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Glaver’s Camp (Work-in-Progress)

Glaver’s Camp is the location of one of the mercenary regiments in Tir Thelandira. Glaver’s Regiment is tasked with guarding the Dhasran mining colony, while the other regiment, the Blackboots, is closer to the forest to protect the Dhasran loggers.

I haven’t figured out everything about these two groups, but I can tell you a few things:

  • Glaver’s Regiment are highly professional, organized soldiers. Their camp is designed similar to a Roman legionary camp.
  • The Blackboots are a cavalry regiment composed entirely of scumbags. Their camp is going to be absolutely filthy.
  • The two regiments absolutely hate each other for reasons I haven’t worked out yet. If you have any ideas, by all means let me know.

I’ve got this halfway colored, so it shouldn’t be too much longer. Anyway, back to work!

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The Big Plan (Yes it’s insane, but that’s never stopped me before)

I sat down to lay out what the world outside Tir Thelandira looks like and this is what I came up with. All of this is preliminary and nothing is set in stone. Tir Thelandira is the little island on the right.

I don’t know exactly how long it would take to write lore and draw maps of all the places on all these islands, but I’d guess it would be approximately the rest of my life. That works for me. This feels like a worthwhile thing to spend a lifetime creating.

Of course, it’s not going to be a world for quite a while. It’ll be a number of islands that can be inserted into another setting. That’s what Tir Thelandira is right now and it’s what all the islands will be for a long time. In several years, there may be regions of the map that can be used as a setting by themselves. But the finished world, in which every island on that map has its own story and its own maps? That’s something so far away that you may never see it. I may never run a game in it. But that part of it isn’t for us, it’s for the people after us. It something we can create as a legacy to leave for the next generation of DMs.

Here are a few ideas I had for this world:

  • The ruins of an ancient empire, dangerous and uninhabited except for treasure seekers. Littered with colossal statues, crumbling cities and buried palaces.
  • An island populated by humans and ruled by vampiric noble families who treat the commoners as cattle. A very bleak place.
  • An island of giants who raid other settlements. Basically, super-vikings.
  • An island whose people were wiped out by a disease. Now overrun by undead.
  • An island populated by humans but ruled by giants. There’s an interesting relationship between the two groups.
  • Underwater kingdoms of merfolk and aquatic elves.
  • Greek stuff
  • Islands with cultures inspired by East and Southeast Asia, India, East Africa and Arabia. And Europe, in case that doesn’t go without saying.
  • A Polynesian-inspired region, parts of which are very advanced. Like, imagine the Republic of Venice was built by the Maori.
  • Islands at war
  • Dwarves living on volcanoes.
  • Lizardfolk with an amphibious kingdom
  • An advanced society in an arctic climate.

I’d love to hear your ideas as well. I want to make this thing and I think I’ve proven that I can. So, what do you say?

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The Ruins of Giltwater

Giltwater is the first Dhasran gold mining colony in Tir Thelandira, marked as “Burned Colony” on this map.

When I finished drawing this, I read back through the lore of Tir Thelandira and realized I’d made a mistake. In the lore, I said that hundreds were killed when the elves attacked Giltwater. But I hadn’t drawn a colony big enough to hold hundreds of people. So what did I do? I did what anyone writing fantasy roleplaying game lore would do. I retconned it. I retconned the absolute living hell out of it.

I think the lore will have to stay a little flexible until the island is done, particularly since there are three locations that haven’t been decided on yet, which makes them hard to plan for. Speaking of which, if you’re a patron and you haven’t cast a vote on the second ballot for location #1, you’ve got one more day to do that.

So, what’s next? Well, I’m sick at the moment and I don’t have it in me to start on a new map today, so I’m going to give myself something easy to do. Tir Thelandira is going to be part of a larger world with many more islands and I want to start laying out that larger world so we can start thinking about where we go once this first island is done. I feel like I’m up to that. I can draw a collection of variously-sized blobs. I believe in me.

I should have that done tomorrow and you can tell me your thoughts about it. After that, I’ll get started on another map for Tir Thelandira. Okay. Time for blobs.

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Ptarmigan Bluff: A Mining Village on a Cliffside

First of all, this is what a ptarmigan is. They live in the mountains. The “P” is silent, but is included in the spelling because the English language is designed to inhibit the spread of literacy at all costs.

I really like the idea of a village built against a cliff, but drawing one turned out to be a lot harder than I expected. Still, I do like a challenge and I think I’m happy with it. The hard part was putting this all together in a way that makes sense.

