The Webway Worlds Maps

[Gemmaker]

Hi everyone. First post here to show the map I've worked on. This is gonna be a long one...

So first, everything I map is for personal use for D&Dish gaming and I’m not selling anything. I’m sharing it here to get feedback on the concept and less so for my skills. I never planned to share it or post it on a forum, but I’ve been working on and off on these things for 5 years or so now. This is going to be a long post (it’s 6 pages in Word) so here it is. I’ve linked to my google drive as the files are pretty big, 15-20 mb in size.

I've been DMing dark elf campaigns for a while now (ten years or so). I won't go into too many details, just a basic idea so that you can understand what you're looking at. I will be checking the thread and I am willing to answer questions about the map and the techniques I used.

THE MAP
The first detail is that the world I've created here isn’t a spherical planet, but more akin to a snow globe with the world inside of it. Basically, a bubble with the bottom filled with earth and the other filled with air.
This image of the world of Arda (set in the Silmarillion, at least that's what it says) is part of what inspired me.
https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qim...dcfe6c284.webp
Second is that it’s an elemental theme (using the D&D elemental planes, including the para-elemental ones).
It's a sphere divided into the Sky above (air), the Surface and Seas (water), the Underdark (earth), and the Underworld (fire). Each surface map and the Underdarks and Underworlds (which are the focus on the map style/setting) to some extent also adhere a little bit to this elemental concept, with each world having more of one element than the others and each element corresponding to a terrain type. Air is plains, Earth is mountains, Fire is deserts, and Water is… water, let’s call them seas/islands. So the ‘Earth’ world has more mountains, while the ‘Fire’ world has a very large desert. And also, its central feature in the middle of the map is that very terrain element.

So, the map is going to be a circle/disk rather than a square.

There are 8 worlds, each based on an overall region/time of history of earth (Celtic/Norse, Ancient Greek, Eastern Asia, Central/Southern Asia, Ancient Mesopotamia/Persia, Ancient Egypt and Sahara, Sub-Saharan Africa). It’s more inspiration/theme than historical, and each world has its elemental theme (the Norse world, for example, has a large ice desert, and so it is the air/water (ice) world in elemental terms). These 8 themes are shown in the frames, spider symbols and the 8 Lolths as well.

Maps of the Webway Worlds: Each is 9000 pixels by 9000 pixels and 15-20 mb in size.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1bU...uwasH6SPxr-M6q

How do they all connect? The next part is that the Underdarks of the various worlds will be connected by a circuitous tunnel called the Mithral Road, which is basically the equivalent of a Silk Road for that setting (where slaves, spider silk and spices are traded). So, the blue/gray tunnel going left to right on each Underdark map is the Mithral road connecting to the next world. The main connection points between the Surface and Underdark are the Sky Citadels of the Mountain Dwarves (the yellow gems, see below).

Overall Map of the Webway Worlds:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=15C...d138yETVxMDz9F
I’m also trying to attach this map to this post, but as this is the first time I’m doing this I hope it works.

The whole thing is lighted by faerie fire, a light spell available to the drow. (Side note not related to the map: I’ve always thought the drow would be into rave dancing and disco balls since they have dancing lights and faerie fire.) I haven’t put any labels on yet, those are probably going to be illusionary text hanging above the map itself, black text with a glowing outline, probably with a flowing script. I could use the D&D 4e elven script, but then no one, not even me, could read it, so I’ll probably stick to using English for ease of use.

CREDIT
Credit where credit is due. I commissioned the artist who drew the 8 Lolths (dressed in that world’s theme/culture), the 8 spiders, and the 8 frames around the worlds is HarpyQueen from DeviantArt, check out her stuff here:
https://www.deviantart.com/harpyqueen

Cities are from Alpha Centauri and Civilization 3 video games (most are from user created mods freely available on their forums).

The textures I used were originally the ones available in photoshop. However, once I’ve made the maps so big, the original textures were just too low resolution to be any good (their patterns repeated in large empty regions), so I got some higher resolutions ones, but unfortunately, I’m not sure where they’re from anymore or who made them.

The surface maps, and some of the larger caverns of the Underworld, have been traced from various maps. Some of the coastlines and features are made by me since some of those maps reach the edge of their picture, so I had to create my own coastlines. Most of the maps are from the following sources:
Most of them are I think from Torsan/Roberts, shout out to your awesome maps.
Many of them are also from the Golarion campaign Setting, especially the Underworld Vaults. I believe those maps were drawn by either Torsan or by Lazzaretti.
One of them is the Al Qadim campaign setting map (I can’t seem to find who drew that map), and the other is the Sovereign Stone setting map, I believe the artist is Stephen Danielle.
Some are also D&D maps from Free-Maps-A-Week (Side note: man that that website feature in the early 2000s was the greatest resource for a new DM like me, so many maps…). I am not sure who drew those maps originally, I think one is Todd Gamble.
The map of the Greek Underworld’s large sea is… the Artic Ocean! It’s just mirrored/flipped. That big land mass in the north east corner is Greenland, the north is Canada, and the south is Russia. You’ll note some ‘straight’ curved edges on the sea, that’s the arctic circle, I made that map small when I started, and then made the canvas bigger. I liked the effect since the Underworld Vaults are artificially created anyway.

