The Despaired Lands - A Land Reclaimed, 414 PDB

[MrSquiffy]

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1,000 years ago the First Scourge came, and reality broke.

In the bowels of Vaqet, capital of the elven empire Vaqenna, occultists looking to usurp the powers of the gods themselves instead invited an unending tide of demons to the world. They swarmed the continent of Ondul as reality fought to mend itself, reweave its frayed threads. But, it did not reform whole, and the Corruption came to be. Vampires, werewolves, the undead, and all terrors of the night came to be, and as far as reality knew, always were. Many flocked to the banners of the demons, becoming a scourge of mortalkind, and doom seemed certain.

There was no grand alliance. There was no unity of the living and the light to fight the darkness that swarmed the land. The rulers and emperors were blinded to the darkness by the lantern’s lure of riches and selfish ambition. More content to wait in their castles and pick clean the corpses of their rival lands, they watched kingdoms burn, vampires stalk the night, and the restless dead rise from their crypts. One by one the flames of mortalkind were dimmed and extinguished, until the gods descended.

For the first time in millennia, since they first descended to free mortals from the yokes of the Titans, they returned to the mortal plane and gathered mortalkind together. The armies of mortalkind fought shoulder-to-shoulder with the gods they served, the Grand Alliance, and together fought back. On the plains outside Vaqet, where reality broke, the demons were defeated. Though some demons fled into hiding, and the Corruption unable to be undone, the continent once more knew peace.

For nearly 500 years the world knew prosperity under the guiding hands of the gods who now walked amongst them. The Higher Sciences of arcana grew to unfathomable new heights under the watchful eyes of the gods who now controlled its use, miracles of magic and divine will ubiquitous and ever-present. Every field was blessed with fertility, the bounty of every sea multiplied and thriving. Wonderful spires and devastating weapons were constructed alike, and though the continent was not without conflict, the gods protected all.

Then the Second Scourge came, and the gods were slaughtered.

They poured from the Karaenne Desert, once more bringing death and destruction upon the land. And, once more, the other nations of the world succumbed to greed and selfish drive. Once more they failed to let go of hate and xenophobia, of ancient grudges and petty slights. And while they feuded and backstabbed from their walled towers, the gods fell. Some believe they were all slaughtered protecting their mortal charges, trying to stymie the tide of death; others believe that they hid or fled, abandoning mortals out of fear, or as retribution for their disgust over mortalkind’s regression to cowardice. What is known is that when the banners of the Grand Alliance finally flew once more, mortalkind stood alone.

It was a bloody war of attrition, and though the losses of mortalkind were great, the Second Scourge was routed upon The Twins, the two isthmuses that bridge North and South Ondul. In the fires of battle, they were born anew: “Scourge’s End”. But, while the horde was defeated, the Dawn-Break, none would claim that the war was won.

With no gods to bless the fields or seas, to create new artefacts, or to bless mortals with the gift of magic, the world descended into ruin. Many crops withered and died, being sustained purely by magic, and those fields that could survive naturally could no longer feed the population and society built upon magic’s foundation. The population of wizards lay decimated from the war; many of those survivors lost their ability outright, and those that retained some were reduced to nought but the weakest of spells and rites, and were unable to pass their knowledge on. Many artefacts that remained were quickly used or siphoned of their magic to staunch the bleeding, but it was all for nought. Drought, disease, and famine wracked the world. Death followed in its wake, and undeath followed after. It was the Long Death, the Knell of Empires, the true scourge upon mortalkind.

But, the flame of mortalkind would not be so easily extinguished. From the ashes of the old empires rose new civilisations, civilisations that placed faith not in the higher sciences of arcana, but in the discoveries and technologies of the lower sciences. Beset upon by the undead, stalked in the night by creatures of the night, and beguiled by the demons and warlocks that lurked and secretly gathered power, over the next 300 years North Ondul slowly reforged itself anew. Across the Ulthan sea and the Dawn Bay, South Ondul remained dark and unknown, the land scarred by rampant magic, home only to the chittering of dark and unknowable things. All that remained was a despaired land.

Magic slowly returned to mortal hands, but it was not the gods who gifted them. First it was those of the old tradition, possessed of indomitable will, bludgeoning apart the shackles that bound the magic until they broke, but then came others. Sorcerers came to be, born naturally with the arcane spark, and then came the Godchosen: mortals through whom small aspects of the still-worshipped gods once more shone through. Through them a new science was born, a union of chemistry and physics and magic. Alchemy.

