The Amber Lands

[Lord Mykhal]

The Amber Lands is my personal homebrew campaign that has been around since AD&D 2nd Edition. My group and I have been playing here for 12 years or so.

I have decided to try my hand at updating the map and making a somewhat more "professional" looking map.

First, I drew the map on hex-paper in pencil, with some splash of color pencils just for fun. I scanned the image into GIMP and so far, I have only worked on the sea and the land.

Unfortunately, I am a little stumped on how to render the mountains. My first attempt ended up looking too "watercolor" to fit with the style of the map. I must say, I spent the last two hours plundering the previous posts looking at other techniques, so I hope to have something by tomorrow.

There's not much here, just the beginning.

[Naeddyr]

It's, it's sorta green, innit.

Anyhow, looking good there, though I would worry a bit about the river-police. Keep a videocamera with you at all times.

[Lord Mykhal]

Currently at this time, there are no natural rivers present on the map. The waterway that connects the Inner Sea with the ocean was constructed by the humans that live on the western island. They originally used the waterway to access the sea and trade with the kingdoms further inland.

They eventually lost control of the waterway to cabal of wizards that altered it with magic and raised the island that is now present there. They then established their own domain here.

And yes, I know. It's green. But, please forgive me, I like it this way. I may decide to lighten up the green later, but it depends on how the map develops. (I like cartoony colors in my maps. )

[landorl]

Yes, but shouldn't amber be more of a yellowish color?

[DungeonMasterGaz]

I like a bit of a "Cartoony" style to maps too. As this is an established campaign map, I imagine it will reflect your campaign history, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

[landorl]

BTW, I forgot to mention that I like the overall shape of the map, and it seems to be at a pretty large scale, so should cover a pretty decent area.

I like the man-made waterway. I am assuming it is some sort of canal. Does it have locks, or is the inland sea at the same level as the connected sea?

[ravells]

I like the name .....very evocative! I'll expect to see insects embedded in the map! Hey, there's an idea!

[Lord Mykhal]

The map's scale is extreme, even in my opinion, at 240 miles to 1 inch. That puts the Inner Sea at about 200 miles across at the middle "pinch" point.

Oh, and I love the design of the land myself. I adopted another map I found years back during my AD&D 2nd Edition days. (It was in the World Builder's Guidebook, I think.)

Unfortunately, real life has shown its nasty head. I should be able to post something up this weekend. I just recieved my subpeona to appear before the Grand Jury this week...the downside of law enforcement.

[Lord Mykhal]

I like the man-made waterway. I am assuming it is some sort of canal. Does it have locks, or is the inland sea at the same level as the connected sea?

The waterway/canal is roughly 30 miles across and is at the same level as the connected sea. It doesn't have locks.

[Lord Mykhal]

I've been excused from Grand Jury today, so yea, I can do a little work!

I have been testing a few mountain designs out for my map. Below, I have attached two images of those mountain tests. These are just rough samples to experiment with a few styles and colors (I'll tighten them up for the final draft.) I personally like version #3 in the second image and maybe a little of version #4. Can I hear some feedback? In the meantime, I am drafting the forested regions on the map.

I've also included a "thumbnail" version to show the mountain sketches in relation to the whole map...if that helps.