The Celtic style frame that binds all the worlds together, I’ve lost track of where that is from, but that one is more of a placeholder, as I’d want something more akin to a web to bind everything together. I’m hoping to commission the same artist as before, but haven’t heard from her in a while, so I am considering alternative options and what sort of design it should have. I’d probably aim for something like a Celtic-weave style web, with thicker strands to represent the continuation of the Mithral Road from world to world.


HISTORY

As to how I got this map style, this is how I got started:

I wanted a map of the Underdark. Not a cave system or a small region, but an entire world/continent. How do you map the Underdark? It’s mostly tunnels and small caves, none of which show up on that large-scale map, and the already existing ones weren’t exactly what I had in mind since they didn’t have the Mithral Road concept. I went looking for how other people did it.

At first, there's the Forgotten Realms Underdark map from their 2003 Underdark book:
https://www.realmshelps.net/faerun/u...x/undermap.jpg
I didn't like that it's just points on the surface, and while the semi-transparent Surface gives a good idea of where things are, it’s too utilitarian for me. But I do like the dark look and the large Underdark seas that are there.

Next is Paizo's Pathfinder game, with Golarion's Darklands:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1e/eb...777ab3a8a5.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c6/ea...d47c255b3a.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/dc/ce...d702b766e8.jpg
Now this I really liked, with multiple layers, symbol of the race for cities, actual tunnels, and the mysterious Vaults of Orv. A lot of ideas from there make it to my setting and maps in various ways. I've used it for previous maps as well, but... it lacks color.

I’ve also used the map editor from Battle for Wesnoth, but while I love the isometric look, the palette is limiting in what I can achieve.

Next up is Throne of Night, the abandoned drow Adventure Path from Fire Mountain Games. Artist is Spiral Magus, Michael D. Clarke (ironically, I am not using any of his maps to draw mine, but his style of Underdark maps are certainly a super big inspiration).
https://cf.geekdo-images.com/large/i...pic4800093.jpg
Now this is what really got me started with the current project. Here was a colorful map of the Underdark, great tunnels and vast caverns and lake/seas, which would be visible at my scale I’m using. It also gave me this idea of making the Underdark purplish (even if it’s actually bluish gray), which later gave rise to the color theme of the maps: yellow/green/blue for the surface, blue/purple/red for the Underdark, and red/orange/yellow for the underworld. Bonus points if you noticed without me telling you.

But the cities were merely dots again. The forest of fungus is made of just icons. It’s also too small. There was no dimension or depth to it. I bring this up because this blog convinced me that awesome maps had icons to represent cities.
http://hillcantons.blogspot.com/2011...tasy-maps.html
http://hillcantons.blogspot.com/2011...-rpg-maps.html

For me the best one is Dragon Pass. So, to me, iconic cities are a must. I have been using Alpha Centauri, Civilization 3 city graphics for this purpose, imagining them as illusions within the physical gems that are embedded into the stone map. They represent drow cities, aboleth colonies, dwarven sky-citadels, and yuan-ti metropolises. I’m able to draw on many cultures of history to get the cities I want. I made a decision not to have anything or as little as possible that is western European medieval but I still have a ton of choices to pick from.

Ironically, I only have one city icon for drow cities, something I am looking to fix. My goal is that each drow city would have its own unique look, at least the major ones.

And since this was Underdark/drow focused, my thoughts were how would drow make their own maps? I thought mosaics would be cool and proper, but I quickly found out that while it was possible to do, it would make editing the map a nightmare or take too long, and was too difficult for my skill level.

Then I had an idea, and later I saw this:
https://i.redd.it/lapz0gfwa86x.jpg
I wouldn't be able to do the mosaic aspect of it, but a map made entirely of stone, sand, crystals and gems? That was the way to go.

So, the maps you’ve been viewing, the entire map is made of stone, with the tunnels carved into the stone itself, with the seas and rivers also carved in a similar manner. Deserts would be made of sand, and snow fields made of white salt. Forests on the surface, seas and underground would be made of fungus growth, while fields of crystals would be made of… crystals. There would be lakes of water (blue), sulfur (yellow, an idea from the Ghoul Empire by Kobold Press, another map drawn by Torsan actually), magma/lava (orange), and acid (teal green). I had thought of making them filled with mercury like that tomb in China, but I prefer to keep the colors. The tunnels would be slightly reddish brown to go with the color scheme of the maps, plus red/purple are very drow colors.

