anyone who ever posted a tutorial on the Cartographer’s Guild. The only downside is, I’ve learned enough in the past few days, that I might start over from scratch (four or five more campaigns down the road and I’ll be able to produce a nice map.) If I don’t get sucked in to doing something else, I plan on starting on the River Layer this afternoon. I’ve been mulling over some ideas for the new world. I usually tend to go for a High Middle-ages or Early Renaissance flavored era for my campaigns. But, I think this one is going to go in the other direction. The Dark Ages. A low magic, Swords & Sorcery vibe (as you can see, I’m obviously digging the direction the more prominent wing of the OSR is taking things.) I’m picturing starving peasants, filthy towns, plagues, etc. If I go too far in that direction, though, it would wreak havoc on the traditional D&D economic situation; so, I may dial it back a bit.
I’m thinking either a very young world, just emerged from the local equivalent of the Age of Legends, or, a very old world, just recovering from some apocalyptic event. Humans were once united under one king, but, that kingdom is now torn asunder and several political divisions have arisen as various lords, church authorities, adventurers, etc., scrabbled for power and secured their holdings. Maybe the humans lost their king in relatively recent times, or, maybe it happened so long ago that the event is considered mythic, or nearly so. The legendary king’s claim to fame and/or power was in destroying a cabal of evil sorcerers, who once dominated the human 
lands. Sounds fairly hackneyed, but, before I dismissed the idea, my subconscious chimed in and I thought of the R. E. Howard Conan story, “The People of the Black Circle.” In the story, the stronghold of the Black Circle wizards was located on a mountain. Ah, can anyone say “Megadungeon waiting to happen?” Yup, if I’m going Old School, I’m gonna do it right! There will be a Megadungeon. Who knows what kind of underground complex those ancient wizards built, or, what happened after they were no longer around to oversee the dungeon? I’ll see how these ideas flesh out over the next few days. After I finish the map, my next step will be the gods. I usually create my own, but, I’ve been thinking that maybe I should dig into the old Deities and Demigods, this time. As players learn about a campaign world, they’ll eventually start to get a feel for homebrewed deities (assuming they’re paying attention at all,) but, when a player with a new character decides to worship Thor, there’s an emotional reaction you just can’t elicit from a newly created deity the player hasn’t even heard of before. If I go that route, the Norse, Finnish and Egyptian pantheons will be on the table. Not sure if I’ll use any others. Sumerian, maybe?
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