I have been meaning to post these maps for awhile now. The GURPS was always the favorite RPG since it came out in the mid 80s, but sadly I could never find any interested players. Their fantasy world of Yrth (specifically the continent of Ytarria) was intriguing since it used real-world religions.
Unfortunately, there were never any good maps of Ytarria ever released. All of them were very abstract and did not give a good feel on just how big Ytarria actually is. They all used oversized graphics to represent terrain and major cities, which while visually appealing is just not really usable for GMs running an actual game.
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Nice map. Useless in play though.
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GURPS Fantasy - 2nd edition Ytarria map. Pretty, but impractical for game play.
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Years ago I overlayed the color map below with hexes in Campaign Cartographer at a scale of 24 miles per hex. It is possible to convert this file to PDF and zoom in and print off the needed areas. I have done this a few times on 12x18 paper and it works well enough. I have unlimited access to a full size color laser printer free of charge so I am a bit spoiled.
However, recently a chap over on Deviant Art created a true hex map of Ytarria (God bless him/her). I have added some settlements and ruins (taking artistic license on their locations) via Inkscape. I am sure it would be possible to port this over to any graphic program and add terrain, or, just print it out and use pencil crayons or whatever. This map is also scaled at 24 miles per hex.
The original hex map is here:
GURPS Banestorm -- Yttaria 24 Mile Hex Grid by SinLeqiUnninniMaps on DeviantArt
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| GURPS Ytarria |
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| GURPS Ytarria - Its a damn big place! |
Here is a map I found with my Google-Fu. Some creative soul added additional waterways to Ytarria. I used this as inspiration for my own version.
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| GURPS Ytarria - with additional minor rivers added |
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| Blank Ytarria Hex Map |
Here is the first version of the map I did. Turned out ok considering I had no clue what I was doing in Inkscape.
Below is a newer version of the map. Major mountain peaks are noted with white triangles. When the image is converted to a 11x17 PDF each 1mm equals 12 miles. PDF-Change Editor has some useful Distance and Area tools which allow you to calculate the travel distance without a hex map.
At the original document size (1771.726mm by 1337.742mm) the scale is 24 miles per 10mm, or 24 miles per hex.
Keep in mind, at 24 miles per hex it is very difficult to show a great level of detail. Each hex is over 500 square miles. This is a lot of area. Each clear hex would contain many small rivers, lakes, swamps, forests, ect. The settlements likewise are only sparsely covered. There would be innumerable small villages and hamlets scattered throughout the map. Quite frankly, Ytarria is a huge area and the nations themselves are too big for their population and technology levels.
As an example, the sample wilderness map (drawn on one sheet of hex paper with a scale of 24 miles per hex) in TSRs 1983 D&D Expert Set was a little over 600,000 square miles of land area. This single map spawned many a campaign in the early days of D&D, with a mish-mash of cultures all crammed together.
At the time is was presented as sample fantasy campaign map for D&D. As the years went by it grew into it's own campaign world for the BECMI line, which has arguably the largest amount of material ever published for a campaign setting. For those interested in the cartography for this wonderful setting please check out this treasure trove of maps for Mystara.
All that aside, if we compare the original 1983 map below with Ytarria we will find that Al-Haz has a larger land area than all of the Known World nations combined. Caithness and the Great Forest could easily fit inside this map, with some room to spare.
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| "The Known World", from the TSR Expert Set (BECMI). 24 miles per hex. As you can see, Ytarria is huge compared to this classic campaign area from 1983. The nation of al-Haz covers more area than all of these nations combined. |
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This map from 1976 (24 miles per hex) was a OD&D homebrew campaign world of two prominent TSR writers. It was redesigned in 1983 for the D&D Expert Set and eventually gave birth to what would become the World of Mystara.
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The World of Mystara.
Mystara was as originally set in Earth's distant past (this was retconned out later). The layout was based off a conjectural map of Jurassic Earth, around 130 million BC. This was not widely known outside of TSR at the time. The Known World was located on the southeast corner of the continent of Brun (North America). Cartography by Thorfinn Tait. |
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Jurassic Earth, circa 130 million BC.
TSR used this as a basis for the world map released in the 1985 D&D Masters Set. |
Anyway....back to Ytarria.
