Maps, Re-Revisited

So for the last few months, I've been doing more revisions to my fantasy setting. One of the things I'm trying to do going forward is make myself less reliant on computers, because RPGs have always been a way for me to step away from the computer, television, smartphone, refrigerator, etc.

One of the things I'm doing is remaking the maps of my setting, plotting them out on standard square graph paper. (I've actually been doing this for over a year now, since I haven't had much else to do aside from work.) Despite my admiration for hexes aesthetically and mathematically, the square is much simpler; plus, it would be extremely easy to transfer to video-game form if that flight of fancy ever takes off.

To that end, the other night I decided to brute-force it by making dozens of squares on Google Drawings, and arranging them in a grid. This is a lot more tedious than, say, Hexographer, but it allows me to work on the maps whether I'm at home or at the library, due to the cloud access. I've finished a topographical map already, but it took me less than five minutes to copy and change it to a political one. Each square is 24 miles to a side; I'll post some pics of my digital and penciled topo maps once I have more time.

Pink: Principality of Le'var. Green: Kingdom of Duemerus.
Yellow: Principality of Tadea. (Blue is water, orange is lava.)

In other news, I've been reconsidering a lot of my gaming interests, which coincides with one of my partners gaining interest in running a game. The V5 version of the World of Darkness is pretty well put together, though sadly I missed the opportunity to back the new Mind's Eye Theatre book. And the more I read of Tunnels & Trolls (5th Edition, for those keeping track), the more I like its approach.

Entering Hyperspace in Star Wars D6

Not sure if I already posted about this, but I made a flowchart explaining the steps needed to calculate the difficulty number for a hyperspace jump in Star Wars D6 (1st edition). I'll upload a picture once I have access to my own computer again (and post the last part of that minis series), but for now I'll just type it out, as though this was Thy Dungeonman. Ye adventure ſtarteth below ye cutte!

Star Wars Miniatures By Species, Episode V

Follow-up to this post, and it only took me two months! Must be something I ate.

Anyway, same deal as last time, except I'll be covering the playable alien species included in The Star Wars Sourcebook. The overall list is rather similar to that in the later d20 rules, though obviously it doesn't have any species that were invented for the prequels; a few omissions are a bit strange, though. But nowhere near as strange as what the W.O.T.C. decided to do with some of their miniatures...

Quick and dirty diagram I made for one of my friends. As cool
as that Darth Talon mini is, no way am I paying $90 for it.

Star Wars Miniatures, By Species

So, a little project I've been working on today. I'm a huge, huge fan of the old WOTC Star Wars Miniatures, not only as a collector and an RPG nerd, but as someone who's grown to like the Miniatures Game with which all of these are compatible.

Everyone knows that one of the coolest things about Star Wars is the almost infinite variety of alien species. The minis do a pretty good job of this, with even a few of the old Expanded Universe types getting a figure here and there - although some of them really got the short end of the stick, as we'll see later. But finding them is not always easy when they use a character's name instead of the species name, hence my little project.

This is gonna be a list of all the WOTC minis of each species, as I'm able to find them. For now, I'll just be listing the three alien species from the core rules of the old D6 RPG: Ewoks, Mon Calamari, and Wookiees. Future posts should (should) contain more.

(shamelessly stolen from here, don't blast me Syd)