Category: Tir Thelandira

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Tir Thelandira: The Plan So Far

Here’s a map with all the locations I’ve got planned for Tir Thelandira. There are 12 in all, of which 3 are already drawn. For another 6, I have a pretty good idea of what will be there. And for the last 3, I’m going to let patrons decide. I’ll take proposals for ideas for those locations and hold a vote to determine which ones get drawn.

Okay, let’s talk about the first nine locations. If you haven’t seen the lore, here you go.

  • Oakenhold – Finished
  • Frog’s Haven Crannog – Finished
  • Cave of the Sun – Finished
  • Broch – This is a broch. Historically, they were built in Scotland in the Iron Age. The elves constructed this place as a defense against the Dhasrans and it’s the first large-scale stone structure they’ve ever built. This will be the next map.
  • Elven Town – Like the rest, this will get a more interesting name once I draw it. The town will be laid out in a motte-and-bailey design and there will be a bridge or a ferry over the nearby river.
  • Dhasran Colony – This is the settlement the Dhasrans built around their gold mine. The mine itself may get its own map.
  • Burned Colony – This is the previous mining colony the Dhasrans built, which the elves burned to the ground.
  • Glaver’s Camp – The encampment of the mercenaries of Glaver’s Regiment. Tidy and organized. Very professional.
  • Blackboots Camp – The encampment of the Blackboots mercenary company. So filthy you’d expect orcs to be living here. But nope, just really nasty humans.

The other locations are marked 1, 2 and 3. These are the ones I’m leaving up to you. I did this for the Black Loch and the ideas you submitted were so good I decided to do it again with Tir Thelandira. Here are a few guidelines on each location:

  1. This can actually be in one of two places: the little island in the river OR the swamp to the east of Oakenhold.
  2. This can be anywhere on the island, so if your idea is for a location on the coast, that’s fine. It doesn’t have to be where the dot is.
  3. This can be anywhere near the marked area, so if you want it by the lake or in the forest, that’s fine. It can also be on that small island in the bay.

I’ll send out a message to all patrons asking for your ideas on the first location in a day or two. While a lot of the places on the map are settlements, I’d love to get ideas for other types of places as well. Think it over. I know there are a ton of good ideas out there and I really do want to hear them. Help me make this world.

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Cave of the Sun

The Cave of the Sun is another map for Tir Thelandira. It’s an oracle and holy site where the elves gather to seek guidance from their goddess. The cave takes its name from a hole in the roof of the cavern, through which light beams down onto the pool within.

I’ll draw more of Tir Thelandira next month, but right now there’s something I have to draw. It’s Italian– Venetian, to be specific– and it’s glorious. It’s not a real place, but it could have been a real place. Unfortunately, somebody screwed up. Let me explain.

In Venice, there’s a famous landmark called the Rialto Bridge. Before it was built, proposals by several architects were considered and the one they went with was this. And, I mean, it’s fine. I don’t hate it. The problem is that a guy named Andrea Palladio proposed this. And they passed on that.

Was it because the guy who made the winning proposal was named Antonio Da Ponte and his last name is literally the Italian word for bridge? Was there a bribe involved? I don’t know. Maybe no one knows. But I do know this: I am going to make a map of Andrea Palladio’s objectively superior bridge. And I’m going to do it right now.

I want to thank Masque for telling me about Andrea Palladio’s design for the Rialto. I might never have found out about it otherwise. Just to let everyone know, I’m always open to suggestions and I’ve drawn a few of them. So don’t hold back on me. There’s no such thing as too many ideas.

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Tir Thelandira (Updated)

Also: unlabeled version.

Here’s the updated map of the island. We’ve got a few dots on the map now and I decided to make it a little bigger, so I doubled the scale from 10 miles to 20.

I also made a page to collect all the Tir Thelandira maps as I draw them. There isn’t much there yet, but that was once true of the Black Loch and Brazenthrone as well. Every insane megaproject starts somewhere.

Of course, Tir Thelandira will be smaller, with about 10-12 locations, but there will be other, neighboring islands to follow and this whole thing will get wildly out of control before you or I know it. Are you looking forward to that? I certainly am. I’d love to be able to refer to Brazenthrone as “the kind of thing I worked on in the past, when I did smaller, more reasonable projects.” It’s a completely ludicrous thing to say, but I do intend to make it true.

