Does anyone have the map with the names of the major Rovaick settlements in the Ironhearts? I've been searching furiously for about an hour and cannot for the life of me locate it.

I just remembered that I was planning to introduce martial art to some other failed project species as a free action

Because

Martial art

It's a weapon turned into an art form

Performed with the body

It's beauty of the flesh

The Lexite Melee is change-eaters creating purposeful diversity with their ability to shapeshift

I could've done that for free, damn it. I'll keep it the way it is, though. Let's just say it's Really Quite Good.

Consider that one Might spent towards claiming Beauty (Performance), including martial art, dance, and sex. Since Sculptors are designed to do two out of three of those things, the Might spent in making them probably counts too. That makes three different Beauty portfolios I have an eye on! One of them is Beauty (Horror), defined as an anxious emotional response to something that is strange and new rather than a positive emotional response, as constitutes conventional beauty. Both Inversion Scribes and Sculptors will count as Might spent there, since they purposefully create art with the intention of having an unconventional beauty.

I haven't spent any might on anything horrific yet!

Uhuh...

Uhuh...

Well, not quite! The conscious perception bit really is important here.

Imagine the day when Jvan expands her telepathic network until she can see into the deepest, strangest phobias of mortal men, and take inspiration from them, drawing power from human horror until she can reach out through their dreams and make them real.

Also, I have a new headcanon for Jvan's voice.

Here we see Lifprasil and Vestec interrupted by J-girl herself, on the topic of human feelings.

<Snipped quote by Muttonhawk>

Well, not quite! The conscious perception bit really is important here.

Imagine the day when Jvan expands her telepathic network until she can see into the deepest, strangest phobias of mortal men, and take inspiration from them, drawing power from human horror until she can reach out through their dreams and make them real.

Well, I'll give you that. You go straight to the source for what you want to do, and that's respectable. You might have to ask Ilunabar nicely to step into her demiplane every now and then, though.

I feel like I read too much into it when I see the word 'anxiety,' however. I have a counsellor in my family and the definition of the anxiety is certainly broadened when you talk to such people enough. In a scholarly way, anyway. If you're just doing phobias or unease with alien stuff, though, I'd say horror speaks for itself as a word.

In other news, I have to move house tomorrow, so I'll just dump my graffiti'd map of Galbar right here without patiently waiting so I can sleep...

It'll be in my profile images for future reference.

EDIT: Before I forget!

To whomever decides to.make the next pretty iteration of the Galbar map, please consider shrinking down many of the geographical features. Things are beginning to get crowded and we are still meant to be working on a huge, Earth-like planet.

I would also suggest moving the map edges more westward, closer to the changing plains. Mesathelassa is better developed at this point.

And hey, an idea for a cataclysmic event? Sea level rise. We could actually have separated continents to work with if that happens :D

@Muttonhawk Shrinking back to the old map sizes would be interesting, but I think the main problem in here is that Inkarnate is a pretty map make that is actually very trashy mechanic wise.

We also need a larger map because soon we will have more and more named important cities.

And what is up with you and the creation of more and more oceans? Are you team aqua?

If anything we need islands is the seas (exception being Jvan's since she is a islaphobe.)

@Antarctic Termite bout dreams, I think J-girl could quite easily create some sort of wiretapping (actually neurontapping) in the brains and get what she wants. She could quite easily induce bad dreams.

But remember, no taxation without representation.

I feel like I read too much into it when I see the word 'anxiety,' however. I have a counsellor in my family and the definition of the anxiety is certainly broadened when you talk to such people enough. In a scholarly way, anyway. If you're just doing phobias or unease with alien stuff, though, I'd say horror speaks for itself as a word.

Rest assured, it has nothing to do with social anxiety or anxiety-related disorders. Horror is very much what I'm going for- A sense for the alien and unnatural, fear of the unknown as opposed to fear of incoming harm.

To whomever decides to.make the next pretty iteration of the Galbar map, please consider shrinking down many of the geographical features. Things are beginning to get crowded and we are still meant to be working on a huge, Earth-like planet.

I would also suggest moving the map edges more westward, closer to the changing plains. Mesathelassa is better developed at this point.

And hey, an idea for a cataclysmic event? Sea level rise. We could actually have separated continents to work with if that happens :D

I... Don't think we should do another major change to landmasses. The prettiness of the latest map did do some unnecessary shuffling and resizing of features, but even so, we've been kicking around this planet for a while now and if we try to force in more empty space either things are gonna go bump again or there's going to be a conspicuous stretch of empty forest.

Although, if some god wants to cut open Galbar like a grapefruit and adds in an extra slice because they've run out of space, be my guest, because that would be hilarious.



