Map Project: Baalgor/Nimro/Y-S Jungles (100% Complete!)

[Hotrod]

EDIT: Current Status: First draft of the bare geography, natural geography, and political geography versions are done and up on my Patreon page (link in my sig). Palladium will be using this map for the soon-to-be-released 2nd Edition of Yin-Sloth Jungles, so I won't be posting a final full size version publicly.

I'm now going to work on tweaks, corrections, and improved/alternate versions of the map.

Fellow Fantasy fans, I've begun the map project that will catch me up with all the published regions:

The Southwest
Baalgor Wastelands, Nimro, and the Yin-Sloth Jungles

My plan is to render the Baalgor Wastelands, Mount Nimro Region, and the Yin-Sloth Jungles in full color with elevation, climate, magical, and political geography, as well as some corresponding bathymetry (aka ocean floor topography). While I could do separate individual maps of the Baalgor Wastelands and Nimro, it's impossible to do a map of the Yin-Sloth Jungles in a rectangular image and not include these other regions, so I'm doing all three.

As with all my maps, my goal is to make an image that's both a useful tool and an appealing thematic image. Since this map will have three distinct regions in it, a key challenge will be establishing some kind of unifying themes for the compass rose, map border, and legend, as well as the icons I use. Another challenge will be ensuring that this image is as compliant with the source material as I can make it, which is a bit of a problem.

The maps in Yin-Sloth Jungles don't generally line up well with maps of the world, or of neighboring regions, or even with each other. I mashed them together a few years back into a global map that I now use as a baseline for all my regional Palladium maps, but this one will require some detailed interpolation of inconsistent source maps. This isn't a criticism; hand-drawn maps are intrinsically thematic for a fantasy setting, and these source maps were never meant to get lined up with other canon maps the way I've assembled them. I enjoy trying to make a realistic representation from which some fantasy cartographer might draw the maps we see in the canon books.

As always, I covet your thoughts, questions, and especially ideas and criticisms as I work through this process. In terms of timeframe, I'd like to have this done by late November so folks can request a version in their X-mas packates, but as this isn't a commissioned work, I'll get to it as the mood and opportunities strike me.

[Hotrod]

So far, I've scoped the map, gotten the bare dimensions, superimposed the source maps of interest, and created an initial randomly-generated height map that I'll use as my baseline.
+The map's dimensions will be 5100x3300 pixels suitable for printing on 11x17 inch paper or cardstock at photo quality.
+The map will include a bit of the Western Empire, the Old Kingdom, and the Land of South Winds.

The next steps will be importing height maps from my Western Empire map, Inland Sea map, and Land of South Winds map to make sure that what I depict here is consistent with the other maps I've made, and then I'll start the tedious process of land sculpting.

[kiralon]

Sweet, another map.

[Reagren Wright]

The master map maker is at it again. Looking forward as always to it.

[Captain_Nibbz]

Heck yeah

Any day that I see Hotrod has started a new project is a good day for me

[Hotrod]

Update: I've imported land sculpts from my Western Empire, Inland Sea, and Land of South Winds maps, re-sized them to fit the scale of the map, and overlaid them. This will ensure that this map will be as consistent as possible with previous maps I've made.

Here's the latest version.

Now I have to sculpt the rest of the height map and blend it all in seamlessly with these other sources. This part is something of a grind.

[Hotrod]

Mini-Update: I've pulled in all the sub-regional maps from Baalgor Wastelands, so I'll be able to add in all the locations of note in that region. One thing I really appreciate about the Bill Coffin books is how well most of those maps line up with each other.

Land sculpting is coming along, but I have a ways to go yet. Lots of airbrushing, with some selective erasing and a little smudging.

[Hotrod]

Mini-update: The mountains are placed, and I've made a lot of progress smoothing out the randomly-generated terrain and blending it with the imported terrain of my Western Empire, Inland Sea, and Land of South Winds maps.

This is the stage of airbrushing, smudging, and erasing to make everything fit together, and it's freaking tedious. Once that's done, it'll be time to work in river valleys. Then I'll work in the erosion effects.

