Arcadia Map Progress + New Map incoming

Hey there Patrons, lets talk maps!

Arcadia OG
I've been working on the original map for Arcadia (pre cataclysmic events) for some time now, and it's just about done. All the major land masses are done, but there are still some things to name, maybe some islands to add, and then possibly multiple versions to reflect the change in settlements over the ages. 

The first version posted here was a basic conceptual layout with some rough borders for different biomes. F is forest, H is hills, D is desert, etc.

If you cycle through the versions, you can see some have a lot of progress, some have just some minor changes. This is because sometimes we sit down and map make for 10 hours, and sometimes it's just a 20 minute adjustment. 

The only things really missing from the terrain types here are Jungles and Snowy areas. I'm not super happy about that. I think the first land ought to have a little bit of everything. Sort of a, "let's play with all the stuffs" zone. I mentioned there might be some extra islands to add here or there, and maybe one of those will be a jungle island and one will be a snowy island.

Lastly, I'm feeling not 100% about the southern most island, the one surrounded by mountains on 3 sides and a deep forest on the 4th side. I like the concept of a secluded island that is very difficult to access, but something about it really bothers me and I don't know what. It just feels very out of place in a way that I can't put my finger on the details of. So it might get some changes, or even a full removal as we finish up the area.

This map has been underway since December 23rd of 2022, so it's been going for a while now. 

New Map
For the next Save or Die campaign, I think we're going to make a return to Solum. I've got my eye on an area that I think would be appropriate to run the next game, but I don't want to use the old solum maps. I want to do the area in a version like the new maps... which is pretty time consuming. It's been 7 months of working on the Arcadia map - granted a lot of that time was waiting for assets, and figuring out best practices, and skill building that should make the next map easier - but I have faith this one will go faster. First off, I already have a good idea of what the area looks like because we have existing maps of the place. Secondly, the area is not nearly as biologically varied, there are large areas of single terrain types.

If you've ever spent some time googling old maps of the world, they are hilariously bad. This here is a map of the "british isles" from the 14th century. This is supposed to be a map of the world, but for the life of me I can't even identify anything on this map.

What I'm getting at here is that maps evolve as our understanding of the world evolves, and the new map of the Solum region we'll be working with is going to be different from the old map of the Solum region. I'm not sure how different, since we haven't made the map yet, but there will undoubtedly be some adjustments. And just like how the shape of the real world continents hasn't changed in the last 1000 years, the shape of this region of Solum won't be changed or retconned or adjusted - its just that the maps are being updated to something nicer. 

The solum maps don't have distances, but they have towns along roads roughly every day or so of travel. Buuuuut, these "towns" should more appropriately be called "villages" or "hamlets". And a "day of travel" is pretty broad. If you can get to the next village where there's an inn, you might stop there even if you've only been traveling for 5 hours simply because you don't want to spend the night in between towns. Those villages and hamlets probably won't make it onto the new map, so it'll be less cluttered. 

What region are we going to be working on? Well, as new ideas for the new campaign come in things might change, but right now I think we're going to be revisiting The Devouring Marsh, Keygate, and Swampside! Old fans will recognize these names and locations from some old Dicing with Death campaigns. 

That's all for now! See you for some map making.