Sketching out the Terrain 0 to 2,000

Dwimmermount Mapping

The family drama continues on but I’ve finally gotten to the point where I can show you the terrain right down to sea level. This update will include the 1,500, 1,000, and the small amounts of 500, 250 and sea level, excluding the fuckery that I may have to do with rivers.

1,500 is the last layer before the massive fill in starts so I’ll go over it. Then the big fill in followed by the lower areas in the NE corner.

Starting with the now combined Winterpeaks/Dwimmermount/White Mountains range again the 1,500’s makes for a pretty tight drop off and helps structure in the Makrono Marsh and the outgoing Makrono River. It also narrows down the tight points that the Makrono will flow through in the bottom edge of this image. It also fills in the N/S valley that runs to the west of the Winterpeaks. The access to the ‘Adamas Valley’, south of the range, is also pretty tight on the 17.15/18.15 hexes. That’s going to be a critical place for some fortifications to control what is an obvious route for a roadway. The same with that narrow channel on the western edge of the range however that area wasn’t detailed in the book showing that it was likely sparsely inhabited. I’ll see if it stays that way once I get to the point of doing domain work.

Demon Claw Mountains are next. There’s a lot of spread here. The NE remains pretty tight, referring to that pass that I mentioned above, but it widens up a lot in the south. I like the shape that it maintained some of the shape that led to the name of the range. Not so much in the north but very much so with the center mountain ranges. It worked out to leave a solid series of valleys between some of the ranges as well. The bottom range I extended down to give some justification for the Murklands to the south. All that sloping terrain plus a water source is going to work nicely to make that area happen in a realistic way.

The Ghost Peaks look very similar to the last article just expanded outward to butt up against the Winterpeaks in the NE and the Shield Wall Mountains in the E. There will be just enough of a gap for the Makrono river flowing north and to park Yethlyreom in 19.18.

Moving south we get to the Oro Mountains. I’ve spread them out towards the edge of the Murklands, same as the Demon Claw Mountains, to justify the structure of the swamp. I also expanded the range organically to the east and the SW.

Looking at some of the open spaces I added some terrain where I thought it was helpful for the map. In the south I added a series of elevations to help with the shape that the Vagar river in the south was taking. I want to stick to my goal of keeping the rivers in the hexes that they were shown in on the Outdoor Survival Map. That required adding some terrain in to make it work. When a river moves there is usually a really good reason for it.

Moving west we come to the Shield Wall Mountains. I’ve stuck with the goal of having it right up against the Makrono River in the NW and leaving that narrow pass to access the Starfell. I made a point not to expand too much into the Starfell so that there would be plenty of hexes of open wasteland for travel and adventuring on flat lands for a change. Plus I have cool images of dust storms blowing through the area and I need some flat lands for that to be super cool.

Next, moving west, is the Thunderhome Mountains. The range has stayed tight in the north, its getting to be a very steep and restricted area. It’s an excellent example of what happens when you get several different ranges converging and you have to navigate that nasty mess. The majority of its spread in the SW where it’s started to slope downwards through the Oggo Forest and towards the Vagar River.

With the Barrier Mountains to the south we’ve left the buttes of the 2.5K and 3K ranges behind and extended the gradual sloping of the 2K range down into the 1.5K.

I’ve created a hill for the Lanis river (42.27-44.28) in the NE of the range. It might look odd now but picture a river flowing north between the two. It’s a little something to help guide it. To the S and the W it travels off the the map closing off most of that area. Down in the SW corner I added a few hills to help hold the structure of that lake in place. I was also quite happy with the way the valley between the Barrier Mountains and the Thunderhome Mountains came together. It was organically done and really didn’t need to be forced. A lovely wooded valley.

Next in the rotation is the Hearthstone Mountains. I’ll detail them east to west.

The eastern most of the ranges helps create those valleys on its W and E flanks and to the south it solidly sets the course for the Lanis River.

The second range guides the Lanis on its south and spreads up towards the Westwall Mountains in the North. I wanted to get it up into that gap between the ranges to create some guidance for the Lanis heading north off the map and to bracket the Makrono Marsh. This range really helps determine where that river is going. With taps as compared to the first of these ranges which has the river riding its eastern flank.

The third range is limited because of the terrain that surrounds it and the Makrono Marsh to the north. I was able to spread out a bit in the W to help close off that area towards the Makrono River but its pretty trapped.

Last is the small, compared to what its surrounded by, range that runs W to E just south of the third range. The expansion of it joined up with the Shield Wall Mountains to the south and I spread it out to the SW to help fill in that gap. It also creates an interesting tight pass for the Makrono River in the 26.14/27.15/27.14 hexes. I had the idea for a ruined bridge there. A massive undertaking that was perhaps never finished or collapsed between the ages, an excellent adventure site that is close to Adamas in 24.15

Completing our loop is the Westwall Mountains in the NE corner of the map. The giant series of Karst Mountains continues to slope downwards. It extends into the NE pocket towards the Grey Sea. It also helps create the valleys between the Hearthstone Mountains to its west. Finally in the south it spreads out to slope the land towards the Timeless Forest.

That closes off the 1,500’ range. This band was much easier than 4K to 2K series. I really only had to redo one or two ranges and make some adjustments to account for the rivers that were flowing through.

My next step was looking at the 1,000’ range and seeing just how far it would spread and where I would have step downs into the 500’ ranges. My guess was that it was going to cover the majority of the map in a fairly gentle slope. I started to take a hard look at the multipliers for the spread and the elevations to allow for the Lanis/Vargar/Makrono rivers to flow properly. This lead to my conclusion that the vast majority of the remaining terrain was going to be coming in solidly between 500’ and 1000’.

This makes sense. It allows for local variation of terrain that isn’t covered at this detail level and still lets the rivers flow towards the Grey Sea in the North. Which is good. I like to avoid the ‘A Wizard Did It’ solution. Now the NE pocket was an exception. That needed to slope down to sea level.

There were a few spots that got close to 500’ but I decided to keep them high enough to be able to give some uniformity to the open regions. I had to double check the Murklands and the Makrono Marsh but there are plenty of examples of swamps and marshes at elevation to allow for them to be there. The drainage won’t be too steep for them.

Now the NE pocket … first I added in the 500’ range making sure to allow for the rivers to be able to flow out of the Westwall properly. You don’t want to create a spot for the flow and then see that you didn’t allow for it to track down the slopes in a reasonable manner. Awkward.

Next I stepped down to 250’ and again allowed for the main river to drain properly and to add the guidance for the other small tributaries that will add into it as it heads down to the Grey Sea.

Finally getting down to the Grey Sea I decided that I wasn’t happy with three hexes of ocean. Since I’m carving up the rest of the terrain I should be a little more organic with the coastline as well. So I spread out into 41.01 and 42.02 and 44.02. Then I put in the 0’ feet curves to show the coastline. I left a curve of a coastline in 41.01 just for fun and I made sure to allow for the river mouth and a bit of bay in 43.03 as well.

So finally here it is in all its glory. Minus the lakes, rivers, inhabitants, and all of that.

The next thing I’m going to tackle is the lakes, rivers, marshes and swamps. That should come together fairly quickly since a lot of the work has already been plotted out. If you’ve been playing attention you’ve seen the locations of most of the lakes already. I just need to create the rivers that justify their existences.

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