*** April 2018 Challenge: Map a Realm ***

[Diamond]

I'm going to get the most important two things out of the way first:

1) Title your entry thread like this: April 2018 Challenge: <<your title goes here>>
2) Always use the WIP tag before each of your work-in-progress pictures. This is so the scraper can see the picture and it displays properly during voting. The WIP tag looks like this:

Just click that button and the tag will auto-fill.

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This month we're going to make use of our friendly neighborhood Donjon Fantasy Generators again. They have a randomized version of S. John Ross' 'Medieval Demographics Made Easy'* and we're going to use it to map a fantasy realm.

First, go to this generator: http://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/demographics/

You'll see that it spits out a pre-made set of statistics, based on three factors at the top of the page: Physical Area, Population Density, and Kingdom Age. Your challenge is to take a result from the generator (I don't really care how many times you "roll") and make a map based on what you get. Now here's the catch: you can change ONE of the 3 factors by plugging in your own number.

For example, you might "roll" a kingdom that has these base stats:

-Physical Area: 147,000 square miles
-Population Density: Low
-Kingdom Age: 500 years

Each one of those stats is going to affect the four categories directly below, that describe your realm in more detail. If there is a lower population density, the realm will tend to have a higher percentage of wilderness vs. arable land, for example.

So feel free to change ONE of those three stats, but you've got to leave the other two alone.

Now the challenge of all this is that you've then got to produce a map that stays as true to those stats as you can make it! Try to get your physical area as accurate as you can - this means you'll need a scale so we can double-check. Try to fit in all the cities and towns that you're supposed to have. Same goes for castles (although they don't have to be actual castles for this challenge; they could be monasteries, or other points of interest too).

EDIT: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO INCLUDE RUINED CASTLES!!!

YOU ALSO DON'T HAVE TO NAME EVERYTHING!!! (You can choose to name only your most important towns or castles, and leave the rest as symbols, etc.)

That's it. This challenge will run until Monday 30 April at or around 9PM Pacific time, after which will be three days of voting. The winner will receive a shiny, state of the art Golden Compass and the slobbering envy-drool of their peers.

Oh... and I've also got a $20 Amazon gift card for the winner. (As in years past, if I enter this challenge and happen to win, it will go to the runner-up. Also as in the past, if there is a tie, I'll double-down and give a gift card to each winner. That hasn't happened yet, thank god. )
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* For those that are interested, here's S. John's Demographics page: http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/blueroom/demog.htm

[Southern Crane]

Do we keep rolling until we get something we like or do we ask you to roll for us and then we are locked into that?

[Diamond]

You do the rolling, kind sir. Once you get a combination you like (whether it's a cool name, a style of government, whatever), you can then alter one of those three stats to further customize things. You don't have to, by the way; you can leave everything exactly as-is, if you want.

[AzureWings]

So we do have to use the names from the generator as well as the statistics?

[Quenten]

I want to take part, and have made my rolls. 2 questions though. i have a world which i have divided into 1600 km squares. I have chosen one to place my map in - is this OK? The 1600km (1000 mile) square is below.
The second question is how do i start a thread in this area of the forum (sorry for being dumb) - see answer below (duh).

I cannot get rid of the earlier picture!

[nopkin]

This sounds super-super-super-duper interesting! At least for me, as I haven't done anything like that before... Can't wait to start working on it.

One question, though: No matter how many times I roll, I get something like "41 active castles and 12 ruined" (this is the lowest I got) - unless I drastically reduce the physical area. Is the map supposed to include 41 points of interest, apart from the 20 towns I was allotted?

[Quenten]

Duh me. i have worked out how to post a thread.

[Mouse]

I found it fairly tricky to preserve the information from the Donjon generator because copy/pasting it into Word lost the info in the boxes, but I settled on printing it to an XPS file.

Now all I have to do is work out how to convert the XPS to an image to start my thread... that's if I think I might have time for this...

[Southern Crane]

I found it fairly tricky to preserve the information from the Donjon generator because copy/pasting it into Word lost the info in the boxes, but I settled on printing it to an XPS file.

Now all I have to do is work out how to convert the XPS to an image to start my thread... that's if I think I might have time for this...

Screenshot into image file?

[Mouse]

I got most of it in the XPS document. The only missing bit was the population density, which I remembered anyway because I'd just been reading the detail for the previous half hour. 40 people/square mile.

@Diamond - is this an acceptable proof of what I was given? (Its a screen shot of the XPS file I managed to get)

The Empire of Elelion...



There are, I agree with Nopkin, an inordinate number of castles!


EDIT: Oh yes! And the age of the kingdom was 1980 years, which I guess can account for the castles!