[Hotrod]

Update: The blending is mostly done. Here's the current work in progress.

With some bump mapping and a basic color gradient, the map is starting to look somewhat map-ish.

Remaining issues:
-The mountains are placed and match up to canon maps, but there are some low spots I need to go in and eliminate with careful erasing and airbrushing.
-I haven't properly defined any river valleys (except the South Winds river, which is already done from a previous map)

[Hotrod]

Update: I've got the general shape of the land sculpt where I want it. Here's a preview of the map with no erosion effects. Now I need to work in some river valleys and watersheds.

[Reagren Wright]

Looks good my friend

[Hotrod]

Update: I've made my first attempt at doing erosion effects and rivers, and while there are a few tweaks, I'm about 80% there on elevation; all the big stuff is done. I just need to tweak things now. Here's the latest work in progress.

Still to do before I'm done land sculpting:
-Go over all the coastlines and pick and choose where I want to have higher elevations right next to the water. There are a lot of random cliff areas, and I want to be deliberate about that.
-There's a largish flat area southwest of Mt Nimro. I'll raise that up some.
-There's a river in the Baalgor Wastelands. While the elevation supports that, the climate doesn't; it's a desert, and if a river's there, it's dry most of the time. I'll fix this outside of land sculpting.
-The Old Kingdom River could use a bit of tweaking. It starts just north of Nimro. There's a river there, but it's not quite as defined as I'd like.
-I need to introduce some smearing effects in the grassland areas.
-The river southeast of Nimro is cut a bit too deep; this is because that area already had erosion effects applied, so all I have to do is airbrush the additional effects out.
-There's a canon lake or two I need to draw in. I might wind up adding some other very small lakes into the jungle area as well.
-I want to check the elevations of all the mountain ranges in this map and adjust these accordingly. These mountains all seem very uniform in height.
-Mt Nimro and Nimrod need a little something to make them look more like volcanoes. Their crater rims don't pop very well.

Once I get these done, I'll work in climate effects, draw in jungle/woodlands, and work up the bathymetry.

[kiralon]

I can sense an adventure in the LotSW soon

[Hotrod]

I can sense an adventure in the LotSW soon

While I have a LotSW map that I used to make this, I'll likely be redoing that map to match canon when the official book comes out.

[Hotrod]

The Old Kingdom River is the bane of my cartography in PF. I was just looking at it today. While I have a river heading in the right direction in the right region, the canon path of the river flows towards a mountain range (and away from the Sea of Scarlet Waters) and then runs along and parallel to that mountain range, right next to the mountains themselves. This is not how rivers work in real life, so I'm having to make some serious adjustments to elevation to make this river go where I want it.

[kiralon]

The Old Kingdom River is the bane of my cartography in PF. I was just looking at it today. While I have a river heading in the right direction in the right region, the canon path of the river flows towards a mountain range (and away from the Sea of Scarlet Waters) and then runs along and parallel to that mountain range, right next to the mountains themselves. This is not how rivers work in real life, so I'm having to make some serious adjustments to elevation to make this river go where I want it.

Becuase of where it goes through i have it run up mountains and have a waterrise (rather than a water fall) in some places in some places cause magic. I even have a side quest to the crystal castle adventure that sort of explains it.
Sections of the river are not natural but carved canals if you look close enough in the silt that has built up over the millenia

[Hotrod]

Mini-Update: I'm incorporating some local geography into the map now, with a particular emphasis on the Yin-Sloth Jungles:
-The Great Bog will be a flat area with lots of little rivers and some scattered tiny lakes in it; I'll work it up similar to marshes I've done before.
-The Fire Bog overlaps with The Great Bog. The Fire Bog is described as weird, alien, desert-like with only a few sickly trees here and there and visible alien mineral formations. I'll color this one as a gently rolling desert with fiery colors, and some unnatural color splotches here and there.
-Kirgi's Maw is described as being darker and menacing, with lots of volcanic rock and black sand on the coast. I'll do some darker underlying colors accordingly.
-The Conquered Lands and the Commonwealth will be less dense in their jungle coverage. That whole western edge of the Yin-Sloth Jungles has a *lot* of cities/towns/key locations.
-The Wasteland is a thick jungle. The nasty bits are all under the canopy; not much for me to do differently here.
-The Northern Freelands are thick jungle.