You see, drawing a five-story building is one thing. But drawing 10 different buildings with five floors among them, all tied together with stairs, walkways and bridges… well, that’s a little more complicated. I numbered the buildings on the sideview to indicate which buildings are on which levels and I hope that’ll make it easier to understand. But if you’ve got any questions, by all means ask.

Next, I’ll be drawing another map for Tir Thelandira. Specifically, I’m going to draw the ruins of the burned mining colony. You can see a list of what’s left to draw in this post.

Speaking of Tir Thelandira, the poll for the first of three undecided locations is still open for patrons who want to cast a vote. Since there were 21 ideas submitted for the first location, I’m dividing them up into three votes of 7, then holding a runoff for the winners to determine what the location will be. I’ll start the vote for the second group of 7 in a day or two.

Well, that’s it for now. If you’ve got any thoughts, let me know!

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Cliff Village (Work-in-Progress)

Drawing a village built on a cliff face is a little complicated, but I think this design should work. Here are a few pictures to give you an idea of what I’m going for here: one, two.

Also, it’s not shown, but there’s going to be a small mine. That seems like one of the reasons you might build a village on a cliff. The other is, of course, just to do it as a flex.

Anyway, I’m gonna get to work on coloring this. Let me know what you think so far!

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The Stonestead

The Stonestead is a broch. They’re a real thing and there are a bunch of them in Scotland. I drew this particular broch for the island of Tir Thelandira, whose wood elf inhabitants have a distinctly Celtic-flavored culture.

The Stonestead is the elves’ first foray into large-scale stone construction. Built to defend a gap between the northern and southern parts of their forest, it’s meant to ensure that, should the Dhasran colonists or their mercenaries decide to march on the elven lands, they have to either fight their way through the fort or venture into the woods, where they’ll be easy prey for elven archers and ambushers. Neither option is great– but, of course, that’s the idea.

I’ve received quite a few proposals for new locations for Tir Thelandira. If you’re a patron who’s got an idea you’d like me to add to the ballot, you’ve still got time to shoot me a message. Just to recap, the proposals are for either the location marked “1” on this map OR the swamp to the east of Oakenhold. I’ll be posting the first vote in a few days.

Next up is an East Asian-style village built into a cliffside. This picture should give you an idea of the sort of thing I’ll be drawing. Personally, I think that’s nuts. I mean, how is that a real place? What happened there? I don’t know, but I’m glad it did. Because that’s awesome.

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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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Caergyd Point (Complete)

Since this is fairly big, here’s the cave and the castle separately.

I just have one piece of advice for any DM whose party takes up residence in this castle: that cave is not a safe place to dock a ship. It’s out of sight and it gives a group of thieves plenty of time to get it ready to sail without anyone seeing. So, if they don’t station a guard down there to watch it, have somebody steal it. Maybe one of the PCs wakes up in the middle of the night and sees their ship pulling out of the cave.

It doesn’t have to be more than a short encounter. You could give them enough time to grab their swords and leap for the mast as the ship is pulling away. I’m just saying, a completely unexpected, butt-naked pirate battle in the middle of the night sounds like some pretty good D&D to me. Worth considering, at least.

Next, I’ll be updating the Tir Thelandira map with all the locations I’ve got planned. I just want to give everybody a better idea of what the island is going to look like once it’s finished. I’ll post that tomorrow, along with a brief description of what I’m planning to do with each of the locations. After that, I’ll pick one and draw it. Okay, see you then!

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Caergyd Point

Caergyd Point was inspired, in part, by Conwy Castle in Wales. “Caergyd” is my attempt at a made-up Welsh castle name. All I really know about Welsh is that there are several castles with names that start with “Caer” and that a lot of Welsh words have a Y in them. This is the culmination of those two pieces of knowledge. Hopefully it’s passable.

This map was largely designed to be an ideal castle for a party to buy or otherwise acquire. To that end, it’s got a lot of things a party would want in a castle: a smithy for repairing equipment, a laboratory/study for the wizard, a chapel for the cleric, a kennel for whatever filthy creature follows the ranger around, a secret room, a tavern, a trading post to unload loot, and several empty rooms for the party to do what they want with.

There’s one more part of this map to finish: the sea cave underneath. I decided to make it separate in order to keep the map from being too huge. It’s about half-finished already and I should have it up tomorrow.

There are only three things in the cave: a dungeon, storage space, and a parking spot for a ship. Still, for parties that do a lot of sailing, it’ll be pretty useful. Or if you want to use this place as a pirate fort. Or if you want to have the party storm the castle to kill the bad guy, but leave a way for them to escape. I guess it opens up a few options.

Anyway, I’m gonna wrap that last bit up. Let me know what you think!