TTRPG Mapmakers might find this interesting! I am working on a D&D campaign set during the tail end of the Greek mythological/Hellenic world, and after combing through all sorts of wikipedia maps and articles I made these maps for my setting! I spent hours in pixlr over the long weekend making these maps of the world! Next is the eastern sea/Troy/Anatolia map for the setting.
I spent so much time using historic references and went down several research spirals to give this setting a mythological-meet-historical foundation. Things obviously aren't accurate to real life, but I think they're neat for the narrative I want to tell.
[Had to delete the previous iteration of this post because I forgot to include a layer of the Greece map, my b! lol]
Premise: The group are heroes and monsters slain long ago, lingering in the underworld. They are given a second chance to prove themselves to the Olympians, emerging from the Underworld near ancient Cumae and eventually sailing eastwards to Olympian-led Greece.
Top is my take on Hellenic Greece; Bottom Left is ancient Cumae and its vassal city-states in Italy, and Bottom Right is a bird's eye view of the regions between ancient Latium and Cumae.
I hope you guys find these maps interesting! Love, Aboleth Eye
In the real world, we have very strange superstitions that a lot of people believe are completely true! But I rarely see that explored within fantasy! Which is a shame because some of those superstitions could actually be true!
Perhaps if you wear red gloves and poke a statue of a king your soul gets trapped in it! Or if you wear blue on a Tuesday the thunder god will strike you with lightning!
You can make them as ridiculous as you like and some can be very real, you’re playing with magic and gods! Sometimes, they don’t have to make sense!
Step behind the screen with the new D&D settings (and Cosmology in general) with their creators as WotC interviews Keith Baker, James Wyatt, and Jeremy Crawford.
Beneath a crimson sun lie wastelands of majestic desolation and cities of cruel splendor, where sandal-clad heroes battle ancient sorcery and terrible monsters.
This is the World of Athas, the World of the Dark Sun!
Athas, a dying planet of savagery and desolation...
Life hangs by a thread in this barren land, and its heroes write their own stories in both blood and glory...
The World You Should Know...
The World of Dark Sun is unique in many ways...
Many things a player might assume as "Common" are missing or turned on their heads completely!
Athas is not a place of shining knights and robed wizards, of deep forests and divine pantheons.
To venture over the sands of Athas is to enter a world of savagery and splendor that draws on different traditions of fantasy and storytelling.
Simple survival beneath the dark red sun is often its own adventure...
Newcomers to Athas have much to learn about the world, its people, and its monsters...
1. The World is a Desert (And has a LOT of Sand...)
Athas is a hot, arid planet covered with endless seas of dunes, lifeless salt flats, stony wastes, rocky badlands, thorny scrublands, and worse...
From the first moments of dawn, the crimson sun beats down from an olive-tinged sky.
Temperatures routinely exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), by mid-morning and can reach 130 degrees (55 degrees Celsius) or more by late afternoon...
The wind is like the blast of a furnace, offering no relief from the oppressive heat.
Dust and sand borne on the breeze coat everything with yellow-orange silt.
In this forbidding world, cities and villages exist only in a few oases or verdant plains.
Some places don’t see rain for years at a time, and even in fertile regions, rain is little more than a humid mist that falls during a few weeks each year before giving way to long months of heat and drought.
The world beyond these small pieces of civilization is a wasteland roamed by nomads, raiders, and hungry monsters.
Athas was not always a desert, and the parched landscape is dotted with the crumbling ruins of a planet that once was rich with rivers and seas.
Ancient bridges over dry watercourses and empty stone quays that face seas of sand tell the tale of a world that is no more...
2. The World is Savage...
Life on Athas is brutal and short.
Bloodthirsty raiders, greedy slavers, and hordes of inhuman savages overrun the deserts and wastelands.
The cities are little better, though not by much...
The institution of slavery is widespread on Athas, and many unfortunates spend their lives in chains, toiling for brutal taskmasters...
