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<blockquote data-quote="Windjammer" data-source="post: 5056904" data-attributes="member: 60075">Thanks! The map only started as a rough sketch for me to get onto ch. 1 of the FRCG. I had disliked the 4E realms heavily until recently, and pretty much concurred with <a href="http://nitessine.wordpress.com/2008/09/06/a-rant-and-a-review-forgotten-realms-campaign-guide/" target="_blank">Nitessine's brilliant if brutal dissection</a> of the book's first chapter (still makes me laugh). But as I started to sketch the implied sandbox of that frequently reviled chapter on Loudwater, that's when I fell in love with the setting. For the first time I saw the whole point of the book - it's a starting point for the DM, not a definitive or fully developed version of anything. It's the antithesis of a canonical setting - and it says so, right on page 38 (using verbiage coming close to the Grey Box - Book 2, page 6: &quot;Each Forgotten Realms campaign should be different, reflecting the personality and gaming needs of the players and the DM.&quot;).And oh, that first chaper itself - often decried as &quot;generic&quot; and &quot;un-Realmsy&quot; - is absolutely dripping with Realms flavour. Check the book on what lies at the heart of hex L16 on my map (FRCG page 28, entry &quot;Dire Wood&quot;). It's actually the dungeon that Ed Greenwood himself described at great detail in The Temptation of Elminster - and if you read the whole tale surrounding that dungeon you've just found a great way to tie the risen empires to the East into the Loudwater region.Now I haven't read many FR books at all, but snippets like that (on hex L16) really set me on fire. Now I want to re-create Ed's dungeon for 4E. And so on and so on...As a final word of caution - my map isn't entirely faithful to the original. For instance, the Vault of Xammux (hex R21) is originally drawn inside a forest. In my version it's on the slopes of a mountain range next to that forest. Whence my cheeky reference to the Spellplague in the OP. I literally shifted some of the landscape to e.g. surprise my players. I also think that the tons of roads in the original ill behove a &quot;Points of Light&quot; type of setting, and so I didn't paint most of them.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Windjammer, post: 5056904, member: 60075"] Thanks! The map only started as a rough sketch for me to get onto ch. 1 of the FRCG. I had disliked the 4E realms heavily until recently, and pretty much concurred with [URL="http://nitessine.wordpress.com/2008/09/06/a-rant-and-a-review-forgotten-realms-campaign-guide/"]Nitessine's brilliant if brutal dissection[/URL] of the book's first chapter (still makes me laugh). But as I started to sketch the implied sandbox of that frequently reviled chapter on Loudwater, that's when I fell in love with the setting. For the first time I saw the whole [B]point [/B]of the book - it's a [I]starting point[/I] for the DM, not a definitive or fully developed version of anything. It's the antithesis of a canonical setting - and it says so, right on page 38 (using verbiage coming close to the Grey Box - Book 2, page 6: "Each Forgotten Realms campaign should be different, reflecting the personality and gaming needs of the players and the DM."). And oh, that first chaper itself - often decried as "generic" and "un-Realmsy" - is absolutely dripping with Realms flavour. Check the book on what lies at the heart of hex [B]L16[/B] on my map (FRCG page 28, entry "Dire Wood"). It's actually the dungeon that Ed Greenwood himself described at great detail in [I]The Temptation of Elminster[/I] - and if you read the whole tale surrounding that dungeon you've just found a [I]great [/I]way to tie the risen empires to the East into the Loudwater region. Now I haven't read many FR books at all, but snippets like that (on hex L16) really set me on fire. Now I want to re-create Ed's dungeon for 4E. And so on and so on... As a final word of caution - my map isn't entirely faithful to the original. For instance, the Vault of Xammux (hex R21) is originally drawn inside a forest. In my version it's on the slopes of a mountain range next to that forest. Whence my cheeky reference to the Spellplague in the OP. I literally shifted some of the landscape to e.g. surprise my players. I also think that the tons of roads in the original ill behove a "Points of Light" type of setting, and so I didn't paint most of them. [/QUOTE]

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