Ashtagon’s PC4 Valley of Wolves, 1 mile per hex
After finishing her work on Precataclysmic Mystara in early 2022, Emma moved on to a new project: a revised set of hex symbols that would solve some perceived problems with the traditional Mystara set. There had long been movements in this direction, with many fans coming up with adjustments to the system over the years. Emma set out her concerns in a thread in the Geographical Mapping forum at The Piazza, then worked through them all until she had a refined set of symbols.
With that done, she returned to the project and began making maps in mid-2023, beginning with Blackmoor. This was one of her earliest maps, from September of that year. She explained the background to the map:
Replica map of the poster from PC 4: Night Howlers. Made using Worldographer. Hex art is a modified set based on Thorf’s work.
As with my own Replica map series, Emma decided to mostly stick to the printed maps. However, she made one bold adjustment to each map, implementing her new hex art.
This was a particularly good map for this purpose, because it mixes all the different deciduous forest types — something that Emma’s system was designed to differentiate more smoothly than the traditional TSR palette.
She also made some improvements to the labelling — something that she would continue to refine in her later maps, often in very fun ways.
Fan-made Map by Emma Rome (September 2023)
This is an original map created by one of Mystara’s excellent fan cartographers. For more information on the cartographer, including a gallery of all their maps, see also Appendix M: Mappers of Mystara.
Sources
- PC4 Night Howlers (1992) (PDF at DriveThruRPG)
Fan Sources
- Musings on Map Symbols discussion thread at The Piazza (February 2022)
References
- All of Emma’s maps at the Atlas of Mystara
- Emma’s entry in Appendix M: Mappers of Mystara (upcoming)
- Emma’s author page at the Vaults of Pandius
Chronological Analysis
This is a fan-made map. It was published in September 2023. The updated Atlas version of this map is not yet available. See also Appendix C for annual chronological snapshots of the area. For the full context of this map in Mystara’s publication history, see the upcoming Let’s Map Mystara 2023.
The following lists are from the Let’s Map Mystara project. Additions are new features, introduced in this map. Revisions are changes to previously-introduced features. Hex Art & Fonts track design elements. Finally, Textual Additions are potential features found in the related text. In most cases, the Atlas adopts these textual additions into updated and chronological maps.
Under Construction! Please check back again soon for updates.