I still need to review the Baalgor Wastelands and Nimro for local geography factors.

[kiralon]

Awesome, still looking forward to this.

[Hotrod]

I'm nearly done with the land sculpting. All the rivers are behaving themselves, and I've shaped the land how I want it. I just have to draw in some bog/marsh effects now, and I'll have the terrain done.

[kiralon]

Looking forward to plunging the current characters into adventure and danger there. One of the pc's comes from there and i have been holding off getting the adventure to take the party back there. They already have a hook in the baalgor wastelands so a little nudge should not be hard. Having this up on the wall when we do will be great (if they pay 5000gp for the good map hehe) otherwise it will be the palladium black and white one.

[Hotrod]

Land Sculpt is done, and I've taken a stab at the climate gradients and water effects. Here's the current version. I still have to add in the forests/jungle and ley lines, and I'll probably do some tweaking (especially with the water effects), but the bare geography is nearly done.

+I've put desert gradients into the Baalgor Wastelands. I used a more saturated color palette for the Sandy Desert, where the ruins of Baalgor are. The Rocky Desert includes a lot of jagged cliffs, per the book's description.
+The Great Bog is an extra-saturated green, while I mixed in some blended random noise with reds and yellows for the Great Fire Bog. I worked a lot of little rivers into both to create a bog/swamp effect.
+I also worked in a lot of little rivers southeast of the Nimro volcanoes.
+I blended in some prairie colors for the Nimro Plains and the Old Kingdom lowlands.

[Goblin-Jack]

Land Sculpt is done, and I've taken a stab at the climate gradients and water effects. Here's the current version. I still have to add in the forests/jungle and ley lines, and I'll probably do some tweaking (especially with the water effects), but the bare geography is nearly done.

+I've put desert gradients into the Baalgor Wastelands. I used a more saturated color palette for the Sandy Desert, where the ruins of Baalgor are. The Rocky Desert includes a lot of jagged cliffs, per the book's description.
+The Great Bog is an extra-saturated green, while I mixed in some blended random noise with reds and yellows for the Great Fire Bog. I worked a lot of little rivers into both to create a bog/swamp effect.
+I also worked in a lot of little rivers southeast of the Nimro volcanoes.
+I blended in some prairie colors for the Nimro Plains and the Old Kingdom lowlands.

Looks great, Hotrod! Very well done.

[Hotrod]

Update: the bare geography map is fully drafted. Here's a 1/9th size preview. The full version is up on my Patreon Page (link below).

Happy to take comments/critiques/suggestions.

At this point, I'm going to start on labels and icons.

Known issues:
-The Baalgor Mountains should have more alpine forests and trees on it.
-The jungle perimeter seems a bit... sudden, especially the part south of Nimro. I'll think on that.
-The jungle perimeter seems to stop a bit too suddenly along mountain ranges, too.
-The parts in the Orcish Empire/Commonwealth should probably have more cleared areas.
-The river valley west of the Land of South Winds continues underwater. This is an artifact of me importing a South Winds map I previously made to make it fit with the rest of what I was making.
-The Baalgor coast is a bit greener than it probably should be.
-The Fire Bog seems a bit too gray; there are reds and yellows there, but they're really hard to see. I'll bring them out more.
-The underwater topography drops away from the continental shelf a bit too quickly.
-The Sea of Scarlet Waters needs to be redder, like what I did in my Western Empire map.

[kiralon]

So close

[Reagren Wright]

Just in time to get it done. Yin Sloth Jungle and Island at the Edge of the World are confirmed this year for 2nd edition publication. So Wil your maps will
be needed soon.

