When Fantasy meets Medieval Europe

1100 AD to be precise. Medieval Europe: This is the Dungeons & Dragons Map I plan on using.
Each hex is a combination of two or more terrain types for instance there is sand dunes and desert, forested mountains, desert mountains, there are three kinds of forest, pine forests, deciduous forests, and warm forests. pine forests are also cold forests, deciduous forests are also temperate forests, and warm forests are those forests made up of trees that do not drop their leaves, you could also call the tropical forests, there are also shrub lands, shrub lands with hills, mountains etcetera. There are three kinds of mountains, short medium and tall. Medium mountain hexes have three white capped mountains in a hex, large mountains are single white capped mountain hexes. There are also swamps, rivers, cities castles, ruins, oases and volcanos. the basic conceit of this map is that it centers on the human lands with human nations such as England and France. Elves come from "West over the Sea" in other words they are native to North America, they have discovered Europe in this setting rather than the Europeans discovering America, as of 1100 AD, this hasn't happened yet. Dwarves live in underground kingdoms in the various mountain ranges of Europe. Orcs come from the Asian steppe. Halflings and Gnomes come from South America. Half-elves and half-orcs are created from the Union of elves and humans in the first case and orcs and humans in the second.

Everything otherwise on this map is historical Europe with historical rulers, but with fantasy added.
Here is the political map of the same region:

So what do you think? Would this make a great Dungeons and Dragons setting?

How historic do you want the setting to be in the first place?
The Americans discovering Europe is a major change in the history (as is they even having the technology to do so). And when are they slated to arrive? The historical 1492 date? So nearly 400 years without elves?

There is also a disconnect between the D&D rules and the historical middle ages. D&D is a very loose fantasy version of the middle ages but many things found in it like in the equipment section or your stereotypical D&D town or castle are more fitting to the renaissance era than 1100.
Then again, I doubt many people have much knowledge of that timeframe anyway.

A couple of things spring to mind. The mountains the Dwarves are in could have a huge geopolitical impact. A strong Drawven presence in the Alps/Switzerland could have prevented the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, particularly the second instance under Otto et al.
If the Elves can project power across the Atlantic then they have ships at least comparable with caravels/carracks and way ahead of anything in Europe a the time. This give the Elves the opportunity to set up global maritime trade empires.

Dude that is an awesome map.

I don't have anything else to contribute, sorry.

Great map! Really a lot of effort.

Derren said:

How historic do you want the setting to be in the first place?
The Americans discovering Europe is a major change in the history (as is they even having the technology to do so). And when are they slated to arrive? The historical 1492 date? So nearly 400 years without elves?

There is also a disconnect between the D&D rules and the historical middle ages. D&D is a very loose fantasy version of the middle ages but many things found in it like in the equipment section or your stereotypical D&D town or castle are more fitting to the renaissance era than 1100.
Then again, I doubt many people have much knowledge of that timeframe anyway.

Click to expand...

Simple, the Elves sailed across the Atlantic to discover Europe and they brought Renaissance era technology with them minus gunpowder and guns, these elves also have full plate mail and the full assortment of equipment found in the Player's handbook, the humans being a quick study adopted this technology. The elves sailed into various ports in Europe starting at around 1100 AD, before that, history as we know it in Europe and Africa ran its course. The elves also sailed south and discovered South America, and picked up some Halflings and gnomes that live in that continent. Asia is pretty much the same as our Asia except Orcs replace the Mongols, and instead of riding on horses these orc ride on large worgs. the Orc lands begin at the Urals. West of the Urals are the Russian Principalities. Africa is pretty much Africa with some monsters and magic added. Europe is populated primarily by humans, but their are also kingdoms of dwarves living in the various mountain ranges, these ranges also act in many cases as the borders between human kingdoms, there are also monsters, both intelligent and not so intelligent, and dragons of various colors and metals. Magic is a part of the reality of Europe, their are wizards and sorcerers, clerics and druids, rangers, paladins, and bards, and of course monks fighters, rogues and barbarians. This hex map is the homeland of the elves:

ardoughter said:

A couple of things spring to mind. The mountains the Dwarves are in could have a huge geopolitical impact. A strong Drawven presence in the Alps/Switzerland could have prevented the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, particularly the second instance under Otto et al.
If the Elves can project power across the Atlantic then they have ships at least comparable with caravels/carracks and way ahead of anything in Europe a the time. This give the Elves the opportunity to set up global maritime trade empires.

Click to expand...

The elves are not united of course, there are several kingdoms of elves on the continent of North America, including the drow that live underground, and their are tribes of wild elves living between the elven kingdoms Aquatic elves live in the warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, closer to Europe merfolk live on the continental shelf of Europe, Africa, and the Mediterranean seas, and of course their are the evil aquatic races along with them, and various sea monsters as well. The gnomes and halflings live in the Southern portion of South America, about where Argentina and Chile is today, between them and the elves, is a continent full of dinosaurs, and tribes of amazons living in the Amazon rain forest. Amazons in this setting are their own separate race. There is a large wall at about where the Panama Canal is in our world, this wall serves to prevent the dinosaurs from migrating north into central and north America, it is believed that at one point in their history, the Amazons were more civilized and built this wall, but today they are splintered warring factions.

Nice effort!

But I have to admit, I'd never consider playing anything but Ars Magica in a 'mythic' Europe setting. It's simply the best fit. You get a ton of well-researched background material and the fantastic elements are so well integrated with the historical facts that everything makes sense.

ardoughter said:

A couple of things spring to mind. The mountains the Dwarves are in could have a huge geopolitical impact. A strong Drawven presence in the Alps/Switzerland could have prevented the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, particularly the second instance under Otto et al.
If the Elves can project power across the Atlantic then they have ships at least comparable with caravels/carracks and way ahead of anything in Europe a the time. This give the Elves the opportunity to set up global maritime trade empires.

Click to expand...

There is no reason why a Dwarven Kingdom couldn't be part of the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire itself is made up of a number of subordinate kingdoms, and a Dwarven Kingdom would just be one more of those, the Emperor leaves the Dwarves alone in running their day to day affairs, the dwarves are very good at forging weapons and mining minerals out of their mountains, and they trade their products for food imports, as the Dwarves don't like to be bothered with farming on their mountain sides.

Thomas Bowman said:

The elves are not united of course, there are several kingdoms of elves on the continent of North America, including the drow that live underground, and their are tribes of wild elves living between the elven kingdoms Aquatic elves live in the warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, closer to Europe merfolk live on the continental shelf of Europe, Africa, and the Mediterranean seas, and of course their are the evil aquatic races along with them, and various sea monsters as well. The gnomes and halflings live in the Southern portion of South America, about where Argentina and Chile is today, between them and the elves, is a continent full of dinosaurs, and tribes of amazons living in the Amazon rain forest. Amazons in this setting are their own separate race. There is a large wall at about where the Panama Canal is in our world, this wall serves to prevent the dinosaurs from migrating north into central and north America, it is believed that at one point in their history, the Amazons were more civilized and built this wall, but today they are splintered warring factions.

Click to expand...

If the elves are not united then that makes the Elven trade empire inevitable. Same drivers that drove the European empires. Where as China's expansionist policy under one emperor was reversed under another by the bureaucracy as it brought about too much change and was difficult to manage.
Of course, since elves are notoriously slow breeding, they will not have the population pressure to take over large areas like the Europeans did and it will be more trade enclaves like the early Portuguese and Dutch in our world.