I am starting to loosely fill out my world, and this is a pretty cool map. Back when we got the Deities and Demigods book for AD&D, we thought those were the "official" campaign gods and goddesses and you could play with those. You know, Zeus, Hera, Thor, Odin, and all the classics. To us, the gods of mythology were AD&D.
There were a few gods over there in Greyhawk, but these were way cooler since we've seen them in Clash of the Titans and all of our history books. So they made their home in Mystara, the original D&D world, and these were what clerics worshipped.
Play With Our Stuff!
And then the Forgotten Realms came along. No! Play with these! And then 3E came along. Sorry, we got your gods right here in the Player's Handbook! To be fair, they offered these gods in one of the faiths books for 3E, but they were not front-and-center. And then 4E came along. No, all the modules and major conflicts in the world are between our copyrighted IP and gods! Sorry! And then 5E came along and while it is a little better, I feel it is getting harder and harder for D&D to ever be a generic game, and it takes a lot of work to rip out the Magic: The Gathering and all the D&D IP from the game.
There are times I feel D&D went World of Warcraft with its lore and it is not a generic fantasy game anymore. It is a quite specific one with a quite specific world and requirements for everything to be there, much like how Pathfinder 2 feels. If you love that lore, great, but if you want to build your own world, I would rather start with a more generic game without the Wizard's IP.
We found B/X games like Old School Essentials and Labyrinth Lord were easier to play with our original ideas and have them feel right than the latest versions of D&D, which felt like they made a lot of decisions for you and filled in a lot of your campaign world with their copyrighted material. They want to sell you things and I get it, but the reason we got involved with this hobby in the first place was to do our own thing, build our own worlds, explore what-ifs, and be creative.
This is why a lot of the OSR appeals to me, I remember a D&D before the official lore became the game. I know people pull it out and do their own things all the time, but to me, I like games that give you a neutral product-identity free toolbox and let you build from there, and not try to add things you can't use if you ever wanted to write a novel about your adventures in the world because of trademarks and copyright law.
Aquilae
Mind you, this product is just a map. No gods, just names and borders of nations, but they don't tell you what those are, cities and roads and terrain - but no descriptions. A GM map with tons of hidden places with cool names, but none of them are described.
What good is that?
Well, this is where your imagination comes in...
So here is what I did with my Aquilae map. Like a kid who did not know better, I found areas of the map that would be "cool" to have a culture, and I put it there! Does it make any sense? Heck no! But this is what we did as kids. If we had a spot for something cool we had gods or stats for, we put it on the map. It does not make one bit of sense nor it should. This is how kids think.
Does it make any sense England, France, Spain, and the Elves are up against the Egyptians? No! But that is cool! Now, these are NOT the original countries, just cultures and areas of the world LIKE those cultures to give us something to start with. Like England, that place is probably more like Arthurian knights, castles, a king, dukes, and that type of culture. Italy is less Rome and more a Renaissance Italy-influenced culture.
As kids, if we had World of Warcraft in our lives, would we cant cool Orc and Undead areas? Heck yeah! Goblins too they are cool and we should be able to play as them too! Do we have pirate islands? Heck yeah, we have pirate islands! Let's put them next to the Greeks! Who cares! It is cool! Maybe the Spartan-like guys will fight pirates in a 300-like ship battle with lots of slo-mo shots! Ah, cool!
I want to play a troll! Over there in the jungle with the lizardmen, you can play them too. Ah, cool! I want to play a shaman! We could put Aztec dinosaurs down there too! Oh wow! Cool!
I still have a couple cultures I want to add, maybe a demon/tiefling area (leaning towards Drandull, rich trading houses on the islands), maybe a dragon-folk culture, a kingdom of magic (Vylanne likely), and I need a few countries to the south to serve as competitors and foils to the Greeks, Undead, and pirates. I have a few islands to the north to work on as well, but I do not need them to get started. Maybe a cool African-inspired high-magic culture in Cyasinth like Wakanda but with magic. Something will come to mind, and you don't really want to fill in the entire map, to begin with.
Does World of Warcraft or Pathfinder's Golarion make any sense? No, this is how they sort of world-build their theme park worlds too. Lots of "ah cool!" areas, and putting sides that like to fight next to each other. And they "borrow" from cultures just as much as this.
I could do this entire world with Old School Essentials, Labyrinth Lord, Castles & Crusades, or any other set of rules and do just fine. I could do it with D&D 5, with a little bit of work and telling players some things are not options. I would love a D&D 5 "basic rules" book with all the IP pulled out that could be used for more generic settings like this.
