The Setting

By Shamus Posted Wednesday Sep 14, 2005

Filed under: D&D Campaign 8 comments

Before I became DM, the players were in a campaign run by a guy named Josh, whom I’ve never met. They parted ways with him and I ended up running the campaign. Josh was very much a freestyle DM, with no real shape to the game world. It was just town, woods, town, woods, in some non-specific country.

When I took over I wanted to keep a bit of continuity, but at the same time I needed to place them in some sort of structured world. I came up with the map you see below. I decided that they all came from “Dunlock”, and they were in the coastal town of Djoshport (named after their hapless former DM). In our first session I stuck them on a boat for Grey Moor, the site of our first campaign.

Our “world map” consists of the following:

  • Dunlock is the main landmass. The players “come from” here. The country doesn’t really have much in the way of detail, but serves as an anchor for the other lands in the game.
  • Grey Moor
  • Mar Tesaro
  • Mar Talos
  • The Tunderlands are inhabited, but the players have never been there. This land is open for future adventures.

In our first campain the players went to Grey Moor and broke an evil curse that was killing the crops and draining the land of life, and then joined in a battle to prevent a single greedy nobleman for siezing control of the Island. Along the way they teamed up with Eomer and Endo and attained level 3. The Elves of Mar Talos joined in the battle to keep the island free. This brought our first campaign to an end.

At this point one of the players (Joe) became the DM, and I joined the game as a normal player using Endo. Joe’s character stayed on Grey Moor, and the rest of us sailed to Golgotha in northern Dunlock. The party battled an army of the undead, saved the land, and made level 5. I became the DM again, keeping Endo as an NPC that travelled with the party. The party sailed for Mar Talos, but got shipwrecked on Mar Tesaro, which our third campaign is now taking place.

 


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8 thoughts on “The Setting

  1. Avaz says:

    I notice the numbers on the map. (A) Are they there to imply that the world is much, much larger? And if so, (B) Do you have the rest of the world planned out at all? Even in concept if not in ink?

  2. Shamus says:

    Grey Moor and Mar Tesaro are very detailed. (We have held a campaign in each location.) The other places are pretty much blank, or just one port town.

  3. Zaqtaro says:

    I’m a fledgling GM and I was wondering if it would be ok to use this map as sort of a base for my own campaign? I’ve been looking for maps online and this one seems to be close to what i was searching for.

    Love the site!

  4. Steve says:

    So, if I read this right, each of your campaigns only gained the characters a couple of levels?

  5. GORTOG, SUPREME NIGHT MANAGER OF THE UNDERWORLD says:

    Mind if I use the Tunderlands map as a basis for a possible campaign? I have most of the details except the map down, and this one looks nice. If you want I can send you or post my completed map.

  6. RCN says:

    How on earth did they try to go for Mar Talos from Grey Moor and ended up on Mar Tesaro?

    Or, more importantly, are those island names taken from a latin language? Like Spanish, Italian or Portuguese?

    I’m interested because I’m studying linguistics, but I know this will likely go unanswered. Such an old post…

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