Though the miraculous magic of Before remained locked to mortalkind, society recovered rapidly, and through alchemy reached new heights of its own. But, soon the realms of mortalkind bulged at their seams once more, clawing over precious resources and arable land, and slow their eyes turned once more towards the Despaired Lands. The brave, the foolhardy, the wealthy, and the desperate gathered men and gold to chart the now-forgotten lands that lay across the Ulthan bay. Their missions were simple: to chart, to explore, and to discover. Plunging their torches into the darkness of the continent, these Torchbearers sought to claim the riches of an abandoned world for their masters. And, 305 years after the break of dawn against the Scourge, after decades of little reward threatening to consign the south to ruin forever, their efforts were rewarded, and the world was once more forever changed.

Radzieg torchbearers descended upon their ancestral city of Cirros Gwedan, and found a vast horde of something more precious than gold or gems: artefacts. Pre-Scourge magic, the likes of which removed from all living memory, existed once more. The news swept the continent like wildfire, and invigorated, launched their own fleets of explorers and settlers. For the descendants of those who fled, a chance to reclaim their ancestral homeland; for others, a chance for glory and power and all ambitions realised. One thing was clear: The Reclamation had begun.

It is the year 414 Post-Dawn Break. 99 years have passed since the discovery at Cirros Gwedan sparked The Reclamation, and the continent hovers on the brink of war once more. For 75 years the Treaty of the Seven has maintained an uneasy peace between the powers of North Ondul, regulating both the distribution of artefacts between its signatories, and the control of torchbearer expeditions and colonies. Through the Dawn City of Port Victory, the wealth of the world pours through its port, and a balance of power is maintained, but that insidious plague corruption has taken root, and now it rots from within.

Radzieg has seceded from the Treaty, and once more amasses its fleets and armies. The churning, corrupted cogs of Port Victory’s bureaucracy turn too slow, and once more people flock under the banners of their lieges and their country. From darkened laboratories alchemists work tirelessly, perfecting their craft of science and magic, and with the powerful artefacts at their disposal, create their ultimate weapons of war. When an explosion of unprecedented magical energy rocks the continent deep from the unexplored heart of the Hondaltz, all hands scramble to assemble expeditions. The banners fly, the horns sound, and the armies and expeditions march towards its epicentre, unsure if they will find riches, glory, or the spark that will ignite the continent in a storm of blood and fire.

Ondul is the setting of my 5e DnD campaign, a dark fantasy world that teeters on either the brink of collapse, or the brink of glory. Two Scourges, cataclysmic invasions of demons, have wracked the world, breaking reality and setting the Corruption firmly in the weave of reality. The age of sail is firmly upon the world: the institutions of knights and chivalry engulfed by the smoking plumes of the musket and the cannon. Alchemy, the union of science and magic, brings with it gunpowder and other wonderous inventions, and with every new discovery and technology, the iron maws and steel mills of industrial revolution loom ever-larger on the horizon.

The colonial powers march to an inevitable war as 75 years of peace buckle under the weight of corruption and bureaucracy, fuelled by the artefacts and fertile expanses of the Despaired Lands. Torchbearers, expeditionists and opportunists, illuminate the shadowy corners of this land, selling their finds to the highest bidder. Demon hunters fight a secret war with demons, devils, vampires and all other terrors of the night, fighting from the shadows to keep an unsuspecting world safe from the terrors that cling to the fringes of society.

To the north, the draconic Natha’az empire’s expansion stalls as its noble and trading houses fight amongst themselves, and every nation can do little but fan the flames of their fighting, and stall their ever-southwards expansion. Meanwhile, from the west come reports of strange ships landing upon Ondul’s shores, bringing with them stranger people, who bring tidings of a land far across the Alen Ocean, and a darkness that, without the help of Ondul, will surely consume them. The world is poised for greatness, or destruction, and there is no in-between.

[Diamond]

Awesome map and awesomer lore. I always love hearing the back stories to a map, and yours is fantastic.

[Kellerica]

Echoing D, that is an awesome map. Those mountain reliefs are absolutely stunning. What software are you using, if you don't mind me asking?

[LunaIlena]

All I can say is "Wow!" Are there segments of the population, wishing to avoid the chaos that permeates the land, who have moved to the more remote areas?

[MrSquiffy]

All I can say is "Wow!" Are there segments of the population, wishing to avoid the chaos that permeates the land, who have moved to the more remote areas?

