City Zone Maps

oldrper · June 2013

I created a city area without considering canon maps of cities on the Sword Coast. I'm trying to decide if I should ignore the canon maps and use the map anyway, or if I should use it as a distant city accessed via a teleportation spell. The Neverwinter Nights maps of Port Llast could be ignored, I guess... but I don't know how the other old RPers would take it. Do you think anyone would care? Do you have any other ideas for what I should to?

magilzeal · June 2013

Are the canon maps really detailed enough to be taken as set in stone? I don't honestly think it's worth worrying about.

thehuntress · June 2013

What I've seen browsing for 4e maps is that the map for Neverwinter in game is straight out of canon but really until someone in authority actually says that this is how this city looks and how that village looks I wouldn't worry about it either. There are a couple of maps online for some cities like Waterdeep but really imagination has always been the key to D&D.

BTW from what I can see of your pictures it looks good. I can tell that a lot of time went into it.

oldrper · June 2013

Thanks for the input. I think I'll try to do make it work as part of Port Llast. Tonight I started a 2nd zone, which would be the dock area and I think I can make the above work as the east ward.

eldarth · June 2013

I was thinking of using Port LLast for a farmers market intro and was totally unaware what had become of the city in current lore.

From gillrmn -

"This town was a great city in ancient times - the most northerly safe harbor on the Sword Coast whenever Luskan would fall to orcs or other evil forces.

Then came the Spellplague, and with it the return of Abeir. The appearance of the new continent in the ocean to the west changed the tides around Port Llast, filling the harbor with silt and making Neverwinter an easier port to reach.
Now a ghost town, Port Llast is known as the realm of the evil sea goddess Umberlee and as a home to sea monsters."

ovaltine74 · June 2013

In the last season of the original star trek from the 60's they were so broke they couldn't afford new sets. Instead they used the set of the Andy Griffith Show for some of their time travel episodes. You can see the sign for Floyd's barbershop and everything. Not sure if that was at all relevant, but I thought it was interesting. I am certainly not suggesting you recreate Mayberry, although that would be awesome if you did.

oldrper · June 2013

eldarth wrote: »

"This town was a great city in ancient times - the most northerly safe harbor on the Sword Coast whenever Luskan would fall to orcs or other evil forces.

Then came the Spellplague, and with it the return of Abeir. The appearance of the new continent in the ocean to the west changed the tides around Port Llast, filling the harbor with silt and making Neverwinter an easier port to reach.

Now a ghost town, Port Llast is known as the realm of the evil sea goddess Umberlee and as a home to sea monsters."

Well, that rules our Port Llast.

meedacthunist · June 2013

Make your own city. DnD is open ended enough to add your own settlements. And 4th ed setting is also cluster**** and nobody cares about wrecking it since it's already wrecked beyond any redemption.

kattefjaes · June 2013

OP,

I have nothing constructive to say, other than wow, that looks really nice. The idea of the Forge is what attracted me to this game in the first place, and lunatics like you are the ones who will make it come alive.

*notional hat tip*

wuhsin · June 2013

Nice looking city. It makes me happy to see other authors using their creativity to the max!

eldarth · June 2013

oldrper wrote: »

Well, that rules our Port Llast.

Sorry - I feel your pain. :-)
I ended up using Conyberry (for location of my farmers market piece)

Apparently the coast between Neverwinter and Luskan is kind of a warzone.
You're probably better off just "founding" your own city between Neverwinter
and Luskan if you need something on the coast.

oldrper · June 2013

Thanks for the comments.

I've always felt like the Forgotten Realms had a strange sense of geography and population distributions. The problem is that the Sword Coast North area existed as a "fronteer" for a thousand years. The settlements in the north west were too few and far between to support the size of the cities that existed there. Hundreds of years passed and no official new settlements were added. The few settlements that did exist tended to be documented as smaller and smaller over the years. It works as a plot device, but little villages like Conyberry were documented. Documenting a collection of 12 farms miles away from other settlements left many to think that the area was vast expanses of emptyness. If the area is so dangerous what allowed Conyberry to survive for hundreds of years while preventing it from growing into a town? And why are there not little villages all along the road that grow larger and larger as people have children? Whatever... it's not my campaign setting for pen and paper play, so I didn't have much to complain about.

So today I picked up the Neverwinter Campaign Setting to better understand the new post-Spellplague canon information about the Sword Coast North.

Officially:

Port Llast: "Now a ghost town."
Thundertree: "abandoned town"
Conyberry: "The village now lies largely vacant"
Old Owl Well: "Now, it lies forgotten and abandoned."
Leilon: "This sleepy mining town once served as a convenient resting place for travelers on the High Road. Now, the few travelers who still take this route shun Leilon, going miles out of their way to avoid even laying eyes on the town. The High Tower of Thalivar long stood as a landmark here, abandoned by a forgotten mage... The Spellplague's twisted magic unleashed the creatures trapped in the tower, which quickly ravaged the helpless village. Now the tower is a place of terror; its magic freezing in place all creatures whose eyes rest upon it, even for a moment."

It looks like Luskan, Helm's Hold, and Neverwinter are all that's left north of the Mere of Dead Men.

eldarth · June 2013

oldrper wrote: »

Conyberry: "The village now lies largely vacant"

...except for a bustling monthly farmers market. (At least in my little quest)

oldrper wrote: »

And why are there not little villages all along the road that grow larger and larger as people have children?

I think they're undocumented because it allows us DMs to create our own little villages/towns. I say go for it - pick a general area you want your village/town (trying to keep it in the overall state of things) and give it a name and create it however you like. Maybe refugees from Port Llast banded together and are recreating a New Port Llast south of Neverwinter.

City Zone Maps

Comments