Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Ancient Elven Flanaess Map

Click to enlarge, sorry for the quality.
What you are seeing is parts of an elvish map I once made long ago for a time travel adventure I was setting in ancient pre-cataclysm times. This is the era of the Suel Empire, Vecna's Spidered Throne, plus many other Flannae and Olven realms. The nature of the adventure is entirely lost on me but I think it had something to do with Darnakurian, the elven prince of the Adri Forest who creates the sword Hunger (see Ivid the Undying). To aid in making a map suitable for this lost age I drew on Tolkien elvish for naming conventions. I don't claim these place names mean anything accurate in elvish but they all sounded good at the time. In fact, I have long since forgotten which notebook the translations are in. Ah well!

Furthermore, like all good DMs, sometimes the preparations outdo the execution. While the campaign never took off, I carefully illustrated this map on a rolled up piece of canvas. Not a technique I'd recommend, but the effect looks quite nice when you hand it out to players.

Detail commentary. I think I can hit some points of interest in this project for those who may want to steal this map idea: 
Close up of the central Flanaess

Flan kingdoms Itar, Sulm and Ahlissa are all represented.
It looks like I had four main elven kingdoms in Taaranalle (Vesve Forest and the north), Celene (still present day Celene) in the west central, Arissa to the far south east (Lendore Isles) and Aliador in the east (home to Darnakurian, Queen Sharafere and so forth). There are six main cities of the elves with Eriadan as the capital, nestled where the Gamboge Forest, the Rakers and Flinty Hills meet.
A spider throne is seen in the eastern swamps titled Liante Malhama. I can only imagine what that means).
For the those really into ancient Greyhawk lore I also managed to label minor spots of interest like Esmerin, Tostenhca, Veralos (on the edge of the Rift) and Tycheron (home to Kas).
Where the Keoland plains sit I have the elves labeling it Talathpesh. Guess what that's supposed to be.
Lastly there's a couple island spots like Tol Ur' an easy one. The Isle of Woe is where the Ur-Flan once messed around with dangerous things. Dol Azor (probably an anachronistic reference to the hero Azor Alq's isles) and Dol Nuuta which may or may not be some other sunken civilization.

There's a lot here to digest. I'd love to have a second attempt at this ancient map knowing what I know about Greyhawk canon today. This was made quite a long time ago so I know canon and fanon wouldn't entirely mesh with this map. That's all for now. Enjoy!

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice! I might be able to drop this into my game. What is the castle/tower in the Felreeve Forest, near Lake Aqal?

Mike Bridges said...

Beau: I never got around to naming that elven city. I vaguely recall I got my elven lore from an old Oerth Journal (between #1-3 I think).

Ancientgamer said...

Nice Mort, I've always considered on doing something similar. Did you reference anything to name other areas? Was this a high elves perspective?
I really appreciate material like this. Thanks for sharing.

Mike Bridges said...

Patrick: I had to go back and check. My elven map is based on the History of Oerik in Oerth Journal #1 by Steve B Wilson. Here's a pertinent part:

1053 SD The four "Elven Realms of the East" are established, and a calendar is used for the first time among the elves to count their own days. Highfolk is established in the Northwest to guard the northern ways, Celene the Central Kingdom, Aliador in the Griff Mountains, and Arrisa in the Southeast Aerdi Sea (in what is now called the Spindrift Isles)

mattinthehat said...

Just WOW.

mattinthehat said...

I've often wondered what the stats for the sword ��️ Hunger would be? I'm thinking something along the lines of Storm ringer but feed's on the negative energy draining abilities of the undead and it's purpose is to slay necromancer's. Just a thought.