[kiralon]

Hopefully they become Canon

[Hotrod]

Just in time to get it done. Yin Sloth Jungle and Island at the Edge of the World are confirmed this year for 2nd edition publication. So Wil your maps will
be needed soon.

Yeah, Kevin gave me the extra kick to prioritize this one a few weeks ago. I've been sitting on that news for a while now. If this map passes muster, it might just show up in the book.

I may do some fancier versions for prints and/or PDF download to boot. We'll see.

[Hotrod]

Hopefully they become Canon

That's the plan.

[Hotrod]

Ok, just working out the political geography here, we have territories for the following political powers on this map:

1. The Orcish Empire (was dark red in the Western Empire map)
2. The Commonwealth (maybe light blue?)
3. The Nimro Giant Kingdom (I'm thinking bright red/orange)
4. Western Empire (was purple in the Western Empire map, will probably keep it that way)
5. Land of South Winds (was deep blue in the Eastern Territories map, will probably keep it that way)

There are also some political powers that have settlements, but no claimed territory per se:
1. Gromek Tribes (No color picked yet. Might try using settlement icons with little wings with a white-ish stone)
2. Minotaurs (multiple factions. No color picked yet. Might try reusing minotaur tribe icons from my Land of the Damned map)
3. Pirate Settlements (especially on the Rocky Coast of the Baalgor Wastelands. Historically, I do these as red or a dark gray)
4. Some magic/holy-ish places like the Tomb of Gavin Zi and Dragon's Maw. I'm thinking of using a pyramid icon for these (Gavin Zi is literally a pyramid, Dragon's Maw is built into a dormant volcano), maybe re-using the magic pyramid icon from my Rifts British Isles map, or the place-of-magic icon I've used in a few different maps.
5. Various independent/neutral settlements (historically, I make these yellow, unless they are openly hostile to humans, in which case they tend to be red)


Doing up faction-specific shields with sub-faction heraldry isn't a practical option here, as there's no single dominant faction, but rather many different factions, and in any case, I tend to do that for large, highly-organized powers with well-defined subordinate organizations like the Wolfen Empire, Eastern Territory Dominion of Man, or Western Empire. The only faction that comes close to qualifying would be Nimro, which ironically is not a giant part of this map; I might try doing some kind of fancy icon for them with 5 variations for each type of giant clan/tribe later, if I have space and time for it, and if I can come up with something suitable, but small; after all, there are 19 giant tribes in a nation that isn't all that big.

[Hotrod]

Icons are placed for Nimro and Baalgor. Holy cow, Bill Coffin liked to put in lots of "places of note." Especially in the Baalgor Wastelands. He also put caravans and nomadic tribes on his maps, even though he states that these groups stay on the move (the odd ones who are described as having settled down, I've marked; the rest I'm leaving out).

[Hotrod]

I've placed the icons for the Yin-Sloth Jungles. Holy cow, the inconsistencies in 1st Edition Yin-Sloth Jungles and the two Bill Coffin books (Baalgor and Nimro) are pretty glaring:
-It states that the Orcish Empire is 100 years old and therefore the youngest nation. Apparently the author wasn't familiar with the Adventures in the Northern Wilderness books that were out at the time which identified the Wolfen Empire as being newer than that.
-Nimeret and its "Federation of Giant-Kind" is the largest kingdom of giants in the world; The Isle of the Cyclops and Nimro are both larger.
-Nimeret is connected by a great road to the Baalgor Wastelands, but it was built to connect it to the giants' homeland, Mount Nimro. The author is writing about those like they're the same region. Bill Coffin put both Gromek and Nimro forts in the same place, too. Blegh... canon conflicts... this is why I wish Palladium had done more detailed, consistent maps back then. It makes projects like this both fun and frustrating.
-Speaking of map quality, Baalgor's internal maps are excellent (though somewhat fragmented in presentation), Nimro's are serviceable, and Yin-Sloth Jungle (1st edition) are a hot mess. There are unlabeled dots that you have to figure out by context, labeled locations and highlighted regions that aren't described or even mentioned in the text, and the shape of the land is horribly skewed relative to the Palladium world map. The silver lining here is that Kevin is having another artist redo the interior maps, and I get to bring the whole thing together with this creation.

