Remembering Myth : by Ben Nerdery

[BensNerdery]

I've apologized enough to know that's not enough, so here's the map as it stands right now, at full resolution. If a name looks unpronouncable or like a typo, it's probably a Welsh name.

EDIT: I'm sorry to start off on such a bad foot with you. Hopefully this will show that I meant no offense. Feel free to make of the map what you will. For those of you that care, I'll also be removing this as an incentive from my blog sometime later tonight.

I tried to incorporate all of the maps I could find into this, and listed all of the locations named in Myth I and II. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

[Jon God]

Hey, I didn't chime in here before, but thanks for sharing. Cool stuff!

[vinylrake]

Thanks Ben! Looks like some nice work there.

fyi, since you were so generous in sharing your map, I went ahead and joined your blog.

[BensNerdery]

Thanks Jon and Vinyl.

Like I said, if there are any questions about the specifics of the map, feel free to ask. There's a lot of information behind the decisions I made with it, so I can't quickly summarize everything. The RPG we play takes place about 70 years after Myth II, so the Realm of the Cath Bruig is a reconstructed kingdom. I also have a hex grid overlay that I use as GM to track overland movement for the party, and another overlay that's incomplete that depicts the holdings of about 18 different noble houses over the Province. Many of the regional names are riffs off of the approximate cultures of my version of Myth. (Cath Bruig is predominantly Welsh in influence, with Roman elements. Province is traditional English. Gower is vaguely Turkish. And Norheim is Norse, of course.)

[juliocpaes]

Hi all Mythers,

as starter of topic, I do not say anything before yet, because my computer and internet in maintenance (four days).
but now that I read all talk and I see quite that it spread .
I wanted to say that I loved the map of Ben nerdery, i think brilliant map.

Hey Ben, thanks by post reply and Welcome forum Tain,

Julio.

[bigbro]

Thanks for posting the high-res version of your map Ben. I like it a lot.
I didn't know about the map Godzfire posted a link to. I'm not a huge fan of it - don't like the mountains that much - but it's still a nice piece of work.
Hard to decide between Ben's and Briaruss' map. I like Briaruss' design better but Ben's map contains many more locations, which is a nice touch.
If I was good at image editing, I'd probably make a high-res version of the m2 map, while trying to stay as faithful to the original as possible. One day maybe.
cheers,
bigbro

[juliocpaes]

Hey Ben,

I'm studying this map, I see an incredible wealth of detail in pinpoint locations. I imagine that every place named should have a story behind, and I'd really like to get know of Ben, how you imagined all this.
Beyond the stories and descriptions of the places that we have from the website of bungie ... what would you have to pass me on what you added? (stories, tales...)

Julio

[BensNerdery]

Thanks guys.

Julio, I blogged a bit about my creative process on my blog, where I posted this version of the map and another version with the hex grid overlay. I won't go over that stuff, but I'll summarize the major plot points I'm moving towards in our RPG.

As I said earlier, this RPG campaign takes place two generations after Soulblighter's defeat. Alric, now nearly two hundred years old, still rules the Empire of the Cath Bruig, but he is a relatively mild, toothless emperor compared to the legends of his reign over the Province and his leadership in the Great War. The Province has become increasingly independent, and Alric Cathrian (his house name) has tolerated this in favor of maintaining peace across the face of ceorth. Gower, meanwhile, remains the most warlike kingdom in the Empire, since the far east still spews forth monsters every winter.

I wanted to make the setting a world of fragile balance. The Province is very feudal and English, with political backstabbing as nobles vie for position and try to level old scores. The King of the Province has basically increased the power and authority of nobles to secure the riches of his territory, more or less in direct opposition to Alric's call to rebuild the Realm of the Cath Bruig, fifty years ago. All but a handful of houses stayed in the Province, and as such the kingdom is defined by the rules and excesses of the nobility.

The Realm of the Cath Bruig is a land of patriots. After Soulblighter's War, the Realm was devastated, burnt, and blasted by the hordes of undead and Myrkridia summoned there. In order to help re-settle the Realm of the Cath Bruig, Alric enfranchised every man in the Legion to two yards for every year served in defense of the empire. (In this case, a yard is used in the medieval sense to refer to a plot of land that could be farmed to sustain one person indefinitely.) So the towns that sprung up in the reconstructed Realm are largely egalitarian and representative, with noble houses having less direct control over the common man. And most of the noble houses didn't appreciate this loss of prestige, and sought to improve their fortunes elsewhere. What results is that the Realm is a proud but struggling region, and some of the towns are still run but old elders who recall the horrors of the Undead. Many of the towns themselves are more or less monuments to the last war--Fionnmethyr is the cemetery-town, with thousands of Legion soldiers buried there in addition to the common graves. Alricairn is a town built around a rocky hill where Alric was said to have plotted his assault on the ruins of Muirthemne. And Twain is the farthest reach of House Mabingion, so named because the great noble house split over the choice to move west and settle in the Province.



Obviously, I could explain a lot more, as these explanations don't delve too deep, but yes, there's a lot of story in the map itself. If I make the Myth Atlas series on my blog, I'll probably post a separate article about the Realm, the Province, Gower, the Ermine, and the Dwarven kingdom & Norheim. That'd be a lot of re-writing things from notes, though, so I'm not sure when or if I'll put it all down in a coherent story.

[juliocpaes]

Ben,

oh it's a RPG campaign. okay.

thanks for the summary of the story.

hope it one day, that some mapmaker here of forum could make one plugin campaign this storyline.

would be cool.

Julio