Pleased to see so much D&D here!
I'm Sealink, and I joined up to make a series of maps for my first D&D campaign, Ogallala, which I hope to do right, as I haven't been playing D&D very long. It will be played using 3.5 edition rules (since those are the books I have and I'm not very keen on 4th edition.)
A bit of background on the world: Elves are extinct, wiped out by a racial war 2000 ago. Since that time, the dwarves have stepped forward to become unlikely stewards of the land, and each of three Dwarven kingdoms took fledgling human communities under their wing, helping them grow to take their place in the world. Through a series of coups and vassalage agreements, human realms took control of their own matters and splintered into ever finer countries with their own self interests.
Not long after this, a great archlich seized control of the magocratic city-state Gilganad by defeating its ruler in a duel of arcane power. Several arcanists fled to a bordering country to wait for his rule to pass.
A band of adventurers defeated the archlich and vanished into obscurity, leaving Gilganad with no ruler and no high wizard. It was only after the Great Dune Sea leapt out of its previous confines that the role Gilganad played in restraining the shifting dunes became clear.
Gilganad was lost to sands within days, the bordering countries within weeks. It took the intervention of the dwarves, some say with the aid of powerful draconic magic, to halt the expansive desert right outside the gates of Aranoct, the last of the northern human kingdoms.
Since this magical cataclysm, the world of Azania (ah-zah-NEE-ah) has drifted completely apart from the Inner Planes, and arcane magic is all but unknown.
The PCs will begin south of the Great Dune Sea, not far from the Al-Qadim flavored city of Dar-Anaag, where swarthy nomads and half-orcs trade for goods from beyond the desert. Their task will be to find the places where Azania was once tethered to the Inner Planes and forge those bonds anew. If they fail, Azania's ties to even the Outer Planes may grow taut and snap, setting the world adrift in the cosmos.
I came here looking for information on how to make awesome deserts, since as much as 50% of the world in my campaign is desert.
So, um.... hi!
Welcome aboard. My first thought is that you should read through the Tutorial section and see if there's something there that grabs ya. I don't know if there are any specific tuts on deserts but my memory is bad. However, you should be able to gleen the info that you need out of some of the other tuts. Poke around and have fun.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
Definitely do a search for Steel General's monthly challenge entries. He's done at least two maps describing a desert world, and they were both very well done.
Bryan Ray, visual effects artist
http://www.bryanray.name
Welcome to the Guild!
Daniel the Neon Knight: Campaign Cartographer User
Never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice!
Any questions on CC3? Post them with CC3 in the Subject Line!
MY 'FAMOUS' CC3 MAPS: Thunderspire; Pyramid of Shadows; King of the Trollhaunt Warrens; Demon Queen's Enclave
Welcome Aboard!
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Welcome, Good luck with the campaign!
Dollhouse Syndrome = The temptation to turn a map into a picture, obscuring the goal of the image with the appeal of cute, or simply available, parts. Maps have clarity through simplification.
--- Sigurd
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