frogspawner

The easiest method to 'import' an existing map to CC is to save it as an image file and literally trace it in CC.

That's what I did to create it in the first place, tracing the Ptolemy original. It didn't take long. I'd suggest doing that again, rather than tracing mine.

In the original frogskinner map...

Say what you like about me or my maps, but get the name right...

I meant AutoRealm can export in WMF (Windows Metafile) format, or EML or some sort of XML (not just images). If CC can't handle the concept of flat 'worlds', I guess it'd just have to be a plain ordinary map...

Would .WMF/.EMF versions of the map I did in AutoRealm be useful, to import into CC3/FT? Or even it's native ".AuR", or ".AuRX" (XML-style) formats?

By the way, has anyone proposed where a Gate could be in this world ?

But of course: the wondrous city of Asherayne, now known as Portal, bisected north/south by the (mighty?) River Jule, surrounded by barbarian tribal lands, and with mountains beyond haunted by degenerate remnants of the Akershule sorcerors (Azirgnoth?) who built it...

Any thoughts where in the world it could be?

Technically, the Gates idea was to enable travel between the non-shared worlds - so SharedWorld is the one that actually doesn't need gates. (But the concept seems popular enough that people want to include them anyway - which is nice).

Originally I thought that the green was going to be able to work for both fantasy and Sci fi worlds with just a few adjustments that could be cut and plugged where the GM needed them. Now it looks like there will almost need to be two greens: one for fantasy and another for sci-fi. Of course the basic write-up could be used for both.

I'd say The Green could be a Gate in itself: if you finally manage to hack/paddle your way out from it's claustrophobic depths, who knows what world you may find yourself in...?

Precisely what I was thinking - but you beat me to it!

The version I was working on also has the scorched desert areas around Sky Mountain...

Veto won't work as Fantasy lovers will veto hard Sci Fi stuff and vice versa.

Well, one of the first votes might very well be whether to have a separate SharedWorld (galaxy?) for Sci-Fi, like someone suggested. And if we do, that shouldn't be a problem. But maybe just Yes/No's would be simpler. After all, what if a "sort of" option won the poll?

I'd think Triff would be the one to make the final decision, and be "Supervising Editor" or some such.

Polls can be helpful, but can be flawed, both in terms of "skewed" results, and in skewed options.

Yes, I hope Mr T will volunteer as supervisor of this sort of thing: deciding how to phrase polls, checking they're properly proposed, spotting multiple voters...

With so many contributors we a re bound to go off in 20 different directions. Just as long as we can disagree, accept the final decision and continue on, we should be able to get some sort of result.

I also hope that we will get lots of different ideas (even conflicting ones) - and can build up a rich background/mythology to reconcile them all...

We've had one of these polls already: Average Age...

Darn. Looks like Bunnies & Burrows might be in for a renaissance in Bavaria, though...

... many politicians (including some

important ones) demanded that all games where one plays to kill another human should be declared illegal, not only certain computer games.

This revived an older debate about "war toys" (plastic guns and the like)...

Would they also ban Lego? About the first thing kids (well, boys) make with the stuff is guns or swords...

From a point in the "RPG Twilight" thread, about calls to ban human-killing games, maybe SharedWorld should have no Humans...

:focus:

Does no-one have any suggestions for a process of taking decisions?

In the Geography thread I can never quite figure out if people are really dicussing a fantasy world or a Nivenesque sci-fi world.

Well, we are discussing a fantasy world over there, but I see no reason why it can't be Nivenesque. That's part of what we're trying to thrash out. I suspect this thread is related.

You incredibly brilliant forgspawner, you.

You're too kind.

In fact, if we were to take some non-Earth landscapes, and just add water...

Any suggestions, that might satisfy the non-earthers? (And, have any been rendered into CCx/FT already?)

What's important is that it is visible from virtually anywhere in the known world.

Even a notional 27km should be plenty if the 'earth' is flat, or slightly bowl-shaped...

I'm not that keen on the Sun sitting above Sky Mountain, to tell the truth. I'd rather it rises from the Underworld, travels to Sky Mountain, visits his family for an hour or so while stationary, then sets into the Underworld. It's more earthlike. has established mythological roots and feels better, it also allows for Dusk, Dawn and Night.

Sorry, do you mean you're ok with the sun rising above the mountain steadily during the day (after coming up through it from Below), or not? If not, and he's there all day, what gives dawn and dusk?

As I said, there's no really good help for it, but varying the number of initial skill points can at least help a little.

Well, I have a points system where you have to pay extra for races that have advantages over humans.

Well, the sun is much smaller than ours, so should be closer. If it were 93,000,000 miles away it would seem roughly the same temperature across the whole world, not a firey/boiling waste immediately below it and growing gradually cooler the farther away you move.

