I find myself looking at the wiki quite a bit but like so many rookies I'm not really sure what needs to be done and what doesn't. I'd really like to get involved.
Weeeell. One good reason not to is...
If the aim is to complete a world it's duplication of effort.
Last edited by Crayons; 10-09-2010 at 10:58 PM. Reason: grammar
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"I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man"
My Finished Stuff ............. Some of my 3D Stuff (POVRay)
I find myself looking at the wiki quite a bit but like so many rookies I'm not really sure what needs to be done and what doesn't. I'd really like to get involved.
I am the breath of Dragons...The Song of Mountains...The Stories of Rivers....The Heart of Cities.... I am A Cartographer....
Finished Maps
Kingdom Of Shendenflar Campaign Setting (WIP)
Everything I post is free for use and redistribution under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 licence, except where noted otherwise in the thread.
I'm not sure that the aim is necessarily to have a "complete" world, more than an interesting and playable one.
If you're looking for one of the original 30 areas that hasn't been mapped, you're not going to find one. There are a few that have only been roughly put together that have almost no history whatsoever, and I'm sure someone wouldn't mind if you took them over and did something with them (areas 2 & 3 spring to mind). There are countless cities to be mapped, as well as any notable structures you'd want to put in a given town or city.
If you're wanting to do an overland regional map, I'd suggest picking a town anywhere in Ansium, zooming out to a 100-200 mile square (each original block is 600 miles on a side), and mapping the surrounding terrain as well as any smaller towns or villages that might be nearby. You can do this with almost any city labeled on any map. Just like if you're looking at real world maps, you're not going to see the smaller towns until you get to a more localized map.
You've read the wiki. What inspires you? What area makes you want to game there? Which one are you dying to know more about? If it's the history you're worried about, don't be. Ask the original artist. If you can't get in touch with him, ask a Community Leader. Honestly, as the only one of the three "supervising editors" still active around here, you can ask me (see this post about the supervising editor bit--I almost forgot about it myself. :/ ).
If you're still having trouble finding something, get in touch with me and I'll point you somewhere. In fact, start with the Jaiyat Highlands... looks to have been abandoned quite some time ago.
For anyone interested in getting involved you can do it the way I did: just *DO* it!
There are so many places in the world that has no information on the inhabitants, power groups of the area, history and legends, possible adventure seeds, interesting locations including their mapping etc etc. Then there are some areas that have vaguely been touched by some of the threads in the forum and some that outline some more details. One can start from scratch on areas not touched by anyone or one can expand on the work already done. In fact it would be quite interesting to see more people active on, say, what Rhadim looks and feels like or what secrets do the cities of Akron hold.
So I did a bit of research this morning. Here is a current list of the state of all the regional maps and their respective wiki entries.
- Abandoned maps can be reassigned with approval from a Community Leader
- Placeholder maps can probably be reassigned with approval from Redrobes, the creator of the placeholder maps
- Completed maps with no wiki entry are begging for a creative history, no art required
- Incomplete wiki entries are also wanting non-cartographic attention
- Completed map with completed wiki entries are available for city and other lower-level mapping
* Be advised that my definition of complete as compared to others' may differ to varying degrees.
I certainly hope this helps someone who is interested in joining the project.Code:1- The Ash Coast Completed map No wiki entry 2- Cheldabur Placeholder map No wiki entry 3- Cheldabur Placeholder map No wiki entry 4- Cazgothe Abandoned (06.20.08) No wiki entry 5- Charnok Placeholder map No wiki entry 6- Thanelands of Skolvendun Completed map Incomplete wiki entry 7- Thrubmorton Fens Completed map Complete wiki entry 8- Lake Kingdoms Completed map No wiki entry 9- Qashya Mal Completed map Complete wiki entry 10- Qashya Mal, Central Steppe Completed map Complete wiki entry 11- City states of Akron Completed map Complete wiki entry 12- Beastlands Completed map Complete wiki entry 13- Groam Completed map Complete wiki entry 14- Tawaren Basin Completed map Complete wiki entry 15- Jaiyat Highlands Abandoned (07.25.08) Complete wiki entry 16- Kouver Islands Abandoned (08.07.09) Incomplete wiki entry 17- The Outer Islands Completed map No wiki entry 18- Luwath Peninsula Completed map Complete wiki entry 19- The gallant Coast Reassigned (08.03.10) No wiki entry 20- The Riverlands Completed map Complete wiki entry 21- [empty ocean] 22- [empty ocean] 23- Thargellian Highlands Completed map Complete wiki entry 24- [empty ocean] 25- The Witchlight Strand Completed map Complete wiki entry 26- Grelda Completed map Incomplete wiki entry 27- Anuroch Completed map Incomplete wiki entry 28- Khosses Abandoned (07.08.08) No wiki entry 29- Mythkhardia Completed map No wiki entry 30- Bruskos Completed map Complete wiki entry
-IG
I still haven't completed my contribution but I just sort of picked a likely looking city location and started mapping, writing story as I went. Mine (Argria) is on the border of two regions (IG's Anuroch is one) so I read through the available histories and other information and just added things that didn't conflict with (and that expanded usefully) the background that the original regional cartographers had included.
I'd like to find time to get more involved...finish the one I've already chosen and move on to something else. I might stay in the area (the Stoneshapers' Guild is in need of detailing, I think) or pick somewhere else. My gaming groups' roleplaying plates are pretty full but I wouldn't mind maybe trying to game a little in Argria and the surrounding areas. If so, I think that'd generate some more maps that could be contributed.
M
I would say that with placeholder maps especially then there is no need to get any permission - just start mapping. I could help out with height map and the original place holder raster but I wouldn't think anyone needs to ask my permission to map anything. Even in my Thrubmorton region id rather people just map it than not map because they thought they would be stepping on peoples toes. All that I would hope for is that new maps fit in with the surrounding stuff otherwise the CWBP would be just a bucket of disparate maps. There is so much uncharted territory that I cant think of a reason why anyone would want to start new areas. I think the best thing is to pick a region for which your artistic style matches so it looks a little better fit but even then I would not hold it against anyone if they went and did a wildly different style map.
If your just thinking of mapping a town, village, city, church, castle, inn, building, docks or whatever for no reason than the hell of it and you dont mind the CC license then look for something similar in the CWBP and map it for that and submit it for indexing into the wiki.