To get the tunnel/river effect, and the mountains and ocean cliffs, I basically used Photoshop’s emboss/bevel feature. I got the idea from some of Chris West’s maps and Todd Gamble, I think some from the Ghostwalk campaign setting. See “Lair of the Crippled One” in the Ghostwalk Map Gallery.
http://archive.wizards.com/default.a.../dnd/20030627a
It gives the flat map a 3D depth effect. I did have some problems with it as it seemed whether it was ‘up’ or ‘down’ wasn’t based on what I selected by other facts I did not understand. Maybe I got used to it but I think it looks fine now. It’s also very handy for the oceans and the continental shelves on the surface, and it allows me to make the mountains pop out without having to draw them individually. That is the drawback to the style, the mountains are a bit homogeneous, and I haven’t figured out a way to do them easily. I did figure out though, that making the edges of the bottom of the mountains less straight and more fractal gave better results.

As for how to lay the Underdark tunnels all out, I had some ideas that I ultimately used but discarded and just went freestyle:
-Slime growths: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeaut...s_rail_design/
-Star constellations
I used them in some of the Underdark maps, but it turns out I much preferred my more free-style concept of just making caverns anywhere I wanted and then making tunnels connecting them. It’s still a good idea for a framework on when to get started.

Assembling it all together, I was originally going for a hemisphere map, like the Sanson Map of the world and similar concepts:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...anson-1691.jpg
But instead of mapping hemispheres, I would map the Surface/Underdark/Underworld and stack them on top of each other. I had used another placeholder frame before, but it didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted, nor did it work to fit all 8 worlds together like I do now, so I just used the frames I commissioned. They are slightly distorted as I failed to give the artist a crucial detail, but it’s barely noticeable anyway. The round frames work much better in the end, so that the tips don’t touch each other.


Ah yes, I almost forgot to talk about the cities. They’re not all unique on these maps, each race has its own type of city, some even change based on which world they’re in. The gems that holds the ‘illusion’ (think holographic display) of the city in it is also color coded (gem color and glow color) based on race/faction. I won’t list them all here, but the most important ones are: purple/red for Drow, white/blue and aqua for elves, jade/gold for yuan-ti/serpentfolk, gold/white for mountain dwarves, and pink for cities of aberrations (illithids, aboleths, etc). Some of the cities are underwater when placed on the sea beds of the maps. Some cities are also floating (such as a city for the cloud giants in the Norse world), and I achieve this effect by simply moving the shadow it casts further up. The light source is assumed to be in the middle of the frame, so for each map the light source is actually ‘south’. In order to balance the size of the city icons but still make the city not take too much place, I’ve had to make the city icons around 75 pixels diameter from their original size of 100-200 pixels. The overall size of the maps is 9000x9000 pixels (originally it was 3000 pixels, but that made the cities too big, and reducing the city size made it too low resolution to really see what it looked like), so is the framework that combines them all, but in those the map sizes are reduced to about 600- or 800-pixels diameter, big enough to see the city icons and the tunnels.

All that you see on the maps was drawn using simple RGB colors, then the photoshop magic happens with textures/patterns, bevel/emboss, shadows, and yes practice at drawing coastlines, tunnel networks and mountain ranges. This is easily editable and changeable, I can add/remove entire mountains and forests at will.

---

There are some things I want to change/improve, either on this map or in future ones:
-Tunnels and rivers are all the same size. This makes sense for a representative map like this one, but it looks a little weird sometimes. There’s two ways I can get variable width: draw both sides of the banks of the river/tunnel, this will create variable width at random. Or in the case of rivers, draw them with a smaller brush size from the mountains to the shore. Then use a bigger brush size but go further down river, and increase the brush size now and then until reaching the shore. This would more accurately show the increase in river size as one gets nearer to shore.
-The mountains aren’t the hottest thing with this map style. Granted they are easy to make and that was the point, but there isn’t enough granularity. I’m not quite sure how to fix that, maybe a texture or using multiple layers to get multiple peaks.
-The surface maps are not my own creations. I did start by drawing my own surface maps, but I was never satisfied with the layout, and decided to trace some existing maps that would fit what I wanted, and maybe change them later. I’ve learned a lot about drawing maps from tracing them and making my own coastlines, so future map projects will likely have me make my own drawn maps now that I have a better idea what to do.
-As much as I love the color scheme, the surface colors of green and yellow sort of clash when all the maps are put together. They also look out of place for being outside the frame, but that might be fixed if I find/commission a better one.



I am not sure if the attachment worked right, it should be down here. The original, full scale size are in the google drive documents, and worthwhile seeing them.

[Tiana]

You're right about one thing, it certainly is its own thing. I thought you might just be trying to hype yourself up. I do think it doesn't feel like its final form for whatever it is you're envisioning is yet more complex than this and requires maybe even simplification. I'd like to redo the knotwork and make it more tenuous and thread-like.

As for the artist going AWOL, sometimes they need a nudge. I can definitely get lost in my work and forget to reply if something isn't immediately important. So if you want to keep working with her on this project maybe bug her again.

For the surface colors, try pushing the yellows toward a rich gold or a brighter desaturated brown, and the lime greens towards an earthy emerald green instead of such a vibrant green.

It's an interesting and challenging concept to be mapping.