Anyway, the one main thing I want to emphasize is that I really, really don't think we want or need those land bridges. Land bridges don't make the world more accessible. Seas and rivers make the world more accessible the minute you invent the sail. Once you start thinking of oceans as a way to get around, land bridges are actually just giant walls that block you from sailing where you want to go. There's a reason people dug canals through Panama and Suez- Just a thin stretch of land in the way can add massive amounts of time to a voyage.

Other features that were lost or altered in this map-

-What happened to Jvan's peninsula? She's somehow ended up at a channel between the southern ocean and the fractal sea? She's always been at the northernmost point of an isthmus stretching up from land, specifically so that you can reach her on foot or horseback from both east and west; Somehow that got turned completely inside out.
-The Mangrove shrunk substantially and the Forgotten Craglands inside it went AWOL.
-The Shimmering Sea changed shape, deleting a section of land to the south of it (which promptly got resurrected as a land bridge enclosing an inland sea?) as well as making Vetros almost coastal.
-The Venomweald grew quite a bit, so the Valley of Peace is kind of fusing with the Ironhearts- That's not much of a problem by itself, but the connection between the Steppe and the Valley is growing thinner, which makes Angelblood Ridge hard to place since it took place in the foothills.
-The north of the Fractal Sea is growing bigger and lumpier over time, as well as marching steadily west. That vaguely phallic top bit should be a long, narrow inlet directly above Jvan, at least at the very top.
-Rivers, people! Where did those Mesathalassan rivers go?

Details added-
-Volcano squashing the northwest Metatic acalya outbreak. I should've put it more inland, whoops. Also, Acalya forests have containment zones guarded by Jvan's conglomeration of intelligent species.
-The Metera Valley civilisation has probably fused with the Rovaick settlement that was closest to Bormahven.
-Forgotten Craglands reappeared- A nest of cliffs and highland weirdforests pierced by the Mahd, in which lies the grave of Slough.
-Angelblood Ridge somewhere-or-other.

We also need a larger map because soon we will have more and more named important cities.

And what is up with you and the creation of more and more oceans? Are you team aqua?

If anything we need islands is the seas (exception being Jvan's since she is a islaphobe.)

Islands are good. Do we have an Iceland or Hawaii yet? More volcanoes! More islands!

Also, I don't think we need a different map size so much as we need to start thinking about scale. The Ironheart mountains, particularly the southern stretch of them, is where our civilisations tend to concentrate- We have Amestris, Shalanoir, Alefpria, Rulanah, and the Metera Valley, plus the Hilt and Bormahven. We can zoom in on that, for example, if we need to- We don't have to look at city-states from a global scale.

@Antarctic Termite bout dreams, I think J-girl could quite easily create some sort of wiretapping (actually neurontapping) in the brains and get what she wants. She could quite easily induce bad dreams.

But remember, no taxation without representation.

I'm not looking at dreams, don't worry. Or anything. It's still a distant work in progress.

Some features we do need more of, that aren't too hard to fit in-

-Inland seas! Think of the Aral, Dead and Caspian seas.
-Lakes! Lakes everywhere! The Great Lakes, Lake Baikal, Lake Victoria, Lake Chad, Lake Malawi... Big lakes are awesome, guys!
-Rivers! Rivers can be used as highways, provided they don't have rapids or waterfalls serving as a chokepoint, and are a lifeline for cities.
-Volcanic islands, archipelagos, and atolls! The west Pacific is riddled with islands! Think of Polynesia, Micronesia, Indonesia, the Philippines, the Caribbean, Japan, what have you!
-Reefs! Where did the Drenched Flowerbed go? It was our resident Great Barrier Reef analogue.
-Mudflats? Sure, why not?
-Salt pans! Possibly as a result of a failed attempt at making a sea? That said, though, there's not much civilisation-wise you can do with a salt flat other than trade the salt.
-Trenches... Actually, we don't need trenches, the whole south-center of the Fractal Sea practically is one. Plenty of space to be deep, dark and spooky. THAT SAID they do tend to pop up around islands and undoubtedly contain Blood Wells...
-Cenotes! Vakarlon made a cave system that riddles Galbar and the Submaterium presumably connects to it, so having some giant flooded holes in the ground would be awesome.

@Antarctic Termite

We could also use for some more tundra as it seems the north is largely populated by Boreal Forests. Moar arctic deserts are needed.

@Lauder They're Holy Garatha trees! No one has made use of their cool properties!

In addition to all the above:
-For one reason or another, Lake Grasidar seems to have disappeared from the map, along with Old Bark-Skin :\
-To correct Mutton's edit: the Oath of Stilldeath and the Chronos Portal lies, I believe, beneath Old Bark-Skin rather than in the ruins of the Solitary Mount
-With regards to size, I think the map should be stretched slightly, if possible.
-Piktaraika (previously Julkofyr's thingplace) should be far smaller than that, and the Hilt also

@Kho I kinda need the Pictaraika to stay as something that can block passage to Mesathalassa, along with the messed up forest on its west(comming soon), it is an important thing for me. Though if needed the thing could go down on that circle.

