Clichea by Ryan.
Clearly, this is an ideal DF world.
And I'm only partly kidding. Its just as good as many other fantasy worlds I've seen, and at least here you know if a cliche seems to be missing, it's just because it's not marked clearly enough on the map yet. It's out there, sure as your mother is smoothing her silks or tugging on her braids, as sure as the length of the song of the dwarf-folk who are invading your house at the behest of a wizard, and as sure as the good guys will be to send your 14-year-old self off to save the world.
These also remind me of Mark E. Roger's maps from the Samurai Cat series, which always had Delaware and The Author's House marked on it, right next to his pastiche of whatever he was satirizing in that particular story.
Thanks to Tom for sending this to me. And thanks to Ryan for making it in the first place!
Editing later: I realize this place could be very effectively re-purposed by adding a island kingdom of depraved evil elves and/or a pirate kingdom. Perhaps those preceded, and post-date, the rise and fall of the dark lord.
That's kinda how I'd pitch a DF campaign world book, were I ever to do such a thing: identify ALL THE TROPES, stitch together in hopes that the seams don't look too bad, and gaze it with a thin layer of game mechanics so that it looks like everything was intended to work together in the first place. And if there are inconsistencies, claim you're doing bricolage in the great structuralist tradition.
ReplyDelete(And if your players claim to be post-structuralists, smack them with a hardcover DMG while shouting "Deconstruct this!")
That's my DMG rule in a nutshell. Hit complaining players with the 1st edition AD&D DMG, spine first.
DeleteIt's my own Rule Zero.
One lesson all world builders learn is that the players don't care too much about what you made. They care about what they can do in it. It's why I like Jeff Rients's Twenty Questions so much: don't create game items that won't affect the game at all.
DeleteHey there. I appreciate all the views my map can get but I would be grateful if you guys could include a link to my website www.sarithus.com.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
I linked to it above. I'd have done so from the start, but I was emailed the pic so I couldn't figure out who'd drawn it.
DeleteI found it on Facebook. I'll go put www.sarithus.com in the comments.
ReplyDeleteYou darw invoke the wath of Thpageti Thoth? (now I have to go and dig those up...)
ReplyDeleteThat's from "Beyond the Black Walnut," which is where our (first) dwarf cleric Al Murik got his name.
DeleteFor my face-to-face group, we did something similar, something I had been thinking about for a long time. Called it "Kingdom of Generica," and it was full of tropes—the notes we had actually included links to TVTropes.org for the associated tropes. It was based around the "20 Things I Won't Do When I Am Overlord" thing—the BBEG was simply referred to as "The Overlord," and he ruled in Nefaria, had a beautiful-but-sadistic daughter that would fall instantly in love with one of the PCs, and a Grand Vizier named Snivell. There were places like Dwarfmount, Elfwood, etc. The King of Generica was John XVII.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't have a map, though—we were making it up as we went. Right before this blog post, someone posted the Clichea map on our boards, lamenting that it didn't exist at the time.
That's awesome. I can't say anything more than that.
Delete"The King of Generica was John XVII."
DeleteOf the House of Doe, no doubt. :)