Sunday, August 18, 2013

[Gondwane] Map of Lin Carter's Northern YamaYamaLand

One of my favorite series by Lin Carter is his exploration of the Dying Earth genre, the Gondwane Epic featuring the tales of Ganelon Silvermane. Gary thought enough of them to include them in Appendix N. They read like the adventures of a gaming group, and the world seems designed for a science-fantasy campaign, with its odd mix of magic and technology.

Being on a map-making binge, I was overjoyed when I discovered that I had thrown an early, hand-drawn study of Northern YamaYamaLand, the main region featured in the adventures of the first two books, in my box of papers and stuff before heading out for Virginia. So over the last couple days I've been futzing around with another Hexographer map. 

The general form of the setting is as per the book; I've added in additional details such as villages, more ruins, lairs, and the like, and filled in a few holes in the northeastern and northwestern corners of the map. The most unusual features, for the uninitiated, are those found in Dwarfland. These are not Tolkien dwarves; they are the Death Dwarfs, a form of Unlife, inimical to the more common like of Gondwane. They are more like poisonous goblins than dwarves, and the life and lands they rule are similarly unpleasant...

The scale is arbitrarily set to five miles per. It could as readily be six or 10, as during the story the distances traveled seem not to jibe with one another, essentially traveling at the speed of plot...

Anyhoo, one of these days I might get around to trying a Mutants & Mazes (Labyrinth Lord/Mutant Future) or Labyrinth Critical campaign in the setting... that would be sweet. As usual, if you want a bigger map or the original Hexographer files, just let me know.

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