Eitherway, I think I will be making my own version of the map. I already have one for Mesathalassa anyway. It doesn't need to be official either, just something I will share.

Anyway, the one main thing I want to emphasize is that I really, really don't think we want or need those land bridges. Land bridges don't make the world more accessible. Seas and rivers make the world more accessible the minute you invent the sail. Once you start thinking of oceans as a way to get around, land bridges are actually just giant walls that block you from sailing where you want to go. There's a reason people dug canals through Panama and Suez- Just a thin stretch of land in the way can add massive amounts of time to a voyage.

These land bridges were intentionally made by Vestec when he created the World Mountain in a cataclysmic manner, to contain all the flooding and stuff. At some time we need something to break that. Perhaps if Zephyrion returns and is mad (or if he just feels the whim to do so), he'll make a storm and break down the land bridges into islands. Or once sailing promises to become a prevalent means of travel Teknall might break down the land bridges himself as a courtesy to Civilisation.

-What happened to Jvan's peninsula? She's somehow ended up at a channel between the southern ocean and the fractal sea? She's always been at the northernmost point of an isthmus stretching up from land, specifically so that you can reach her on foot or horseback from both east and west; Somehow that got turned completely inside out.
...
-The Shimmering Sea changed shape, deleting a section of land to the south of it (which promptly got resurrected as a land bridge enclosing an inland sea?) as well as making Vetros almost coastal.
...
-The north of the Fractal Sea is growing bigger and lumpier over time, as well as marching steadily west. That vaguely phallic top bit should be a long, narrow inlet directly above Jvan, at least at the very top.

Remember, cataclysmic flooding. Vestec's fault. Ocean size-changes weren't entirely an artefact of map-creation. Although I'm sure some adjustments might be in order. Especially for Jvan's isthmus; that should be preserved.

-The Venomweald grew quite a bit, so the Valley of Peace is kind of fusing with the Ironhearts- That's not much of a problem by itself, but the connection between the Steppe and the Valley is growing thinner, which makes Angelblood Ridge hard to place since it took place in the foothills.

I agree that they are getting rather close. I always intended a gap between the two.

-Rivers, people! Where did those Mesathalassan rivers go?

Of course. Rivers are the lifeblood of civilisation. They are important.

-Volcano squashing the northwest Metatic acalya outbreak. I should've put it more inland, whoops. Also, Acalya forests have containment zones guarded by Jvan's conglomeration of intelligent species.

Your positioning is correct. It is specifically a coastal volcano. Also, the containment zones are probably too thin to be resolved on the map.

EDIT: Before I forget!

To whomever decides to.make the next pretty iteration of the Galbar map, please consider shrinking down many of the geographical features. Things are beginning to get crowded and we are still meant to be working on a huge, Earth-like planet.

I would also suggest moving the map edges more westward, closer to the changing plains. Mesathelassa is better developed at this point.

And hey, an idea for a cataclysmic event? Sea level rise. We could actually have separated continents to work with if that happens :D

The map is starting to get crowded, I agree. Although we don't want to space things out too much otherwise nothing will interact and it will be boring.

Moving the map edge would be a good idea.

And no arbitrary world-shifting cataclysms. We had a cataclysm just like that not too long ago (http://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/3915249). Plus you cataclysmicly created the Metatic Ocean before that. I think that is enough cataclysms for one millennium.

Some features we do need more of, that aren't too hard to fit in-

-Inland seas! Think of the Aral, Dead and Caspian seas.
-Lakes! Lakes everywhere! The Great Lakes, Lake Baikal, Lake Victoria, Lake Chad, Lake Malawi... Big lakes are awesome, guys!
-Rivers! Rivers can be used as highways, provided they don't have rapids or waterfalls serving as a chokepoint, and are a lifeline for cities.

Agreed. More inland bodies of water. Many of these would probably form naturally. We shall try to remember such features when describing new areas.

-Volcanic islands, archipelagos, and atolls! The west Pacific is riddled with islands! Think of Polynesia, Micronesia, Indonesia, the Philippines, the Caribbean, Japan, what have you!

Volcanic islands are slightly more tricky. On Galbar, currently the only (established) volcanic region is the Ironheart Ranges, which is decidedly inland. Such regions might require a god to create them.
In the remains of the south pole, however, are plenty of new islands and archipelagos, although they're more arctic than pacific in climate.
The Fractal Sea is unlikely to contain natural islands, due to its unusual depth and formation. The Shimmering Sea, however, could easily have many islands. And the Metatic Ocean, formed by cataclysmic flooding, may have islands where there used to be mountains.