Here is a link to the GURPS Forum which contains the main discussions concerning this mapping project.
1/18 - Map update - added/fixed some location names.
Since the Banestorm has a habit of taking things from other times and places it gives us the perfect excuse to steal ideas from other RPG settings. Literally anything from anywhere can be placed somewhere in Yrth. Personally, I am envisioning that across the Meglan Ocean, a short distance away, lies the small twin continents of the Empire of Alphatia (also known as "Atlantis"), transported from the world of Mystara (Earth's distance past). Since the Banestorm can alter both time and space it is a small effort to add mysterious ruins across Ytarria and chalk their existence up to the Banestorm/Reality Quakes.
I am slowly going through the process of determining the level of urbanization that I need on the map. I have decided to use "A Magical Medieval Society", by Expedious Retreat Press. Here are some important excerpts.
One thing to mention, large cities, like Megalos or Waterdeep are placed by the GM. The table above does not support the random placement of such large urban areas. I am currently going through the process of validating the communities that are on the map and adjusting accordingly. Caithness is pretty much done. Communities which are BLACK DOTS are actually large villages, not towns or larger communities (I over-estimated on the number of urban areas I needed for Caithness. Rather than eliminate them I felt they would be excellent springboards for adventure on the fringe of the kingdom.)
The urbanization levels I will be going with are: Megalos/Caithness 8%, Muslim Lands 4%.
11/15/24 - I am still playing with this map. Adding features and special areas as time and creativity permit. The empty plains between the Smoke and Makarem always bothered me [I hate empty space]. Rather than a large open space I thought that this area would be better served as something else, a plateau region. So, on the second map I have added the topographical outline of a large plateau which encompasses this area. It slopes gently from west to east, rising slowly until it almost reaches the Conn river. The plateau region is dry, with steppe-like conditions though-out, with a single large waterfall on along the north face. I envision this area being inhabited by nomadic horse tribes. The ethnicity is up to the GM.
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| Hex map of Ytarria |
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| Hex map of Ytarria with some non canon terrain features |
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hex map of Ytarria with terrain only, for Post-Banestorm campaigns.
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Here is a link to my Google Drive for a PDF version of this map
Only the pseudo-canon version is online at the moment. I will post other versions in PDF form as time permits or by request.
Below are two custom versions of the map with several additional terrain features added (the individual layers can be swapped out if desired...I designed them to be modular and stand-alone). I would not necessarily use all of these at once in my own campaign map.
- a large glacier in northern Zarak filled with the ruins of a lost civilization, frozen under the ice.
- lake in northern Djinn lands to accommodate a hidden civilization, or the ruins thereof.
- the Great Desert has a large canyon in the center, The Landtear, the result of the Banestorm. This canyon leads to uncharted depths below Ytarria, filled with untold horrors and alien inhabitants.
- An area of badlands in the southern area of the Great Desert.
- Three small city-states along the southern Djinn coast. Think the North African Barbary Coast, but with magic and unspeakable horrors, ruled by Sorcerer Kings from parts unknown.
- a large forest added to southern Cardiel, along with a small coastal mountain chain (replacing the hills). The forest is filled with dangerous monsters which threaten southern Cardiel periodically.
- a radioactive area in the Djinn Lands containing the ruins of a Terran Alliance Base.
Here is the current map (still WIP), printed out on 11x17 (I printed the image in tile format).
Here is a world map of Yrth, care of Sinle over at Deviant Art.
Here is a link to a post on the GURPS forums regarding the areas of the various regions.
Cardiel is slightly bigger than France. Like I have indicated, Ytarria is HUGE!
Area of regions/nations-----------------------------------------------------------Megalos: 1.241 Million + Island: 56,762 square milesAl-Wazif: 302,712 square milesAl-Haz: 639,992 square milesAl-Haz without Mountains:424,236Great Valley Mountains: 215,756Cardiel: 274,169 square milesGreat Forest: 153080 square milesCaithness: 581,473 square milesCaithness less Great Forest: 428,393 square milesSahud: 106,505 square milesZarak: 436,362 square milesAraterre exclusive of Bilit Island or ring islands: 77,169Bilit Ilsand: 38,319Great Desert: 294,978 square miles.
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