Homebrew World!

This is a WIP (Work In Progress). Currently mapped there are 4 - Noble houses and 4 - Sovereign nations. In the current campaign I am running the world Anchor Head is in its 3rd age. Slowly recovering from a devastating 100yr long war called the 'Sin War'. Most kingdom's of old have been destroyed, Thorunill is the longest standing kingdom and was founded during the end of the 'Sin War'. Rhunemarr is a kingdom centered and focused around arcane magic. Home of the ONLY Arcane Academies it is highly regulated, requiring magic users to be 'certified' by the school or purchase a license to use magic in the boundaries of Rhunemarr. Port Xavier is a large metropolis port town which has remained neutral in many in all politics. Lastly Jha'Tira is a desert city/kingdom built by a somewhat oppressive sultan who hordes the resources of the local oasis which the kingdom is built around.

The areas controlled by the noble houses were granted to them by the already existing sovereign nations. Since the kingdoms of old are gone, houses of nobility sometimes rise up to run an area. This leads to a ever changing world which can be influenced by the coming and going of noble houses AS WELL as Sovereign Nations. There is a tribunal which is held about every 2 to 3 years. This tribunal approves or denies those applying to become nobility and sovereign nations. In order to obtain nobility you have to have a certain amount of wealth, supporters, and good deeds to present to the council. In order to become a Sovereign Nation, a noble house has to improve its wealth, amount of support, and condition of the area it currently is running.

Again this is all a WIP, so if you have any feedback feel free to post it!

*****SPOILER***** IF YOU ARE PLAYING IN MY GAME OF ANCHOR HEAD DO NOT READ BELOW












His part of the world has yet to be "discovered". It also has a few nasty secrets that are good and BAD for finding it. A)That landmass only has ONE developed area which is HIGHLY PROTECTED by a high level GUILD/NPC GROUP. B)That entire landmass is known to be INFESTED with drow and different creatures that he and I have come up with. Including a race of 'super-orcs'. Not to be confused with Tolkiens' Uruk Hai. This group of 'super-orcs' was created by one of our MAIN antagonists for the world.  Also to the east of the mainland is the Eastern Kingdoms which I have not mapped yet, there are currently 3 different clans that rule in that area.  Their lands are still somewhat caught in war among each other, with smaller rival clans rising and falling constantly.

PS:  Thank you a ton for the compliment!

Yeah a lot of what he created is in a undiscovered area, there are hints throughout the world about this 'other place' which sometimes DRIVES the people who play in the setting nuts!  Just listening to him talk about the actual city of Anchor Head (which the setting is named after) and those involved with all things Anchor Head is amazing.  If he had the know how to write a series of books about it, the series would be ABSOLUTELY NUTS!  Hell the one time some of my friends and I got to play in his setting it was INTENSE!  The monk I was playing at the time created his own school of martial arts, which specialized in fighting Drow and defending Anchor Head.  We have talked at length and progressed his setting to match what I have come up with.  We've even created more NPC groups (both good and bad) together.  It was rather cool spending that summer constantly coming up with new content.

Thanks again for the compliments!  I love this world and I feel that it shows.  So that picture is only of the Northern Continent, there is a Southern Continent that is still be 'completed'.  I originally intended for players to begin on the Northern continent (until my desktop fried the other day), with the option to explore the Southern Pretaeus as well as the Eastern Empires.

If anyone ever has any questions about building the physical world please feel free to ask!  I have a BA in geography and I am essentially a certified computer cartographer (GIS).  I really love building worlds!

I have one friend, a very elderly gentlemen, who wrote an entire novel off the world he was building. Shortly after that (or was it before?), I had the idea for Älmara. That was a long time ago, but I still have the rough draft of the story he wrote. Stories like that, passed down from person to person, are the best to have. Only, our culture has made very little time for stories.

First off: lovely map Maxi! Very cool and well thought out. You can tell years have been put into it. I believe places like FedEx/Kinkos have large format scanners one can use for a fee.

andywmason: Be careful what you wish for. My kid is into D&D. He's 10, and he already has two notebooks full of homebrew monsters and magic items.

He used to draw mazes on graph paper, so I suggested one day that he should do the same with a dungeon for me to run through (he likes DMing). I came home from work the next day to his eager demand to run a dungeon he made. We didn't get all the way through it, so later that night, I sneaked a peek.

Here's what I found:
 

He's 10 years old and already better at dungeon design than I am. If I try to hand over my homebrew world in a few years...well, he's a nice kid. He'll probably just smile condescendingly, take the material give me a fake, "Oh, yeah, I really wanted socks for christmas" thank you.

Oh well. What better goal can we have as parents than to hope our children surpass us in every way.

That is why I almost always stick to graph paper because without it things can get a little crazy. Rather they just take a really long time to make them nice, haha.

Also, that is some awesome work for a 10 year old that's for sure. I wasn't even into the game at that age, nonetheless cranking out dungeon design and homebrew monsters and magic items. Hopefully that affinity lasts and we all end up buying the newest book your son writes!

Hoping to have an updated version of the map going up later this week with more cities and a few other things!