Old Keralia.jpg

Hi guild!

This is the main region map I've been working on for a Pathfinder game I DM online. I'm counting it as a work in progress because I still feel like it can be better, but I'm also at a point that I'm not sure what else I can do to improve it.

That said, my initial inspiration for this was to create a region where less advanced civilizations built up in dark ages following the fall of an ancient empire. Rome was my primary real history influence, and so I wanted to make the geography reminiscent of the real world Mediterranean sea. Because I feel that fantasy does better with something realistic but slightly fantastical, I decided to make the sea a freshwater fixture that should technically be a lake - like the inland Caspian Sea - but still having it opening to the saltwater oceans.

Towards that end I started with envisioning Seaguard - the seat of a large kingdom seeking to conquer the entire region. For this my initial thought was something like the straits of Gibraltar to make natural naval choke point where one could easily press their claims on the region. And then for epic fantasy purposes, I envisioned that being reinforced and terraformed with an artificial peninsula to further narrow the strait so that whoever holds it could easily have a strangle hold on the region's naval trade. Figuring on everything being freshwater, I decided to have this set on the arctic pole of the world so that it could be a glacier fed sea. And likely because of that, I took a lot of influence in shaping land mass from what surrounds the arctic ocean. As a result the southern continent bears a similar-ish shape to north america, with the pseudo-alaska representing the southern half of sea guard.

My next major focus was creating a more pastoral region for the players to start in for narrative and story structure purposes. Basically I wanted a fairly peaceful and mundane area to start in, so that they can then leave and explore into the more complicated world beyond. For this I made the lowlands region, which I envisioned as a large plains stretching between two mountain ranges. I let it be fed by two major rivers, and since my sea is technically a freshwater lake, I thought it'd be fun to have these flow from the sea in the north down to eventually empty into the 'salt sea' ocean.

From there I basically went into filling in details of each region by trying to put interesting biomes to explore. Dwarves living in the mountains was the obvious choice, and elves from the southern forests. Both of these border on the lowlands to get the classic high fantasy feel of elves and dwarves. I also did some mountains and marshes that can be the stronghold for the obligatory orcs and goblins. Then I did a wasteland boarding on the lowlands, which also has some ties to in-game plot about a cycle of big bad guys summoning a comet to strike the planet for nefarious and magical purposes every few thousand years (which will obviously need be addressed as part of the campaign), and it struck me as a great idea to have a wasteland in that area.

Next up I wanted more human inspired cultures. So I started with a norse inspired region, and with the increasingly arctic climate to the north, putting them on the northern coasts seemed the obvious choice. I adore the age of viking and viking mythology, so I wanted these people to be a common theme in the area, but also wanted them to be seen as outsiders. So I decided their queen was married to the king in Seaguard, with both ruling their lands independently but their son being the heir to both kingdoms...which makes for all kind of great political threads to pull on with an uneasy alliance between two peoples struggling to put their differences aside for a shared future.

And of course we needed a desert region, and I liked the idea of them being primarily sea traders so I stuck them along the eastern coasts of the southern continent where they could rival Seaguard for controlling the other half of the freshwater sea's trade. I wanted something eastern inspired and something more fitting the jungle themes popularized by Kipling, and combined them together to have the islands of Khark. I also wanted some nomadic peoples, so I put a horse people inspired by the stepped hordes in the Rover's wilds, then a tribelands populated by native american inspired peoples moving to follow herds and fish runs. For fun I figured just like some of the Alaskan based Athabascans they would be claimed by Seaguard to the outside world, but never actually been conquered or particularly concerned with some foreigner who claims to be their king.

And lastly we needed some more dark and evil feeling places that would be good sources of epic evil to play around with. My actual thought with this was to do something very underdark inspired, but that doesn't map particularly well. So I imagined a similar cavernous underworld with drow, demons, and other more strange fantasy stuff very different than the world above, except decided it would have at least a couple major openings to the surface world. For that I made the volcanic Aeshnai in the north, and the great pits of Savreth; both serving as the border for this subterranean land that would expand beneath the surface.

From there, I mostly started to fill in cities where it'd make sense to me for natural seats of power to fall. River estuaries, mountain passes, major islands, borderlands where castles or other defenses should be built, etc. Then I filled in smaller hamlets and villages in each region, and started putting considerations of where one cultural group would spill into the other areas. Hence areas like the Rainwoods with both elven and human settlements, Skada that borders on both Seagarde and the goblins's lands, or Saltcliffe with northmen and dwarves alike cohabitanting. And of course I spattered some wizard spires, at times to include settlements around them.

All that being said - I had a lot of fun putting thought into all the world building elements. My goal is to have something inspired enough that themes would not necessarily be overtly recognized by my players, but still give enough to make some automatic subconscious assumptions about cultures and conflicts within the region. Plus of course giving a hint at a deep and rich lore to the whole region from a pre-existing framework, without actually needing to fill in such details until the plot of the game demands. Which is basically to say I've got the world building side of things to a place where I'm pretty happy with it.

Meanwhile though, this is my first real in-depth effort at a regional map. And after doing a lot of tweaks to improve geography details etc, I'm at a point where I feel I can take some pride in it. But I also want to continue to perfect it, and am a bit of a loss of what to do next to improve things. I would very much love to hear folks feedback and suggestions!

Thanks in advance!