Fellow Palladium Fantasy fans,
At the request of Glen Evans, the author of our most-recent Palladium Fantasy sourcebook, I am taking on a new mapping project:
The Land of the Damned
My plan is to render the great prison of the Old Ones' minions in full color, providing as much canon-accurate material as I can fit in, while trying to convey the dark themes of this cursed, hellish prison of a region.
Here is a collage of the three source maps found in LoTD 1 and 2.
Here is my vector map zoomed in to the region. This will be my starting point for drawing the regional topography.
This map poses a number of interesting challenges. Just researching the two books is a tall order, to say nothing of the many references that are in the other books. This is where I'd really appreciate some help. No-one (other than Kevin) knows Palladium Fantasy like the denizens of this board.
If you have suggestions, corrections, or references that could help me make this map better, please let me know on this thread. I'm particularly interested in any "official" content from The Rifter and references to the Land of the Damned in other published Palladium Fantasy books. The biggest challenge for this project is a lack of source material. In 448 published pages dedicated this region, there are only 3 maps. The Northern Mountains are well-defined, the Great Rift is well defined, and the regional boundaries are defined. Unfortunately, that's about it.
My first order of business is drawing the basic topography. I can draw in the mountains with what I have. However, I need to define the climates of each region before I can properly render the lay of the land.
The Bleakness: As far as I can tell, there is no canon information on this region's climate. From the number of creatures living here, we can infer that it shouldn't be a barren wasteland. However, this may not be "bleak" enough.
The Broken Horn: I have no idea how to depict this region, but the proximity of the sea all around it, and a population of around a million or so giant minotaurs suggests to me that it should be relatively lush.
The Eternal Torment: is described as totally barren, with nothing naturally living here. I'll make it a dusty desert and give it an eroded look.
The Darkest Heart: A woodland, with the thickness and size of the trees increasing from west to east. There is a strong suggestion that strange dimensional forces could be at work here, making this region larger than it appears from the outside, but I'm going to dismiss that as hyperbole, partly because I don't see the point of making it that way, but mostly because I can't think of a way to map that.
The Great Rift: The canyon will be an interesting challenge, but most of this region is "The Blasted Lands" which I will depict as being fairly eroded, perhaps with some craters here and there to suggest the ongoing Minion War.
While I think on and research these climates, I'll get started on setting my pixel ratios and defining the coastlines in detail. More to follow in the next few days.