Challenges
I tell you one thing, this Egyptian culture area is going to be a huge influence on the rest of the world being at the crossroads of civilization. Their traders and ambassadors will be in every kingdom. Maybe the deserts will be incredibly dangerous areas with armies of the dead wandering around. That is cool, and I am up to the challenge of having this culture and mythology being one of the most important in the world. Maybe put a race of naga on the coast.
The elves too are in a strong position, no "dying elves" here, they have a lot of lands and should be a dominant force. Maybe different types of elves share this homeland in different tribes and areas, and it is possible they all don't get along well. It would be cool to have dark elves under here somewhere and have them involved in the conflicts.
Having a magic kingdom in the center ocean seems right, lots of magic ley lines there, and that would give them a lot of power over trade. And they would be a counter-balance to the orcs.
The orcs and undead are a major one-two punch, and I don't see having a typical "Horde" here, the orcs hate the undead and will be at war with them. Playing as an orc seems like an incredible experience, and having their possible goblin allies across the sea puts that whole central ocean into play. The Spanish-style culture will be on the front lines of the orc wars, but those mountains give them an advantage. I could see mass battles and that border shifting constantly, and the whole area is this ruins-filled hellish battleground.
That kingdom between the undead and pirates needs to be a good guy faction that does not always get along with the Greek culture. Maybe a 1001 Nights sort of sultanate with genies, Rakshasa, and other Indian and Arabian influences would be very cool. If I make the Cyasinth area an African magic-Wakanda, and the Greeks in the middle, and Pirates raiding them all, that would put a lot of culture and conflict in this area, and it would be something completely unlike anything I have seen in fantasy.
Making a giant faction in the mountains near the Renaissance-style Euro factions would be fun, since if I put devil-blooded nobles on the islands of Drandull that would create this tension, do we accept the price for the evil and rich islanders helping us fight the giants?
I have two islands to fill north of the Celt-like Fae culture, which I would like to be like a fae-Ireland, but very independent. It would be fun to put naval-based enemies of the English culture there and have lots of ship-to-ship fighting, Maybe Levopp could be the Scottish-style freedom fighters who despise the king. Bynithe is sort of in the middle, and that could be a Portugal-like culture with a queen and lots of overseas journeys launching from there and "off map" trade.
Established Settings vs. DIY
This setting appeals to me because I can take whatever books I have: AD&D, Palladium FRPG, Castles & Crusades, OSE, Labyrinth Lord, Dungeon Crawl Classics, or any other - and place all the cultures and races down in each spot and give them a home in a sandbox. I could have easily done this with Palladium and made an entirely different set of choices, Wolfen, Ogres, Trolls, Humans, Goblins, and the like all in their homes.
Give me a cool map to put things on, and I will find homes for all my toys.
With a Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms setting, I am doing a lot of homework to get started. I have to skim through the entire book and read almost everything to know where I want to start my game. I need to get an idea of factions and conflicts before I start writing adventures to make sure they fit. I need to check the company's catalog and make sure there aren't any adventure sites in modules to watch for nearby. After all that work, I can still be wrong, and miss things that are important.
And it is a ton of work.
Here? I DIY everything. Let's start up north, add some Viking human tribes, dwarves, gnoll raiders, an ice dragon, and we are great!
Modules? Drop them in anywhere. Tomb of Horrors? Yeah, that is somewhere in the French-like area. Labyrinth Lord's Barrowmaze? Needs a swamp. Anywhere non-desert in the middle of the map, and it would be fun in the Germanic area. The Forbidden Caverns of Archaia mega-dungeon? Spain area likely, badlands, hotter climate, and wastelands. Vault of the Drow? Elven kingdom, mountains. Keep on the Borderlands? England area. The older Goodman Games DCC 3E Modules? Anywhere really, just make them work.
I could do a giant kingdom in the France-Germanic area in the mountains and put the G-series there. Giants as the foils for this area of the world, and things are sort of like Attack on Titan with giant fortress walls and giants assaulting them? Aw, cool! Great ideas keep coming into this world because whenever I come up with a cool one, I have a spot to put it in.
Something like this is in this part of the world, and we will get to it later. Right now, let us pick one place and begin our adventures. Maybe if I don't like something or we come up with a better idea later, we could change things. The world is a rough draft and sketch, and we fill it in, change it, and make it ours as we go.
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