Anyway, if you’re a patron, the DM notes for Oakenhold are up as well. You can find them here. Okay, that’s it for now!
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The Elven Tree Fortress of Oakenhold

After an absolutely enormous amount of work, the new and highly improved Oakenhold is finished. Moreover, I’ve written the history and lore of the island of Tir Thelandira. The TL;DR is this:

The elves of Tir Thelandira were nomadic tribes, but giant bears appeared and a lady killed them, unifying the tribes and becoming the queen. Then, humans showed up to mine gold, which was fine because the elves were pretty cool people. But the humans started logging the forest and the elves killed them all because they’re not actually all that cool. Later, the humans came back. People are probably going to die soon.

That’s the gist of it, anyway. I like settings where there isn’t a clear bad guy and I tried to write it that way. I mean, the Dhasrans did intrude on the elves’ land, but they weren’t there for conquest. They just wanted gold, which the elves didn’t really care about. And yeah, they shouldn’t have logged the elves’ forest, but the when the elves responded by going full-on North Sentinel Island on them, that may have been a slight overreaction.

There are a lot of angles to see things from and different kinds of adventures to run here depending on how you want to present the situation. Or you could just ignore my story and do something else entirely. That’s frequently the best option.

Anyway, I’ll have an updated map of Tir Thelandira for everybody tomorrow, as well as DM notes for Oakenhold for patrons. After that, I’ll be working on the map chosen by last month’s Cartographic Congress. This will be a palace in a Venetian-style canal city, drawn in a gothic/dark fantasy style. Prepare your eyeliner.

So, what do you all think of the new Oakenhold? I certainly think it turned out better than the original version and I hope you agree (I mean, I really do. That’s not a high bar to jump over). Anyway, let me know what you think!

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The Second Civilization of Tir Thelandira

I’ve come up with three civilizations based on the ideas you’ve given me. There’s a vote, which is open to all patrons, to decide which one will share the island of Tir Thelandira with the wild elves. Here are the choices:

The Kiyaran Khanate:

The Kiyarans are horse-riding, nomadic people with a culture inspired by Turkmen, Tatars and Mongols. They rule a small empire on several distant islands.

20 years ago, five ships of Kiyaran soldiers were caught in a storm and destroyed near the remote island of Tir Thelandira. The survivors came ashore and met the island’s elven residents, who took them to their queen. The queen allowed the Kiyarans to occupy the island’s eastern plains and to tame the wild horses that lived there, giving them bows to hunt with and tents to sleep in. The Kiyaran soldiers were grateful and never made trouble for the elves, for whom they had great respect.

Recently, the Khanate, who had long thought the soldiers to be dead, began to hear rumors that they were alive on Tir Thelandira. A ship was sent to the island, which found the survivors. Their leader, First Lancer Bayar, returned with them to tell his story to the Khan.

After hearing it, the Khan saw an opportunity to expand his empire. The soldiers would use their knowledge of the island and its inhabitants to assist a larger army in the conquest of the elven lands. Bayar asked the Khan to spare the elves, who had saved the lives of his men, but the Khan refused.

The Khan’s brother was sent to Tir Thelandira with ships full of soldiers. First Lancer Bayar returned as well, agreeing to help, but secretly hoping that he and his men might find a way to stop the invasion.

Dhasran Colony:

The White City of Dhasra is a small, tremendously wealthy city-state built on the islands of a river delta. The river, known as the Golden Serpent, was named for the large amounts of gold dust that once flowed through it.

That gold is one of the main sources of Dhasra’s wealth, but lately the mines have begun to peter out. In response, the Raja of Dhasra sent out a fleet of ships to find new sources of wealth abroad. Several of these ships came to the eastern shores of Tir Thelandira, where they noticed a few bits of gold flake in the river. After a bit of digging, a large vein of gold ore was discovered.

Before long, a small mining colony was constructed on the island. The elves living to the west watched the Dhasrans warily, but did not act until they began logging the elven woods. The colonists were warned, but the warning was ignored and the elves retaliated. Swiftly and mercilessly, the colonists were slain to a man.

