Kiridin, Land of Barbarians (Palladium Fantasy RPG)

[Coriolis]

My first-ever commission, this is a regional map for the Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game. The client is a friend and game master who runs an epic, award-winning campaign over at Obsidian Portal.

The map details a land of nine barbarian nations that raid, pillage, and live in the wilderness. I worked with half a dozen small, black-and-white maps from Palladium RPG supplements as references to get the general shape and layout. I also used the background text as a guideline for the color gradients and icons.



Kiridin is a forested and hilly region. One particular region of Kiridin, Kadriel, is enchanted to always be in autumn, so it has some reds, oranges, and yellows. There's a large prairie to the southwest, and an immensely-tall mountain range to the west, erected by the gods as a barrier against the horrors on the other side (the Land of the Damned). Right next to Kiridin are the Shadow Colonies of Byzantium, which I detail as well, though I didn't give them quite as much attention.

I made this map with GIMP, WILBUR, and Inkspace using the Eriond technique by arsheesh, with a few variations. This map is a hybrid that both conforms to already-published maps, and uses cloud noise to generate terrain. I had to smudge and airbrush to make the rivers, valleys, mountains, and hills fit the reference maps. It took several adjustments to get WILBUR's river generators to flow where I wanted them. I also custom-made some color gradients for the prairie, forest, and autumn areas.

Each barbarian nation has its own distinct identity, and I designed emblems for each area in Inkspace to reflect their descriptions in the sourcebook. I also made the compass rose, anchors, Devil's Mark symbol, and scale in Inkspace.

The frame is straight from another excellent arsheesh tutorial.