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    Canonfire :: View topic - A question of scale: Greyhawk mapping and LG metaorg maps
    Canonfire Forum Index -> World of Greyhawk Discussion
    A question of scale: Greyhawk mapping and LG metaorg maps
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    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Jul 15, 2003
    Posts: 100
    From: Orktown, Manitoba, Canada

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    Mon May 11, 2009 6:16 pm  
    A question of scale: Greyhawk mapping and LG metaorg maps

    So, I finally sat down in earnest and started working on my Yeomanry campaign. First off, I poked around with Return to the Keep and In Search of the Unknown a little. I have decided that the connecting tunnel mentioned between the Caves of Chaos and Quasqueton exists, but I have decided that it runs through lots of natural caverns, which housed other bugaboos, who have prevented said tunnel from being used very much. I'm also going to use these caverns to explain just what happened to the two heroes from B1.

    I've also been doing some wilderness mapping, but here's my hitch.... I'm using the Living Greyhawk metorg map of the Yeomanry as my guide (minus the location of Slerotin's tunnel and Dark Gate... these don't exist. Each of the hexes on this map is said to equal 30 miles. I started mapping by drawing a gigantic blown-up approximation of the starting hex (where I am placing the Keep, the Caves, Quasqueton and a small starting town), but I'm having trouble with my scale. I'm using a numbered hex map to represent the larger hex, but I can't wrap my head around the scale. Is 1 hex = 30 miles mean 30 SQUARE miles? Or that each hex is 30 miles North to South in distance? Right now, I have it so that, if I assume that each large hex is 30 miles N-S, then my smaller hexes are each about 1.25 miles. I went with that, but then I kind realized... I think this is WAY wrong. That would make the area of this hex HUGE. BUT, if I consider 1 hex = 30 SQUARE miles... then that doesn't leave a hell of alot of room in each hex for extras.

    My original plan was to map out about 8 of the larger hexes in detail, and use that as a "sandbox" for my game. But now, I'm not so sure. Anyone got any advice?
    Journeyman Greytalker

    Joined: Sep 20, 2005
    Posts: 158
    From: Little Rock, Arkansas

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    Mon May 11, 2009 9:49 pm  

    Each hex is 30 miles north to south. Each hex is somewhere around 700 square miles off the top of my head. The total area of the Flaneass approximates the total area of North America.

    Depending on how you count it, the Yeomanry has about 100 total hexes, or in the ballpark of around 70,000 square miles. Thus the Yeomanry is about the same size as the State of Missouri.

    If this is larger or smaller than you would like, by all means change it.
    Black Hand of Oblivion

    Joined: Feb 16, 2003
    Posts: 3835
    From: So. Cal

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    Mon May 11, 2009 11:07 pm  
    Hexes are deceptively small

    The 30 mile hex seems huge, but it is not. Remember
    that villages are usually around a day away from each other, and not 24 hours of journeying away but one day's worth of daylight away from each other. That means you'll not have very many villages per hex, and that is in a more populated areas. A sparsely populated area might only have 1 or 2 villages, or none at all(just a few farmsteads).
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    Last edited by Cebrion on Wed May 13, 2009 12:17 am; edited 2 times in total
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Jul 15, 2003
    Posts: 100
    From: Orktown, Manitoba, Canada

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    Tue May 12, 2009 1:44 pm  

    Okay, then this make a little more sense, and I'm not that far off. 8) My "giant hex" has a bunch of very small villages on it... maybe 100 people tops, but no major towns, and most would be at least half a days ride from each other. I feel much better now. 8)
    Adept Greytalker

    Joined: Jul 12, 2001
    Posts: 465
    From: Ithaca, New York

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    Tue May 19, 2009 12:17 pm  

    And keep in mind, hamlets and villages are going to be concentrated along roads and rivers, not evenly distributed around the area.
    Master Greytalker

    Joined: Jul 13, 2002
    Posts: 1077
    From: Orlane, Gran March

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    Thu May 21, 2009 1:13 pm  

    On this last point, distribution will depend on many things. The first time I travelled through the Carolinas, I was amazed at the even distribution of everything. Farm, field, barn, farm, field house. It went on endlessly, and only rarely do you get to a town. Only rarely are their large stretches of field or wood. There are plenty of streams and wells are easily dug. This is very different than south Georgia, where there are miles and miles of field, then a small town, then fields, then miles and miles of woods, then miles and miles of field, then a small town, etc.

    I was told is was the wealth of water that allowed this to occur, and the time at which it developed. Apparently in the early colonial days, horses were more valuable as working animals, and transportation was not a primary use.

    In my game I acutally use the water/road model Nell describes.

    Just food for thought.
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