After several months, the Dhasrans returned to rebuild their colony. This time, they brought two legions of mercenary soldiers to protect it. Neither side has moved on the other, but no one expects peace for long.

Exiles of the Triumphant Dawn:

In a distant kingdom, the priests of the Triumphant Dawn once had thousands of followers. Their god was a righteous and benevolent deity, who encouraged those traits in his worshippers.

When the priests began to demand an end to the corrupt and tyrannical rule of the nobility, they made a great many enemies. The priests believed that, as clergy, they had no need to fear serious retribution. They were wrong. After a number of riots, the nobles began hunting down and executing priests of the Triumphant Dawn.

Realizing that they had failed, the priests fled the kingdom, settling on the distant Tir Thelandira. The High Priest asked the island’s elven Queen for permission to stay, which she granted on two conditions. First, the exiled priests would not expand their colony. And second, they would not attempt to convert her people.

The High Priest agreed, but soon violated the first condition. After the priests left, the nobles had turned their wrath against their followers. When the priests learned of this, they sent ships to bring them to Tir Thelandira. The colony of 150 turned into a colony of 5000. When the new colonists began proselytizing to the elves, the queen regarded it as a complete betrayal.

Relations between the two groups are tense, with some elves launching raids against the colonists. So far, the Triumphant Dawn have exercised restraint, but there are people on both sides pushing for a holy war.

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The Island of Tir Thelandira

People seem to like the wild elves, so I drew up a map of the island they’ll be living on. The elves will occupy the left side of the island and their yet-to-be-decided neighbors will be on the right. I don’t know what’s going to be happening on that little island at the top, but we’ll figure something out.

My wife has asked me to name the elven ruler after her and I told her I would. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean we’re getting a Queen Stacy or Queen Kathleen. My wife is named after Niamh of the Golden Hair, daughter of the Irish sea god Manannán mac Lir, the lord of the Tuath Dé and ruler of Tír na nÓg. So I think her name should fit the theme pretty well here.

Anyway, I thought I’d post this to see if it inspires any more ideas on who the elves might be sharing the island with. There have been some excellent suggestions and I’m planning to compile them into a vote before too long, but I want to give everyone another chance to propose some more ideas. I feel like the other civilization will probably be relative newcomers to the island, but they don’t have to be.

Anyway, if you’ve got any thoughts on the neighboring civilization, let me know in the comments or shoot me a message!

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Frog’s Haven Crannog

In the last post, I talked about my plans for the first island of the as-yet-unnamed big project. There will be two civilizations living on the island, one of which will be a kingdom of wild elves.

Over the past century, the wild elves have been shifting from a tribal, nomadic society to a settled one. While the elves have become better at building large structures of timber and stone, their skills at architecture are still well behind those of other civilizations. To reflect this, many of the wild elves’ settlements will be inspired by Iron Age Celtic buildings from Ireland and Scotland. Here’s a breakdown of what I have in mind:

Crannog – A crannog is a man-made island with one or more houses on it. The island was often surrounded by a wooden palisade and had either a narrow causeway or a path of stepping stones leading to the shore. Crannogs were most common in Ireland and Scotland. Frog’s Haven will probably be the only one.

Broch – A broch is an old style of Scottish towerhouse, which looks like this. I think I’d draw this fairly similar to the one pictured, perhaps with some farmland around the walls. I’d also give it a slightly more elven, tribal look.

Motte and Bailey (or something similar) – A motte and bailey is an old style of wooden castle, which looks like this. I’d probably use a more elaborate version of the design and I’d make it more of a walled village rather than a fort. Again, it’d have an elven style to it as well.

Oakenhold – This is one of the first maps I ever posted. I’ve never redrawn a map, but I want to redraw this one and I want it to be the seat of power for this wild elven civilization. I’ll change plenty about it, but it’ll be the same basic design. This is where the king or queen lives.

That’s the plan so far. There will probably be other locations as well, but I want to get your opinions on these ideas first. If the response is largely negative, I’ll come up with something else. If it’s positive, I’ll get started on a map of the island and we can start figuring out where things are and who the elves are sharing the island with.

Anyway, let me know what you think of the Celtic wild elves. Positive or negative, I really want to hear your opinions!