A thought about the Sun/Sky Mountain: how about if, instead of sitting there on top of the mountain all day, the Sun God emerges from the 200-mile plus mountain at dawn, sits in his throne, and rises straight up for a few thousand miles until noon, then comes back down again by dusk? That should scorch the nearby lands nicely, keep the mountain short, and preserve 'sunrise/sunset'-type terminonlogy (which I bet people would slip into). The mountain could be a hollow tube - essentially a heat shield.

PS: how tall is the highest mountain in the solar system?

I do have to say I'm not a huge fan of basing the map on fantasy europe - is there a good reason to do so?

On the one hand we are designing a world very different than earth in the way myth replaces natural science and developing a distinct feel. To use earth geography kind of goes counter to the idea of making something distinctly different than bog standard middle ages earth resembling fantasy.

I think most people aren't keen on the idea, but ever-hopeful, I'll try again!

Using some Earth geography - and, I'm assuming, some ancient cultures too - gives an advantage of instant familiarity. But making it clearly not Earth shows Authors/GMs they can play around with it, and not worry about slavish historical accuracy. There should be enough details like The Green and Asherayne (yes, and maybe even Sky Mountain) on it to show that it's not Earth. I'll also say, if you're worried about slipping into the 'bog-standard middle ages', then firmly planting the ancient cultures there helps avoid that. (Oh, and I like the link it gives to RQ3!)

My rationale is that the Sphere passed Earth, some of the gods saw it and said 'What if?' - and re-created a pseudo-earth as one of their playthings...

... we don't need a spherical world with reality based geography and weather patterns for the fantasy project do we?

Certainly not! But CC3/FT may be good for creating nice-looking pictures - with swirling clouds, and so forth. (AutoRealm may be free, but hard/impossible work to produce good-looking stuff, unless I'm missing the tricks).

Whatever we do for a world, there is a style pack from the Cartographers Annual that emulates the style of the Islandia map we can use.

Great!

I held back from skewing Spain. Who am I to criticize Ptolemy?

Besides, I still reckon using a recognizable fantasy Earth, clearly not the original one, is a bonus. Is there any point hiding it's origins, when people can trace them via this forum (or ask us)? We can gain the benefit of 'instant familiarity' by using known geography and a few pseudo-historical cultures. (Plus the link back to RQ3...)

Hopefully the dizzying effect is just the low-quality of the jpeg. The original can zoom to any view you like, without loss.

Frankly, I think the Sky Mountain is daft. But if that's what people want...

Currently it is 250 miles across the base, but still looks piddly. I'll try doubling it (that'd make it 500 miles high, too - is that enough?) - later. It's not really central either, since I put it where the Himalayas should be, in a vain attempt at realism. But there's two approaches to fixing that: 1) Move it to the Caspian Sea; 2) expand the map China-wards, so it's current location becomes central. Given that deserts are wanted around it, I'd favour 2.

Opinions?

More mountains, more sea/ocean, a sky mountain, and a flipped version. Does it look any better yet?

Thanks for the comments.

Centre of the World. With deserts around it and surrounded by an inland sea, possibly not an island but with connecting land bridges.

No strawberry-flavoured swamps, though - sorry.

Flip the map so it is a mirror image of Med world; east is west and west is east. ...

I would also slightly mess with the Mediterranean, maybe Spain, kind of the way you did with Great Britan so it is not quite so noticeably earth.

As a personal preference I would like to see the Northwest and Southeast chunks of land knocked out to allow for more ocean possibilities....

All in all my favorite parts of the map are the parts you did freehand.

By the way how do you do uplode images into your text. I have a few pictures of things I wanted to add, but it kept asking me for a url. (As I mentioned I am not very proficiant with computer stuff).

Can't claim credit for anything creative, essentially I just traced the old world map ascribed to Ptolemy (same one as RQ3 Fantasy Earth was based on), plus Mr T's "Islandia" map, and filled the gaps with a fractal line-drawing tool. Donkey work. (In AutoRealm, btw, which I haven't used much so I'm not sure how easy any flipping operation would be... )

Posting, I just clicked the "Manage Attachments" button, then Browse to get an "Upload file from my computer" and hit Upload (and ignored the stuff about maximum file sizes!). Never done it before, but it seemed to work, after a fashion.

I'll hold off doing anything more for a short while, in case anyone else wants to give feedback, or if anyone else has anything better. I thought Rurik might be working on one, since he mentioned he had Campaign Cartographer?

Well, there's a case in point - how do we decide what to make decisions about?

(Multiple world templates is the GateWorlds, I think...)

Those who knew said that tall people with long weapons generally hit first, regardless of DEX.

Ok, but normal melee isn't the complex bit. It's when you add in missile weapons, multiple shots and spell-casting it gets tricky to work out, figuring SR-by-SR.

What are the options in BRP Zero?

That's "desert" - unless you're suggesting these amazonian lizard-women live in a morass resembling, say, strawberry yoghurt...

How should we make decisions about the form and content of the SharedWorld?

Polls? What about time limits? Who says what/when decisions are needed? Or are decisions a Bad Thing?

I propose we suggest whatever methods seem best to us, and Mr Trifletraxor chooses one.