My Homebrew D&D World of Azora

[Badger]

I have presented maps of Azora before, mostly B&W pen & ink ones that I did for the books that my wife and I have written. It's been my homebrew D&D world for about 39 years, so a very long time. (Yes I was 7 when I came up with this world for those of you keeping track.) Sometime ago I lost all my digital files pertaining to Azora, so now I have to start all over. (Not totally, I have plenty of hand drawn maps.) The only thing I'm worried about is that my computer won't be able to handle the workload for this map.

Since I have this very world map hanging on my wall, I decided to do those exact dimensions for this map: 44" x 44" and since I'm not planning on printing it and I wanted to keep the file size down I only have it set for 72dpi and 16bit. I made a 1 inch grid as well as a 26 (10x7) page grid as each section is on a seperate piece of graph paper as well. I also put blue in the map so you could tell the difference between the water and the land.

I can already hear a few questions, so let me answer them for you now. No, the land doesn't match up on the sides and for a very good reason: Azora is flat (actually, more like a saucer but more shallow) and is surrounded by a ring of impenetrable mountains dubbed The Outer Mountains (catchy, right?) It also rotates around the sun in such a way as that the sun is always closer to the south pole and farther away from the north pole, which also means that the north pole is always covered in ice and the south pole is always under a blistering tropical sun. As it makes it way around the sun, it does waver in its orbit which gives Azora's mid latitudes the semblance of seasons. Yes, there is a bottom side to Azora (named Zorados, at least that is the name I think we settled on) Yes I do have it mapped out, but probably won't do anything with it in the near future. I'm trying not to take on too many projects at once because I am also a full time student.

I'm not sure if I'm going to do a full color map, or strictly black and white pen and ink style. I guess it really depends on if my little laptop can handle the workload of something this size in full color.

Del

[DrWho42]

i'm intrigued by the possibilities of a flat world as well as the mythology behind it. azora looks good so far!

[Veldrin]

Really cool shape ! What's going on in the middle of the world ? The round ocean I mean, it seems to be a special place...
And how would you describe the impenetrable mountains surrounding your world ? I Mean.. How impenetrable is it ? Like a 10 km height wall of rock ? Or is it the terrible nature and monsters living in there ? How do you expain that noone can go there ? I'm really interested in your answer, because as a game master I always try to let some possibilities if players really want to try something. I also guess some places in my maps that are critically hazardous, but if you really want to go there you can try you know :p

If you allow me, the only thing I would advice is to set some other little isles far away the shores, or actually to move some of the already set isles from the shores to the sea (some of them are a bit too aligned, so moving some would probably solve both the lack in the sea and the concentration on the shores). For now, except for big continental parts, there's no isle in your oceans (except in the east south). But it's only my opinion, you may disagree

Well started ! Looking forward to see the development

[Badger]

i'm intrigued by the possibilities of a flat world as well as the mythology behind it. azora looks good so far!

Thanks! I don't really have a mythology about the why the world is flat... I guess I should have thought about it, and made one up.. especially since the three moons of Azora, and the other planets around the sun (orb of azuran) aren't flat but round. I'll have to think about it.

Really cool shape ! What's going on in the middle of the world ? The round ocean I mean, it seems to be a special place...
And how would you describe the impenetrable mountains surrounding your world ? I Mean.. How impenetrable is it ? Like a 10 km height wall of rock ? Or is it the terrible nature and monsters living in there ? How do you expain that noone can go there ? I'm really interested in your answer, because as a game master I always try to let some possibilities if players really want to try something. I also guess some places in my maps that are critically hazardous, but if you really want to go there you can try you know :p

If you allow me, the only thing I would advice is to set some other little isles far away the shores, or actually to move some of the already set isles from the shores to the sea (some of them are a bit too aligned, so moving some would probably solve both the lack in the sea and the concentration on the shores). For now, except for big continental parts, there's no isle in your oceans (except in the east south). But it's only my opinion, you may disagree

Well started ! Looking forward to see the development

Thanks, the shape just kinda formed as more and more games were played and PC's spread further and further out into other parts of the world. The central ocean or central sea known as The Black Sea has a perpetual storm at the center (known as The Eye of Arigas), also a holding portals to the plane of water (known as Velasharis) and a portal to Arigas's realm (Aquarial) the god of Oceans. Another portal to Velasharis lies in the center of the Barbarian Islands which lie in the southeastern area, that archipelago you see there.

By impenetrable, I mean lack of oxygen. The way gravity works in my universe, is the same as in the Spelljammer universe. Every object has it's own seperate plane of gravity that runs through the middle of objects, like a ship has a plane of gravity that runs through the middle of the ship (looking at the ship like its sitting in the ocean, the plane would basically be about where the waterline is) which means that yes, you could climb down the side of the ship and walk along the keel, if the ship were in space, that is. Unless an object is under the influence of a much larger object like a planet, then it would use the planets plane of gravity. So the plane of gravity of azora basically runs flat thru the center of azora (if you were looking from the side of azora ). Which means the bubble of the atmosphere around azora is still circular, but because the mountains are so high (think twice as high as Everest) that if you were to climb it, the tops stick out of the actual atmosphere where there is no oxygen, and you would pass out and probably die. But players are always welcome to try things out for themselves, and if they can come up with a clever way to get around the fact of oxygen, they can sure try! I love it when players come up with clever ways to get around things.

Ya i thought I might have too many along all the coasts, so I might actually try that out. I always appreciate advice and feedback, so keep it coming!

Thanks,
Del

[Veldrin]

Highly original and innovative view ok so I see better what you mean... and how the ones who would like to go there should think before proceeding ^^
It's always so cool to see how others create their own world, coming up with new physics, magic rules or whatever.
It's a cool stuff you have there