Thank you so much! So, on the whole I guess you could describe the setting as "post" post-apocalypse: Societal collapse happened and vast swathes of population died, yes, but society has rebuilt itself with the new status quo, and is on its way to recovering most of what it once had (and the new emphasis on the lower sciences - aka physics, biology, chemistry etc - has society develop stuff never seen before). All this is to say that the northern continent is quite civilised once more, and while the coastal areas and main population centres in the Despaired Lands are quite safe - people are not particularly willing to move to the more dangerous and chaotic hinterlands. To go on a slight tangent it's why the various Torchbearer organisations have effectively become a societal institution - and a lucrative one at that. They're not just mercenaries in the sense of soldiers and guards, but mercenary prospectors, historians, archaeologists, builders, and the like. They scout for fertile, resource-rich new lands, or ruined settlements, clear it out, build an outpost, and scour the land for valuable artefacts; all the while making a hefty profit.

So, who does move into the remote areas and colonies? The same as those from real history: The poor, the desperate, the persecuted, and the prosecuted. Some are paid by their kingdoms and republics in land and money to settle, some are broke or wishing to start over or make their fortune. Some are penal colonies: alternatives to prison or the headman's block, and some flee to escape persecution from the north. Tieflings (the setting is for DnD) especially make up a large portion of these remote colonies, as they unfortunately suffer a lot of persecution in the north.

Echoing D, that is an awesome map. Those mountain reliefs are absolutely stunning. What software are you using, if you don't mind me asking?

I absolutely do not mind, happy to share. I actually posted this on the Worldbuilding sub over on Reddit, so I'll just copy-paste what I wrote there. I can be a bit crap at explaining things, so if I haven't explained anything well, just say so

Okay, so

Base world generation: Songs of the Eons. The base heightmap was created by SotE, an ambitious game being developed over at /r/SongsOfTheEons . Whether it'll be finished...eh, but as it stands it does a nice job of simulating a world. It does tectonics, simulates resource deposits and also has a basic climate model (while it's...okay, I developed my own method based on a really old guide on Cartographer's Guild). This is a coloured height map of the whole world . The blue box is where the setting takes place overall, the red box is roughly the area rendered on the map above. Also don't mind the 'peeling' at the poles, the error was corrected in a later version of the app than the one I used to make this.

Terrain Refinement, Mesh, Texture mask: World Machine. This program is basically Wilbur on steroids. I saved a grayscale heightmap from SotE, cropped it to the desired area (The Despaired Lands), and used it as a base input. I then tinkered about simulating erosion, weathering, and river systems until I had a detailed map. It also has a node to generate a mesh from the height info, and created a 4mil I think polygon mesh of the terrain. It also has some really neat selection tools (such as by height, slope angle rock hardness etc) which I used to create 8k *masks* for the textures, of which I believe there were 11. Speaking of which...

Textures: Substance Designer. A procedural texture generator which I'm quite familiar with from my normal work. Ultimately, I found I was able to cheat and only created three textures: rock, sand, and forest canopy. I just altered the hue and saturation of those two textures to create different rock colours, or turn sand into snow / grass.

Primary Render: 3ds Max + Corona. Terrain mesh, terrain masks, and textures were imported into a single file. Textures were linked up to the correct masks, and applied to the mesh. A camera and light was set up, and then I made the stupid decision of rendering a 14k image for 18 hours in the middle of the British heatwave.

Reprojection & Second Render: GProjector; 3ds Max. I wanted the final map to be curved 1. to reduce distortion as the map is going to be used as a physical prop for tracking progress on the table and 2. because curved maps are dope. The max render output of Gprojector is lower than what I needed for the map (the full-size map is A1 size @ 370dpi, like 12.5k x 8k px), so I had to make it a two-step process: First, I saved a copy of the render, put it in photoshop, and added evenly-divided grid lines to it (important). I put this version of the render into GProjector, and saved the distorted output. Second, I imported both versions of the map into 3ds Max. I then divided the plane the non-gridded render was on to match the gridded version. I then manually matched the vertices of the divided plane to match the grid, which meant the map distorted exactly the same as Gprojector. I then rendered *this* out. Thankfully since, I was basically taking a picture of a picture, this took 2 minutes, not 18 hours.

Composition: Photoshop. This second render went out into an A1 template. The city icons were just some custom brushes I had made a while back. Place names were generated from the language family I created. I used the wonderful sound change program over at /r/Lexurgy and simulated all the different languages' evolutions from a protolanguage. About 5% are nonsense names I got from just spitting respective lexicons through a markov chain simulator, but 95% of the names present on the map do have a proper meaning.

[Greason Wolfe]

Agree with others, outstanding map and think you nailed that top down perspective in all the right ways.