effects, that people would even bother to glance at them, never mind wanting to finish any of them for themselves

I have no idea. However, whatever you decided to do with it, you'd have to do from scratch, because the original is an FM8 map. We also wouldn't be able to do anything with it, because yours would be a CC3+ map, not a FM8 map. And afterward, just about no one would be able to modify your map, because CC3+ can't embed the objects that you use. But it's there for you to use as you please. That's the idea behind free, open gaming, open source content.

[Mouse]

Well in my case I just want to finish them with a whole bundle of effects and things - to polish what you have already put into them.

How do you draw them in that way - the way that makes me what to finish them when I see them. Take any of my maps without any effects on them and I can guarantee you that no one would even notice they were there, never mind want to do anything with them... which says to me that if you were ever to upload a finished map, with all the effects you might add, I have no doubt that you would have everyone going "WOW".

I think that maybe its the composition that gets me every time. You've come up with some really interesting shapes and diagonals just lately, and I'm heavily into composition. Look at all the trouble I went through shaping Merelan City from a blob to a reasonably interesting shape - and that took me most of a week to achieve, never mind anything else

I know!

you have already told me that producing finished maps would defeat the point of what you do - which is to create the basic map so that others can do what they want with it.

I greatly admire you for that

[Mark Oliva]

We map in two different cartographic worlds. Although the amount of cartographic material we make may make my statement seem incredible at first, cartography is no priority at all within the Vintyri (TM) Project. Our top priority is creating RPG material, i.e., the Dungeons Daring (TM) game, the Jörðgarð (TM) campaign setting and the Jörðgarð adventure trails. A key objective is to make things in such a way that a game master can customize everything we do, texts, maps, etc., so that he or she in the end can tailor make any of our products into what he or she wants them to be. That's our goal. We know what kind of download volume we have, and we know what level of inquiry we have. The number of users that we have is more than satisfactory to us. But what we make also very much serves an off-the-beaten-path niche of the RPG community. Anyone who thinks that D&D (R) 4E or 5E is the ultimate in RPGing would run away from our products quickly. We serve two entirely different RPG appetites.

The maps that you make are intended for a book and intended to stand as you make them. They're excellent and will serve a book magnificently. If I made maps like yours with FM8 - and FM8 can do a lot of what you're doing - our users would give up on our maps. They would be open source in name only. Almost none of our game masters would be able to customize them because they're far too complex and complicated technically and the users would have a learning curve as high as Mt. Everest (which most folks also would have if they wanted to learn how to do in CC3+ what you're doing with CC3+).

We never have had a complaint from users that our maps don't have enough bells and whistles. We get complaints with some regularity that our maps already are too complicated to customize. We're serving two different audiences, both of us by choice and desire. There are some Vintyri game masters who are into cartography, but most aren't. Most of our game masters want workaday maps that they can customize and sometimes even mangle with great ease.

[Mouse]

I get it We're opposite ends of the production line, only where mine is only one of millions of different ways of adapting a base map, you produce the actual base maps.

If the whole process was a tree, I would be a single leaf to your great roots and trunk! LOL

[Mark Oliva]

I get it If the whole process was a tree, I would be a single leaf to your great roots and trunk!

I think if William Butler Yeats were taking part in this discussion, he might think that I'm producing a tree and you're making the silver apples of the moon and the golden apples of the sun that grow atop it.

On second thought ... I think if William Butler Yeats were taking part in this discussion, he might want to get out of here quick, seek the wandering aengus and take a bite out of those silver apples of the moon and the golden apples of the sun.

[Mouse]

LOL! Mark! What can an ignoramus like me say to that... except that the apples wouldn't be there but for the tree

[Mark Oliva]

Ah, ha! But would the tree be there without seeds from the apples?

[Mouse]

Hmmn. Not sure if my metaphor can really be stretched that far! LOL