Every year hundreds of slaves, perhaps thousands, are sent to their deaths in bloody arena spectacles.
Charity, compassion, kindness— these qualities exist, but they are rare and precious.
Only a fool hopes for such riches...
3. Metal is Scarce...
Most weapons and armor are made of bone, stone, wood, and similar things...
Mail or plate armor exists only in the treasuries of the sorcerer-kings.
Steel blades are almost priceless, weapons that many heroes never see during their lifetimes...
4. Arcane Magic is BAD! (Like... REALLY BAD!)
The reckless use of arcane magic during ancient wars reduced Athas to a wasteland.
To cast an arcane spell, one must gather power from the living world nearby.
Plants wither to black ash, crippling pain wracks animals and people, and the soil is sterilized; nothing can grow in that spot again.
It is possible to cast spells with care, preserving the world and avoiding any more damage to it, but defiling offers more power than preserving.
As a result, sorcerers, wizards, and other wielders of arcane magic are reviled and persecuted across Athas regardless of whether they preserve or defile.
Only the most powerful spellcasters can wield arcane might without fear of reprisal...
5. Sorcerer-Kings Rule! (But aren't Cool...)
Terrible defilers of immense power rule all but one of the City-States.
These mighty spellcasters have held their thrones for centuries; no one alive remembers a time before the sorcerer-kings.
Some claim to be gods, and some claim to serve gods...
Some are brutal oppressors, where others are more subtle in their tyranny.
The sorcerer-kings govern through priesthoods or bureaucracies of greedy, ambitious templars, lesser defilers who can call upon the kings’ powers.
Only in the city-state of Tyr does a glimmer of freedom beckon, and powerful forces already conspire to extinguish it...
6. The Gods Are Silent...
Long ago, when the planet was green, the brutal might of the primordials overcame the gods.
Today, Athas is a world without deities...
There are no clerics, no paladins, and no prophets or religious orders.
Old shrines and crumbling temples lie amid the ancient ruins, testimony to a time when the gods spoke to the people of Athas.
Nothing is heard now but the sighing of the desert wind...
In the absence of divine influence, other powers have come to prominence in the world.
Psionic power is well known and widely practiced on Athas; even unintelligent desert monsters can have deadly psionic abilities.
Shamans and druids call upon the primal powers of the world, which are often sculpted by the influence of elemental power...
7. Horrible Monsters Roam Free... (A wandering TPK!)
The desert planet has its own deadly ecology.
Athas has no cattle, swine, or horses; instead, people tend flocks of erdlus, ride on kanks or crodlus, and draw wagons with inixes and mekillots.
Wild creatures such as lions, bears, and wolves are non-existent.
In their place are terrors such as the id fiend, the baazrag, and the tembo.
Perhaps the harsh environment of Athas breeds creatures tough and vicious enough to survive it, or maybe the touch of ancient sorcery poisoned the wellsprings of life and inflicted monster after monster on the dying world.
Either way, the deserts are perilous, and only a fool or a lunatic travels them alone...
8. Familiar Stuff is VERY Different...
Typical fantasy stereotypes don’t apply to Athasian heroes.
In many D&D settings, elves are wise, benevolent forest dwellers who guard their homelands from intrusions of evil.
On Athas, elves are a nomadic race of herders, raiders, peddlers, and thieves.
Halflings aren’t amiable riverfolk; they’re xenophobic headhunters and cannibals who hunt and kill trespassers...
Goliaths—or half-giants, as they are commonly known—are brutal mercenaries who serve as elite guards and enforcers for the sorcerer-kings and their templars in many city-states.
Here is the revised and expanded version of my Easy-Roll D&D worldbuilding guide, a fast and evocative guide to worldbuilding and creating a setting for D&D. Broken up into sections about the world in general, countries and regions, the guide asks questions with suggestions to inspire your imagination along the worldbuilding topics that are most relevant to creating a D&D setting.
