Rose of Westeros

After one month of intermitent work, the physical part of the DnD Neverwinter map is finished in two language versions: english and spanish. The sources of geographical items have been: DnD5 Starter set, in english and spanish DnD5 Dragon of Icespire Peak DnD4e Neverwinter Campaign Settings aDnD Waterdeep and the North aDnD The Savage Frontier Though it would be nice to have more geographical items, the above documentation doesn't define more suitable of being included. Even some items, present in other unofficial maps as Berun's Hill, have been discarded by the reasons exposed in this post . Next milestone will be finishing the political part.

Based on the official data sources, Berun's Hill location is not clearly set. On one side, Waterdeep and the North (Ed Greeewood) names it for the first time in this way: The Long Road runs south from Mirabar through the desolate Crags, to the village of Longsaddle, past Berun's Hill, and thence to Triboar So it seems that it is located between Longsaddle and Triboar, what means that it should be in the  Starmetal Hills. By the description, it can be assumed that it is clearly visible from the Long Road. On the other side, The Savage Frontier (Paul Jaquays) drops more light about its location: This local landmark is a bare-topped, conical hill that commands a splendid view of the valley of the river Dessarin to the east. This lookout has often been used in times of trouble to watch for advancing orc or barbarian tribes coming down from the north and east. By that information we can assume that it offers a privileged sight to the North and East of the Valley of River Dessarin

Though quite happy with the initial results (see previous blog entry ), the result was not realistic when compared with ancient maps. So I decided to try with a double nib fill plus a new shading layer just below the previous layer. The results, shown in the photo above, are (IMHO) quite better than the first attempt. With this step the physical part is almost completed, just lacking the peak and volcano symbols (though maybe they fit better in another work package... to be considered).

Giving the coast border a pen nib ink finish was the last pending step for finishing the physical part of this map. Result is not bad, though maybe a more dense nibbing would get a deeper visual impact. The result, however, is quite balanced with the rest of the map, so for now it's staying. I find it quite realistic: pattern is manually made and the application tries to emulate a hand made job by avoiding symmetries. A detail of the final result can be seen in the attached image.

I'm working on an... improved? new? yet another? map of the Neverwinter coast taking as base that included in the Dungeons And Dragons 5 Starter Set . Quite useful map, since it's the same used in the DnD 5 Dragon of Icespire Peak  and DnD 4e Neverwinter Campaign Setting . The map in progress is being drawn as a traveler's map, so only items of interest for those wandering are being drawn, what includes mountains, forests, water masses and flows (as rivers and lakes), roads in different sizes, cities and towns, shelter resources and, if available, water resources as dwells and fountains. Specific campaign items, as those shown as "Site of interest" in the original maps will be displayed as hand-made annotations on different versions of the maps, grouped by adventure (a group for the started set, another group for Dragon of Icesipre Peak,...) and in the order that the campaign/adventure sets (a map with only the first site of interest, a second map with the first a