Making Maps -- 9 Rough Map Sections for Ephemera

I roughed out some maps (too brain-numbed to do anything verbal after grading a stack of papers) beyond my center map for Ephemera. I'm doing these as bite-sized sections for easy use, but I've patched them together to have a rough overview of the lay of the land around my center starting section. No villages or labels on them yet (except the center section).

Before edit

I'll probably tweak the north-center, north-eastern and eastern-center sections, since I find they look distinctly... well... sectional. They were the first sections I did after the center, and I made the mistake of not letting non-clear terrain touch the edges of the map which gives them a very unnatural-looking "border" effect. But just extending a few terrain features to, and/or just over, the edges should help to rectify that a bit.

EDIT: I have tweaked several sections, and I think the terrain overlapping into multiple sections does wonders to get rid of the artificial "boxy" border effect. 

After edit: I think the terrain overlapping into different sections looks better.

All in all though, it gives a rough idea of the main terrain features. At some point, either to the north or to the south, I'll make the coastline take a radical turn inward (eastward) to shake things up a bit. But that's a way's off time-wise. The 24-mile-per-hex map now covers over 600,000 square miles, about the size of Alaska or Mongolia. More than enough to start, and there are far more important things to work on. 

But this was a good, or at least satisfying, exercise for today.

Ephemera – What I've Got, What I Need, What I Want

With some rather chaotic things in my work life going temporarily on hold, I've started working on Ephemera in earnest. I'd really like to have something well enough developed in order to run the occasional "filler" session when the Monday night group's regular GM's need or want a break.

What I've Got

A chosen rule-set: Swords & Wizardry (core).

A one-page list of house-rules, mostly detailing which of the many options presented in S&W will be in play.

A two-page "Player's Guide" giving very rough, broad-brush descriptions of:

• World History
• PCs as Cindarrin
• Wilderness
• Settlements
• Dungeons
• Religions
• Arcane and Religious Magic
• Lore and Ignorance
• Money
• XP
• Lethality
• Alignment Notes

A rough 24-mile-to-the-hex map of a 67,000 square mile section of Ephemera (about the size of Wisconsin)

A map and one-page write-up of the village in the center of that map

Maps of a couple of adventure areas, with basic ideas roughed out but no detailed stocking or keys


What I Really Need Before Running Anything

Detailed stocking and keys for those adventure areas


What I Really Want Before Running Anything

Maps and one-page write-ups for the other villages on the current map

A couple of small, spare "pocket dungeons" I can randomly whip out and plunk down on the map (creating the illusion of preparation) if the PCs go in an unexpected direction

Cindarrin: Wastes of Ephemera Part II

For Part I, click here.

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Why am I what I am? Because it could not be otherwise. Here, or in another place, another time, 
I must be what fate demands.

– From The Song of Ash Awakened

*****

I awoke as in a fog of grey mist and shadow.

Stumbling in what direction I knew not, I came upon the weathered stone of an ancient road.

I set my feet upon it, and marched its course. The murk dissipated as I walked, revealing a stark landscape.

In the distance I saw a village. And the people welcomed me, though I was unknown to them.

"What is your name?" they asked. "From whence come you?"

I could not answer them.

"No matter," they said. "You shall have comfort this night."

I sensed, through their generosity, a fear of which none spoke.

*****

I woke to moon-rise, and a tension in my soul. Something was coming, not for me, but for the villagers.

And suddenly I was on my feet, blade flashing in my hand. I cut into the flesh of the beast. Its claws ripped at my breast. Our blood mingled in the intimacy of killing.

Then it lay silent and still, as I rolled away and gasped for breath, and the cool night air soothed my torn skin.

A glint of gold, a ring upon the fiend's crooked finger.

I knew this glittering thing. Unclearly, as if from a distant dream. But I knew it.

I pulled the ring from the creature's clawed hand. A familiar band. An heirloom. A lost history. A blood right.

*****

Dawn comes. The fear lifts from the village. They asked if I will remain.

But the ancient road does not end in this hamlet. It calls to me, and I will follow, to the horizon and beyond.

They give me food for the journey. They ask the gods to bless me. "Fare you well!" they call as I leave the village. "Fare you well...Cindarrin!"

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It is unknown exactly where the Cindarrin come from. They simply appear one day, in some village or other. In some cases they are fully conscious of being Cindarrin. In other cases they have only a vague sense of it, and sometimes none at all. It is believed that Cindarrin are somehow related to the long-dead Lords of Ephemera, but no one knows how, not even the Cindarrin themselves. Perhaps they are reincarnations. Perhaps some form of descendant. The Cindarrin always have the physical form of one of the four kindred races. They are mortal like any other being of those races. They can be of any class, or alignment (though chaotics are rare, and tend to be "moderate"). All Cindarrin wander the land, driven by at least one of these three basic impulses:

1. Destroying abominari remnants whereever they may be found
2. Recovering lost treasures from the Time that Was
3. Protecting the remnants of the kindred races and helping to rebuild Ephemera

See also: The Wastes of Ephemera

The Wastes of Ephemera

How did they meet? By chance, like anyone else. Where were they from? From the farthest horizon. Where were they headed? Does any man know his destination?

