Fortunes Gift – Lore in Post – TTRPG Region Map – Work in progress – January 29, 2023 at 10:25PM

I’m making this map (unfinished) for an old school essentials game. It will be printed on 40x60inch poster paper.

Made using a combination of free stock images, AI generated imagery, real world photography and Photoshop.

The game world will be retro-kitsch, featuring a mashup of classic fantasy tropes, intended to be light hearted and somewhat corny.

I created a calendar system to track dates, seasons and years. I will change up the random monster tables at different times.

Time is measured in five year cycles with individual years named for culturally significant creatures/entities: Phoenix Centaur Sphinx Ghost Dragon

Four seasons: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. 90 Days each. Exactly 360 days in a year.

Introductory lore:

Roughly 80 Years before the present day, on the 89th of Autumn, 97Phoenix:

The great explorer Rolan (human) was sailing the vast unexplored seas of the far west. During a routine dive to the ocean floor he discovered a strangely carved magical wand. The wand was incredibly ancient and was found to retain magical energies after eons of time. No amount of investigative fiddling would make the wand produce a magical effect.

Until one day, after travelling nearly a thousand miles further west, Rolan and his crew witnessed the wand aglow, it slowly rose high into the air, before exploding into an enormous cloud of rainbow colored debris.

The rainbow bits scattered and flew, whizzing near and far, seeming to form into curved lines going off to the horizon.

Then there was a shattering. A noise so loud that some elves heard it on the western coasts of the old world.

Where Rolan had not long since been sailing on the sea, there now lay a landmass stretching out beyond the horizon.

The wand Rolan found was some kind of key, which had unlocked a vast illusory spell, hiding a small continent from the outside world for eons.

Cursory investigations showed that this land was full of ruins of unknown age, along with creatures and plants both familiar and unknown.

Rolan and a small group of his human crew elected to stay upon this new land, whilst his ship returned to the Old World to inform the people.

News of these events quickly spread. Dwarven Clan Chiefs, Elvish Lords and the Human Monarchs all clamoured at the idea of new territories. In order to prevent conflict, it was agreed that the different species’ governments would provide funds to adventurers, explorers, miners, warriors, farmers, hunters etc to settle the New World.

A multi-species bureaucratic council with a human majority was formed, to act as a supposedly neutral form of governance for the first settlers.

These brave humans, elves, dwarves and goblins built their homes around the site of Rolan’s watchtower, which he built with his crew whilst they were alone on the New World. Several decades later, Rolan had died of old age.

After extensive diplomatic efforts, Dwarves would be given the mountains near the landing site to form a new Clan.

Next the elves would be given the Highwood near the coast to form a new domain.

The council tower would eventually replace the crumbling remains of Rolan’s initial watchtower and encampment, becoming the centre of the rapidly growing Goodlook Township.

The elves named their new domain Elendor (Land of the Elf) after Orwyn, the first Elven explorer on the New World, who first claimed the Highwood for the elves.

The dwarves built three halls and the Talltower in the mountains, making significant progress with their mining operations.

In the present day (13th Spring, 113Phoenix)

You find yourself disembarking from settler ships, carrying self-described adventurers, to discover your new homeland.