I LOVE MAPS II

In my last posting I gave a brief history of my passion for maps, particularly fantasy maps. There I presented a multitude of maps I had made over the 30+ yrs Ive been gaming. This time Id like to present maps that I was impressed,  inspired and influenced by over the years. Some are from RPGs, some from fantasy literature, some from games, and some from comic books.

For me, maps help ground me to world the author is trying to convey- weather it be an RPG, fantasy literature or whatever. They provide a visual and tangible connection to the setting that mere text description cannot convey. This is why I only purchased and read fantasy literature for many years that contained maps. It was important for me to be able to see the world as the author/artist wished to present it and visually connect one place to another (on the rare occasion I purchased a fantasy book that contained no such map, I always tried to map it out just the same as I read through it).

 Hope you enjoy the collection- curious to know what other maps people have liked and really influenced them.

GREYHAWK

White Plume Mountain

Old Basic World Map (early MYSTARA)

A portion of Karamikos (early MYSTARA)

MYSTARA

ANSALON (The World of Dragonlance)

FORGOTTEN REALMS

THE WILDERLANDS ( World of Judges Guild)

DELOS ( World of Arduin Grimoire)

The OLD WORLDE ( The World of Warhammer)

THE KNOWN WORLD (The World of Paladium)

HARN

TALISLANTA

THE KNOWN WORLD ( The World of Artesia) 

TEKUMEL

HYBORIA (The World of Conan)

MELNIBONE and environs ( The World of Elric)

VINYA ( The World of Element Masters)

MIDDLE EARTH ( World of Middle Earth Role Playing)

Realm of Elfshold (a Role Aids world)

JORUNE

THE KNOWN WORLD ( The World of Thieves World)

World of ATLANTIS

MINARIA (The World of Divine Right)

The World of TALISMAN

The World of the DARK TOWER

Great Fantasy Atlases

Dictionary of IMAGINARY PLACES

The World of the DARK CRYSTAL

The World of WARLORDS

PRYDAIN ( Lloyd Alexander - Chronicles of Prydain)

(My first fantasy books I ever read)

EARTHSEA ( Ursula Le Guin)

World of the BELGARIAD AND MALLOREON ( David Eddings)

( My favorite fantasy series- lots and lots of maps)

THE BEST FOR LAST

(Probably the most recognisable fantasy world setting ever- even to the average person)

THE WORLD OF MIDDLE EARTH

 THE HOBBIT

LORD OF THE RINGS

I LOVE MAPS

I have always loved maps.  It began with car rides as a kid and I was obsessed with having an area map on hand of where we were going so I could follow along and see what was on the map and how it related to what I could see during the car ride. I love travel maps but especially topographical maps that really show the elevations and trees and all that. Id often make maps of my neighborhood, of surrounding area ( I grew up in rural upstate NY), buildings, fields, train tracks, etc.  And always these places had many names: The fallen towers ( a pair of giant oil drums that were dumped in a field near my house), the quicksand marsh ( the cattail marsh), the City of Doom ( the old Motts factory buildings we would play around in), etc.

Later on as I got into D&D, maps became a new obsession. I began to draw up dungeons galore, not unlike most people who got into the game around my time. When Greyhawk came out, I just LOVED this map and from there my map making world expanded from the dungeon to the world at large. I began to draw large scale hex world maps larger than the Greyhawk map, coloring and labeling each map.
I would continue to draw maps of worlds ( and for many write lengthy discussions about those worlds setting, gods, currency, geographical features, etc) for many many years. I was inspired heavily by the maps put out by various game distributors: Harn, Rolemasters Middle Earth maps, Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms, Jorune, etc.

I was so obsessed with maps and map making, that I would never read a fantasy novel  unless it contained a map ( which is why David Eddings, Belgariad and Mallorian are my favorites- lots and lots of maps). For me, if it didn't contain a map in the book, it wasn't worth reading- lol.

So I thought Id post some maps here that Ive made over the years. Keep in mind some of them were done when I was 12 so they are very simple in design ( as I would scour fantasy novels for cool names to use for all the things I wanted to label). Many of them you may notice who I was being influenced by at the time. Unfortunately, a share of some good maps were lost 12 yrs ago during my move out to the west coast. I never knew where they went or how they got misplaced, but they are gone. Too bad, there were some really really good detailed ones in there.

Anyway, here are a bunch. I literally have hundreds of maps, and many world maps have dozens of variations each as I played with how I wanted it to look. I mixed in some drawing as well. Here are the majority of them:

The Very First Large Scale Map I Created- Name Unknown

GALFIDORE ( my  second large scale map) 

Partially finished map of ARAGON

MYTHGAR (RINTH)

THE REALMS

MIR

PRIMUS

THE MIDLANDS 

THE SHIREDALES

YEARTH

The City of Emmersea (in MYTHGAR)

The City of Highport ( in MYTHGAR)

Unfinished City of Malabar ( in MYTHGAR)

Unfinished City of Alitar ( in MYTHGAR) 

The City of Cathos (in YEARTH)

City of Cartha ( in The Midlands)

THANE

TABOR

THARDRAN

Pykorstone

Threshian Spheres

Kingspire

Piercaleon

The Skyrealm of Valtar

Dreken Plains Galley

Temple of the Purple Sage

Belorjad

The Chamber of Thought at Stonereach

The Standing Stones

Temple of the Stars

Castle Thrax

LEMURIA