Table Plan: World Building pt.I (with Wintermoot Island)

I hung out with Destiny up in Wilkes-Barre before she went back to Temple.  Had an amazing time with, her, finally saw The Hobbit (which I must say, was excellent, and nothing like seeing the Seventh Doctor as Radagast the Brown), and finally got introduced to Sherlock ( and how awesome is the name Benedict Cumberbatch).  I also got to see this island that, when I looked at the directions up there, immediately sparked my imagination.  This lonely island on the Susquehanna River, called Wintermoot.  And by sparking my imagination, I mean that it had to be made into a D&D adventure.  In this resurrection of the Table-Plan series, we take a look at world making together, using Wintermoot as an example.

This is my fictional island of Wintermoot (technically two islands, but both are collectively known as Wintermoot).  Same world as my current DM's world, it is located to the southwest.  Why southwest?  A region on his continent in the south is an icy, cold region.  His continent also looks a bit like Australia to me.  We have a group of cold islands, an Australia shaped landmass, and a cold region to the south of said landmass.  Plus, I want to make Wintermoot a land of exciting adventure, so why not make it this land's analogue to New Zealand?

Sometimes, the best ideas for land masses and shapes is real-life analogues.  One of my most beloved campaign settings, Mystara, is based on the Earth after the break up of Pangaea.  Once you have a vague idea, you can begin to morph the landscape a little bit, maybe flip something around, maybe change the coast line.  Maybe the addition and/or subtraction of mountains could make a change.  For example, the volcano Mount Erberous (not labled, its the mountain with the red splotch on it), is based on both the volcanism of New Zealand, and the volcano Mount Erebus in Antarctica.

 

Next come constructed locations.  I have two locations on my map at this time, Skrarut and the Ice Palace.  I'm not going into campaign details yet, just the design at the moment.  Being a cold desolate region, Skrarut shouldn't be too big of a location, so it is definitely not a city, but its still notable to be marked on the map, so it has to be an adventuring hub.  Second we have a location on an iceberg, the Ice Palace.  The name sounds regal, and in a place few can survive, the ruler cannot be human, and every region needs at least one dragon, so the iceberg is home to White Dragons.  We also need a reason to explore Wintermoot, maybe the lust for adventure came to be because of a Frost Giant Jarldom which leftv scattered ruins over the land, but few are unremarkable enough to be marked on a map.

When making locations, think of the regions first.  Cities traditionally have been placed alongside the coast or on riverways, and some on major traderoutes.  Different races prefer different locales to.  While a human population might not build high up on a mountain, a dwarven population would, and maybe into the mountain as well.  Major non-population locations need to have a similar thought process.  A large, abandoned temple to a sky god probably won't be found in the depths of the Underdark (for those that don't know, the Underdark is the generic vanilla D&D term for the giant caverns under the world, inspired by Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms) without a good explaination; but a temple to an evil subterranean deity probably would (my vote would be Lolth, but thats my personal choice).

And there we have a look at the physical geography of a region.  Next post we will begin talking about the fluff.  We will discuss Skrarut, the old Frost Giant Jarldom, and how both are tied together by the same ancient wyrm that still haunts the land.