Thursday, February 2, 2023

A map (WIP) - my "Fauxhammer" project

 This is a work in progress (WIP), a thing I've been noodling at for fun. It needs more work (and the work already done needs more cleaning and processing) - but I'm having a great time with this big map spread. 




This is an alternate, homebrew setting for my own Warhammer battles - a place closer to really old sword and sorcery Oldhammer, with its Moorcockian, Appendix-N, almost science-fantasy vibes, instead of the faux Renaissance feel of WFRP - or the almost mindbogglingly large scale of the current Age of Sigmar setting. It's a nod to the vague but deeply evocative thing that Warhammer once was - during my youth, and to the many "jeweled thrones" of Conan's Hyboria. The setting, as presented here, also draws on some of the "Middle Earth/Warhammer" mashup I toyed with last year, along with a bit of inspiration from the "howling emptiness" of parts of the old Greyhawk setting. I'm having lots of fun imagining the various petty rivalries and histories that have shaped this map. It's a setting not threatened by one Dark Lord, but by many (who wage jealous war upon each other, too); defended not by one alliance of the free, but by many, who just as often suspiciously eye their neighbors' ambitions (if they're lucky enough to have neighbors). The central subcontinent was once three kingdoms, then one great realm, and then -- after shocking betrayals and setbacks -- it became the fragmented (and in some regions the really points-of-light) setting represented here. 



One thing's for sure: I've got loads of ideas for narrative-based fights on this map, from mass battles pitching cursed (but still 'good') undead against the deceptive Enchanter's hordes, or the Silver Legion's greedy mercenaries against trade-rich Toharon ... to small-scale skirmishes -- perhaps a band of funeral singers holding off cultists in the Azure Necropolis, dwarves trying once again to infiltrate the Darkmount so they can pacify its feral elemental energies, or rival adventuring bands squabbling over treasure in the shattered ruins of the once-mighty central capital.