– From The Lay of the Cindarrin

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The empire of Ephemera covered the globe. Her kindred races – men, elves, dwarves and halflings – built castles, towns, and roads throughout the known lands. Ruling over everything, the Ephemerans gave their name to the world itself.

When the great chasms opened, the Abominari – "hordes of the Abyss" – came forth to overrun the empire and cloak the world in darkness.

The lords of Ephemera could not stem the evil tide.

In desperation, the empire's most powerful wizards called forth Armageddon to defeat the Abominari, though it would extinguish their reign in the process. Better to destroy nearly all of existence, than to let corruption devour it.

The armies of the Abyss were broken and scattered. The greater part of the kindred were slain. Cities were cast into rubble and ruin. The land, sea, and sky of Ephemera were altered beyond recognition.

Ephemera has become an endless wilderness where life is solitary, brutish, and short. The kindred struggle to rebuild, to repopulate, to recover what was lost, one isolated hamlet at a time.

The Cindarrin – "those who step from the ashes" – are remnants and descendants of the lost lords of Ephemera. In small bands they wander the wastes, extinguishing pockets of Abominari, helping kindred rebuild, and unearthing artifacts and treasures that are the empire's heritage.

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Just a thought for a campaign setting. Something flexible, I think, that might lend itself for use as a backdrop for one-shots, a sporadic campaign, or maybe even regular play. With no wide-ranging infrastructure, it'd probably be easy to just plunk a one-shot or short campaign in there practically at a whim, whenever the mood hits. The PC's would be Cindarrin, of course.

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Notes:

The lines from The Lay of the Cindarrin are adapted from Diderot's Jacques le Fataliste et son maître.

The description of the current state of the Ephemeral Wastes is adapted from Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan.

The image is an edited version of Thomas Cole's "Romantic Landscape with Ruined Tower"(1832–36).

Eyes in the Dark: Mithril War Campaign Update

The war was not going well for the Barony of Maradon. Up and down the battle-scarred lands of the Dran Feldar, the elves of Jhanakai had defeated the Baron's men time and again. Now the last of them had been driven back to the keep at Cobb's Gate. Cobb's Gate was Maradon's final outpost in the Dran Feldar, guarding the main pass between Maradon and the disputed territory. If the elves drove the Maradon troops out of the keep and took it for themselves, the Maradon army would no longer have any significant access to the region, and the war would effectively be over. Maradon's hopes of mining the mithril in the Dran Feldar would be dashed.

Besieging Cobb's Gate had not been difficult. The only communications route remaining was the pass itself. Elven archers ambushed any columns that tried to get through. Now Glythwyl stood before the door of the keep with only a small force of elves. Their initial orders were to simply stop messengers and spies from passing into or out of the keep. However, Glythwyl received a dispatch during the night which changed that. A new asset was being sent to him that would reduce the keep to rubble. He was to launch an assault upon the fortress as soon as the creature arrived. The very idea of this beast filled even him with disquiet, and he wondered how the men of Maradon would react when they first caught a glimpse of it from behind their ramparts.

Inside the keep, Valera looked at the men she had remaining. The mercenaries had fled before the besiegers had managed to cut them off. This angered her, but really she had expected no more of them. Her last archer shot one of the deserters in the back before the rest made it into the rocky defiles of the pass. The ogre wounded at Kragg was still there. She wasn't sure how useful he'd be, but she had the impression he wanted to redeem himself. Time would tell. If only reinforcements could get through the pass, they'd be alright. The elves, up to this point, had no way of driving them out of this position. Given the small size of her troop, their supplies would last all the way through the winter – even with the ogre's appetite – and she doubted the elves themselves could endure that long, exposed to the harsh cold in and around the pass. Winter at Cobb's Gate would not be kind to a force foraging for its subsistence.

The sun was still below the horizon, but the sky began to glow ever so slightly with dawn's approach. As it did, a pair of battle-hungry eyes, neither human nor elven, looked down from a wooded hill upon the keep and the small camp of besiegers, impatiently waiting for the moment to strike.

The watcher had reconnoitered well. He knew of the ogre in the keep, and of the beast the elves were going to launch against the fortress. Entirely untroubled, he was confident his own brute could handle them both.

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Fires on the Dran Feldar: The Mithril War

For centuries, the wild frontier lands known as the Dran Feldar, between the human Barony of Maradon and the elven Princedom of Jhanakai, were thought to be worthless. Few people from either country settled there. But the discovery of a single vein of mithril in the Altyrean foothills bordering the frontier plains sparked speculation that the entire Dran Feldar region itself might be rich with the precious metal.

Violent clashes began almost immediately. Heavily armed and armored bands set up outposts in the region, fighting when they encountered each other, or killing prospectors and burning settlements belonging to the opposition at other times, in an effort to drive them out and claim the region for themselves.

The men of Maradon already had reasonably successful iron and copper excavations elsewhere, but mithril would boost their mining industry immeasurably. And on the surface of things, Maradon had the advantage of numbers on their side, with a population exceeding that of Jhanakai by two to one. On the other hand, the elves were highly skilled fighters, and better adapted to long periods in the wilds. Further, while they had no formal alliance, the elves were on extremely good terms with the dwarves of Kabad'zem on their border. And the Kabads rarely said no to a mining opportunity when it arose.

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Two Lost Parchments: A Very Simple Setting for My Barbarian Skirmishes