The Cobwebbed Forest

Illustrating the Lands of Legend

A map (good, rough, accurate, or ugly!) adds something to a gaming session - providing something on which the players can focus to help them visualise the world by which their character is surrounded. And a good floorplan in the midst of battle helps the players take advantage of cover, improvised weapons, and a whole host of other creative goodness that might otherwise have been lost from a battle using counters on a square (or hex) grid.

I have produced all of these maps with Profantasy's Campaign Cartographer. I'm also happy to take requests and commissions (and not just for maps of Legend), so get in touch if there's anything you need.

The Lands of Legend

Lands of Legend (Hybrid) Lands of Legend (Politics) Lands of Legend (Geography)

The spiritual home of Dragon Warriors, the Lands of Legend are unique amongst fantasy role-playing games and the biggest reason for Dragon Warriors' enduring appeal.

I've presented three views of the same map because otherwise the labels are too crowded. There's a map that shows just the geographical features, another that has political divisions and locations of key settlements, and the third map is a hybrid of the two. None of the individual towns, forts and other artificial constructs are labeled on this map, expect them instead on the more detailed zoomed-in maps below.

Ellesland

Ellesland

The map of Ellesland is based on the Herwin Wielink style and represents an area approximately 600 miles by 900 miles. Ellesland is the most detailed region in Legend as it is the site for most of the published Dragon Warriors adventures and supplements - this made it an obvious place to start on this mapping project.

The authoritative source for this map is the map on page 150 of the main rulebook. Community-inspired content for Ellesland can be found on the Dragon Warriors Wiki.

Glissom

Glissom

Glissom is Ellesland's smallest country and the site of the adventures in The Prince of Darkness. The map is again based on the Herwin Wielink style and represents an area approximately 80 miles by 125 miles.

The authoritative source for this map is the map on page 150 of the main rulebook with inspiration from the maps in The Prince of Darkness. Unfortunately, the scale and coastline of Glissom are inconsistent between the main rulebook and Prince of Darkness so to keep this series of maps consistent with each other, I have chosen to use the main Dragon Warriors rulebook as my starting point for this map.

Ereworn

Ereworn

Ereworn is a once-proud country undergoing a steep decline. Adventurers in Ereworn may have a chance to reverse this decline by running through The Elven Crystals campaign. In line with the other maps of Legend, this map is in the Herwin Wielink style and represents an area approximately 140 miles by 195 miles.

The authoritative source for this map is the map on page 150 of the main Dragon Warriors rulebook with inspiration from the maps in The Elven Crystals. As with The Prince of Darkness, the maps are inconsistent between The Elven Crystals and the main Dragon Warriors rulebook and this map adheres more closely to the map in the main Dragon Warriors rulebook.

Northern Albion

Northern Albion

A hotbed of adventure, Northern Albion seethes with political tension and isolated underworldes and is the setting for the introductory adventures in the main rulebook and Sleeping Gods.

This is by far the most densely packed map I have done, with more than enough towns and terrains to keep a party of young dragon warriors busy for most of their adventuring careers! However, the relatively poor print quality of the new edition meant that I had to scour the old rulebooks (mostly books 2 and 4) to get all the names - if there are any I've missed, just let me know.

Brymstone

Brymstone

On Dave Morris's Fabled Lands blog, he once posted that the seventh book in the Dragon Warriors series was going to include a campaign set in and around the city of Brymstone in Thuland. Sadly, this campaign was never published, but a hand-drawn sketch map of the area was released. The map opposite is based on this hand-drawn sketch and represents an area approximately 9 miles by 7.5 miles around Brymstone.

A detailed map of the city is also available and has been expertly rendered by Shaun Hately here.

Crossgate Manor

Crossgate Manor

The area around Crossgate Manor is provided by Dave Morris as the location for one of his campaigns. The map covers a region approximately 21 miles by 16 miles and represents a small area of North-West Albion just South of the border with Cornumbria (it will be marked on my map of Albion when I get around to drawing and uploading it).

Some background to the region, in Dave's own words:

The manor of Crossgate is the largest of three (the others are Moyses and Garrow End) held by the Keppel family from Lord Maldupine, Marquess of Westring, whose lands stretch from the Cornumbrian border to the Vindar Hills.

The Keppel family is originally from central Albion but took over these lands from the original lords almost a century ago. Many still refer to them as 'the new lords'. The last of the old ruling family was Lord Duruth, who was killed 90 years ago.

The priest overseeing the local parishes of Moyses (where he's based), Crossgate, Garrow End, and Torstum (a village in the manor of Sir Eustace of Viridor, a neighbouring lord) is Father Lanarius, a cousin of the Keppel family. The rector of the small church at Crossgate is Father Gules.

Across the Stonestruck Lake is Redfern Abbey, with a mixed (though segregated) community of about thirty monks and nuns.

More details can be found on Dave's blog.

Yamato

Yamato Provinces Yamato Terrain Plain Yamato Map

Yamato is not detailed in any canon map or Dragon Warriors supplement, although it is referred to in a number of places in the main Dragon Warriors rulebook and used as the setting in Tetsubo, Dave Morris's Oriental setting for the Warhammer Fantasy Role-playing game. As Warhammer is more 'chaos-y' than faerie, Dave suggested some background reading, Ivan Morris's World of the Shining Prince, which has more of a Dragon Warriors feel to its oriental setting.

These maps were produced by request from a member of the Yahoo DragWars Mailing List and are based on some hand-drawn sketches of the islands Dave Morris sent to me. I doubt they will be used for the WFRP campaign setting, so it's safe to assume that these now belong to the Lands of Legend.

I produced three maps from the sketches - all three are effectively different views of the same map:

To represent a slightly more exotic feel to these maps, I changed the map style I have been using for my maps of Legend to Robert Altbauer's map style and each map represents an area approximately 550 miles by 975 miles.

The King under the Forest

The King under the Forest

By far the most iconic Dragon Warriors adventure, new players to the game have been cutting their teeth on The King under the Forest since the original book 1 was published in 1985.

I have extended and adapted the adventure and, whilst this map has been drawn as an aide for that adventure, it can also be used for the adventure as-written in Sleeping Gods.

Shadows on the Mist

Shadows on the Mist - Tuannon's Barrow Shadows on the Mist - Hob's Dell

Possibly the map with which I am least happy, the map of Hob's Dell is poor but serviceable (and still an improvement on the printing in my version of Sleeping Gods). I am also not happy with the scale, although the adventure does not really require the GM to keep an accurate record of movement, so this could be ignored.

The least necessary map is that of Tuannon's Barrow - the small tomb barely warrants a map at all but, as there was one printed in the original adventure, I have included my own version of it here for completeness. At some point, I might tinker with the maps to make Tuannon's Barrow an inset in the Hob's Dell map.

Hunter's Moon

The Temple of the Moon

I am not sure if it is just my copy of Sleeping Gods that has low-resolution maps for the Hunter's Moon scenario, but as I am currently practising my dungeon-drawing skills, thought I would share this map of the Temple of the Moon. The maps for the later scenarios are perfectly legible and clear, so am in no rush to reproduce those (unless anyone asks nicely...).

Other People's Maps

It is not just me that has produced maps of Legend - there are some great maps out there by other cartographers that are available to download and use in your games.