-Reefs! Where did the Drenched Flowerbed go? It was our resident Great Barrier Reef analogue.

Ah, that place. That should be put back in the map.

-Cenotes! Vakarlon made a cave system that riddles Galbar and the Submaterium presumably connects to it, so having some giant flooded holes in the ground would be awesome.

Those would be awesome, although I don't think they're large enough to show on the map. But I agree that more use should be made of the caves.

@Lauder They're Holy Garatha trees! No one has made use of their cool properties!

Perhaps it will become more useful once long-distance trade routes become a thing.

-Piktaraika (previously Julkofyr's thingplace) should be far smaller than that, and the Hilt also

I agree. The Darkened Spires were excluded from the map for a very long time, then when they were added they were made absolutely massive. It was meant to be a canyon, not a giant crater.

To compromise with @Double Capybara, who wants them to serve as a barrier of sorts, I think that the Darkened Spires/Piktaraika should be made long and thin, reflecting their original status as a canyon/valley. Something like the Grand Canyon in scale, perhaps?





Also, @Cyclone, can you please put the old versions of the maps in hiders. At present that post loads 5 high-resolution images every single time I try to view the character tab, and the old maps are just clutter.

@BBeast There are too many sources mentioning it to be round, hell, my Pictaraika shrines are supposedly in a perfect circle.

I will be doing something with the surface so I need it to be the least the size of an European country. Of course, the one in the map is too big, but what isn't odd after the change to inkscape?

Anyway, a smaller Pictaraika just means a larger twisted forest. As it needs to be a barrier.

On a side note, how would we expand map borders? There are things in all borders. In an extreme case I could shift the sea west a bit and the mountains down a bit. Where the land strip is shorter.

I'm really pro-making the map more detailed so it can contain more things, places like the Mesathalassa and the Firewind are the size of small continents in comparison to Earth, surely we could do more with those zones.

If things get too messy though...

We could....

Retcon.

Edit:

This is my current personal map of the region, pink is barrier forest to be. Idk how big that means the mountains will be.

Of course. Rivers are the lifeblood of civilisation. They are important.

I'd assume that small rivers are widespread but have just been left off the map due to abstraction.

Perhaps if Zephyrion returns and is mad (or if he just feels the whim to do so), he'll make a storm and break down the land bridges into islands.

It feels out of place that Zephyrion would fix the land bridges, if and when he returns. No promises from me.

Volcanic islands are slightly more tricky. On Galbar, currently the only (established) volcanic region is the Ironheart Ranges, which is decidedly inland. Such regions might require a god to create them.

As in for the question of more islands: earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tectonic movements, etc. are all controlled by djinn of the respective element. With the Change-Eaters shaking up the delicate balance one can expect a lot more natural disasters and localized events. This seems appropriate because I agree with BBeast that cataclysms of divine making are really strong and shouldn't be happening every few pages, but most of these djinn aren't strong enough to do anything that will have more than a regional impact.

Also, @Cyclone, can you please put the old versions of the maps in hiders. At present that post loads 5 high-resolution images every single time I try to view the character tab, and the old maps are just clutter.

Alas, my reign of trolling shall come to an end at your request. I was actually starting to think that the collection of maps was getting ridiculous, but nobody complained and so I let them pile up

I'll consign them all to a hider somewhere at the bottom of the post.

@BBeast There are too many sources mentioning it to be round, hell, my Pictaraika shrines are supposedly in a perfect circle.

I will be doing something with the surface so I need it to be the least the size of an European country. Of course, the one in the map is too big, but what isn't odd after the change to inkscape?

Anyway, a smaller Pictaraika just means a larger twisted forest. As it needs to be a barrier.

I went back and checked the creation post of the Darkened Spires. My apologies. It seems I had the wrong mental picture of it all along.

http://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/3384892

The Darkened Spires were indeed formed from an impact crater, so they would be big and round.

Carry on.

P.S.

As for the map border, I believe the suggestion was to change the map border line to run through the Shattered Plains, as that region lacks many features.

The Darkened Spires were indeed formed from an impact crater, so they would be big and round.

Carry on.

@Double Capybara big and around, yes, but I still think it's currently too big. It's pretty much the same size/almost bigger than the Valley of Peace. But if you require it to be so big for your plans, I guess we can let it slide/assume Illu's alterations affected size also.

Also, again, regarding map size/things getting crowded. We just need to shrink down many of the sites and their accompanying names, and make it so the map has very high resolution and we can simply zoom in on particular areas to sea details.

For example:
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals..

@Kho
I'd like to request an island chain for no particular reason. Is their an inbox I put this request into or....