If you're not part of our gaming group, then thank you for your delving deep into our site. The Gazetteer section is still in it's infancy at the moment. Please feel free to explore this area keeping that in mind. There will be an announcement on the What's New page whenever there's something resembling a finished product here.
This page provides definitions for the terms used throughout the Hurvan Gazetteer. I'm not even attempting to write this up as an 'in character' bit yet, but eventually, that will be done so that this gazetteer matches the flavor of the rest of the site. This will also allow the referring to of real world locations to try to get everyone thinking about places in similar ways. Its sections include, Geographic Areas & Symbols, Community Sizes, Format
Also, be sure to do 'super-reloads' of this and other pages within the gazetteer section while they're under development to ensure that you're seeing the latest version of each page.
Geographic Areas & Symbols
- Mountains & Foothills
- Areas marked on the maps as Mountains and foothills can either be wooded or grassy. Valleys which differ from the surrounding highlands can be found. Only at the highest elevations would there be no trees. Nothing larger than a Village will be found in the mountains, much of it though, is wilderness.
- Forests
- Areas marked as forests on the maps range from lightly to heavily wooded with varying degrees of brush. They may be flat or hilly and have occasional clearings. They tend not to have any human settlements.
- Rolling Hills
- These actually encompass quite a large variety of land. Inhabited areas could have small farms, vineyards or pastureland and could be dotted by villages. There could also be pockets of uninhabited grasslands, forests, wetlands or rocky outcroppings.
- Farmlands
- These tend to be worked fields or orchards with smaller pastures, but they will have pockets of woods, bogs and small hills between them. Also, you'll find hamlets and the occasional small town in these areas. Around major cities, these areas will be one farm after another. In outlying areas, populated, worked areas will be very sparse.
- Grasslands
- Open plains, some flatter than others. Very small copses of trees can be found occasionally. Widely scattered hamlets might be found.
- Chaparral (aka Mediterranean)
- Dry shrubland which exists between deserts & grasslands. Also is found often near ocean coasts. Real world examples include much of the Mediterranean area, southern California, the coast of Chile and southern parts of South Africa & Australia.
- Marsh
- Everglades-like; reed rivers; some sub-tropical forests. Only found in warmer climes.
- Swamp
- Swamped trees; much like the Louisiana Bayou or some river valleys in Alaska. Can be found in almost any climate.
- Fens
- Large areas of stagnant wetlands. Sections of fens can resemble either a marsh or a swamp. The big difference is that while marshes & swamps tend to have rivers feeding and/or draining them, fens lack this refreshing of the water, relying only on rainfall or ground seepage to replenish their water supply.
- Rivers
- Only major rivers are shown on the maps. These all have many small unmapped tributaries. There might also be other small unmapped streams that also drain to directly the seas.
- Lakes
- Only really big lakes are noted on the maps. There are many other smaller ones.
- Reefs
- Reefs on the maps are symbolized by several semi-parallel black squiggly lines. While many reefs are indeed coral, they could also be indicating ridges of rocks or sandbars that are at or near the surface of the water.
- Bog
- Wet, spongy ground or a very small patch of marshy or swampy terrain.
- Moor
- Poor drainage areas in the mountains or other highlands.
- Taiga
- Less harsh than Tundra but still cold much of the year. Conifer forests thrive despite poor soil, and frozen or water logged surroundings. There is no true taiga within the Kingdom of Hurva, although the area on the northwest coast of Tolon is close.
- Tundra
- No forests; only low growing pants that can survive the harsh subarctic climate. There is no tundra within the Kingdom of Hurva. You have to journey hundreds of miles to the north, well beyond even the reaches of the Harati Empire, to get to areas of true tundra. Some cartographers, however, will denote certain areas of mountainous elevations above the treeline as being tundra.
A few notes on the maps....
I'm not going to take the time to make thumbnails of these yet - as clearly they're not ready for prime time. I just wanted to get something rough done so that we could all see it. Instead of the maps being targeted to a new window, I think the final version will have them targeting the right frame, and allow them to be clickable to zoom to the next map. (rather than the table of links I've set up for the moment for all the close up maps) In addition to the general cleaning up of things, I will eventually add a white border to the black type on the names of things like mountains and forests which will improve legibility markedly.
I will target the maps to open in a new window for the moment. The largest regional map is only 32k, so they should load very quickly. Even the country sized maps are no greater than 56k.
Remember, the symbols on the map are just that. They don't represent each individual mountain peak and the trees are definitely not that big! ;-)
Community Sizes *See 3e DMG p.155 for GP Limit explanation.
Town Size ¥ Population GP Limit* Thorp 20-80 40 Hamlet 81-400 100 Village 401-900 200 Small Town 901-2,000 800 Large Town 2,001-5,000 3,000 Small City 5,001-12,000 15,000 Large City 12,001-25,000 40,000 Metropolis 25,000+ 100,000
¥ Total #s. Ignore the "+10% - 40% nonadult inhabitants" line in the DMGNote - for various reasons, the Kingdom of Hurva tends to have Metropolises (M) but no Large Cities (LC) and very few Small Cities (SC). Hamlet (H) is the predominant settlement size, followed by Village (V), Small Town (ST), Thorp (T), Large Town (LT) and then (SC).
Anything the size of a (ST) or larger will in all likelihood have a duke who is the local authority for that and possibly for any smaller communities nearby. Duchies are for the most part, held on the basis of lineage. There are exceptions — some are retired heroes (military or dungeoneers) that have won a grant to build a stronghold in a particular area. Needless to say, this tends to cause tension with the blue-blooded nobility. Duchies that are granted in this way are not necessarily passed on to the duke's heir(s).
Format The format of each barony's page will be as follows.
Intro: For the moment, taken from the general overview in the Kingdom section
Brief History: For the moment, taken from the timeline in the Kingdom section
Borders: How the Hurvans would describe where the borders run. Could be more detailed later.
General Feel of Placenames: A guide to give each area a unique regional feel.
Other Nomenclature: How to refer to people and things.
Major Geographical Features: Most of these are features large enough that they could be seen on a Kingdom scale map. A few would only turn up on a Barony sized map.
Named Cities, towns & villages: Settlements we've named, listing the capital first. We should order these in some fashion - either alphabetically, by geographic location or by size/rank of importance. Think about which would be the most useful ordering system. Immediately after the name of the community will be its size followed by a variety of information, including its general location and notes on the city as experience by the PCs.