[kiralon]

I have faith in you, hopefully the upcoming books will allow for a clearer picture.

I Ignore the Orcish empire in the YSJ, as it goes to much against the info of what Orcs are supposed to be like. I believe individuals can be like they are there, but a nation seems very unlikely to me, unless the blurb about orcs in the main books is wrong.

[Hotrod]

I have faith in you, hopefully the upcoming books will allow for a clearer picture.

I Ignore the Orcish empire in the YSJ, as it goes to much against the info of what Orcs are supposed to be like. I believe individuals can be like they are there, but a nation seems very unlikely to me, unless the blurb about orcs in the main books is wrong.

Much appreciated, and I'm very excited to be contributing to this next Yin-Sloth Jungle's 2nd edition.

UPDATE: I've finished the first complete draft of the map. It's got all the essential elements: terrain, climate, forests, water effects, ley lines, borders, places-of-note icons, and labels. Overall, it's good enough to publish, but there are a lot of tweaks I haven't made yet because I've focused on getting a complete draft done first.


I hadn't originally planned to make this map for Palladium, but apparently someone told Kevin about this project and he reached out to me a few weeks ago. I've been giving this project a high priority since, and with this version, I delivered what I said I'd do on the date by which I said I'd do it. That's good, but it also puts me in a bit of a weird spot.

See, this is usually where I'd post the first complete draft, or at least announce that it will be available to my non-patrons after they get exclusive access for a month or two, but since this map is getting published, it wouldn't be right for me to post it publicly. Kevin wants to sell his new book, and with him bringing me in as a contributing artist, I want to contribute to the book's appeal.

I also know some folks have been following this thread hoping to see the finished product that I said I wanted to create in the original post. I have created what I set out to create, but I won't be posting it for free on Imgur or DeviantArt. I'll make this draft available to my patrons (link below), but everyone else will have to buy the new edition of Yin-Sloth Jungles to see it.

I know that kind of bites for people who want to see it all come together right now, but my hope is that you'll channel that excitement into buying a copy of the new Yin Sloth Jungles edition. In the meantime, I'll work towards making the map even better for Palladium and the fans who buy the new book.

Thanks to all for the interest and encouragement throughout, and I hope you like what you'll soon see.

[kiralon]

I wonder if you would be allowed to put the map by itself up for sale in the palladium books shop. Its where I would expect to find it if I was looking for usable high quality maps, and hopefully this is the start of the palladium world project for you, zipping it all together into one humungous map that is interactive and zoomable.

[Hotrod]

I wonder if you would be allowed to put the map by itself up for sale in the palladium books shop. Its where I would expect to find it if I was looking for usable high quality maps, and hopefully this is the start of the palladium world project for you, zipping it all together into one humungous map that is interactive and zoomable.

That's possible. Palladium has put some high-quality prints of my maps in the Christmas grab bag packages before; selling those prints there individually or as a combo-stack might be a viable way ahead if there's demand. It's also possible for Palladium to sell PDF versions on DriveThruRPG, and I have made some interactive PDF versions of my maps before. We'll see what Kevin wants to do.

[Reagren Wright]

Hey Wil, so you've been in the know for a while now too. John and I have been keeping our mouths shut on this even before the Open House. Good thing
you just "happened" to be working on this I take it.

[kiralon]

New version is awesome

[Hotrod]

Mini-update: I've fixed all the cosmetic issues that were bugging me, and I'm waiting on final input from Kevin on content. I've also been working with a friend to see if we can make a good-quality interactive PDF that isn't a resource-hog. Using layers seems to bog things down and make the total pdf file ~3x as large as its component layers.

[Hotrod]

I was going through some of my older posts looking for something else, and I realized that I never closed this one out. The map is complete and published in the new Yin-Sloth Jungles book in grayscale. Kevin also plans to make the full-color version (which is better unless you're colorblind) available separately. No word on when that will happen.