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Earlier today I made another blog post to my Lohwand blog. My Lohwand campaign (an anagram of 'Howland') is my attempt at an wargames campaign in the tradition of Tony Bath's Hyboria. Following in his footsteps, this latest post is about my attempts to detail one of  the nations involved.

The latest post about Umbar, my proxy for Carthage:

https://lohwand.blogspot.com/2020/11/lohwand-umbar-in-detail-part-1.html (https://lohwand.blogspot.com/2020/11/lohwand-umbar-in-detail-part-1.html)




The complete Lohwand thread, to date:

https://lohwand.blogspot.com/search/label/Lohwand (https://lohwand.blogspot.com/search/label/Lohwand)


The main map:




The Southlands (unfinished) - in case I need more real estate(!):    8)

Cirith Ungol.....? No dirty great spiders hanging around there are there?

Quote from: Holly on November 29, 2020, 09:08:26 PM
Cirith Ungol.....? No dirty great spiders hanging around there are there?

I have borrowed shamelessly across a wide swath of fantasy and gaming literature!  :P

Some names I claim as original, however: Ologog, one of my Amazon nations, for example. And, erm, that might be it...  ;D

Quote from: altfritz on November 29, 2020, 09:43:14 PM

Quote from: Holly on November 29, 2020, 09:08:26 PM
Cirith Ungol.....? No dirty great spiders hanging around there are there?

I have borrowed shamelessly across a wide swath of fantasy and gaming literature!  :P

Some names I claim as original, however: Ologog, one of my Amazon nations, for example. And, erm, that might be it...  ;D

fair enough  ;D

Sounds (and reads) like you are putting a lot of effort into the creation.

Some of Tony's methods were determined by the technology available at the time. Have you made use of any modern technology to improve or make things easier? I'm thinking in particular of GIS systems for mapping and then resource determination and movement.

Quote from: dwkay57 on November 30, 2020, 09:01:51 AM
Sounds (and reads) like you are putting a lot of effort into the creation.

Some of Tony's methods were determined by the technology available at the time. Have you made use of any modern technology to improve or make things easier? I'm thinking in particular of GIS systems for mapping and then resource determination and movement.

In my case that would presume I knew what a GIS system was  :-[

QuoteI have borrowed shamelessly across a wide swath of fantasy and gaming literature!  :P

Which category is Anne of Green Gables in? :)

Quote from: dwkay57 on November 30, 2020, 09:01:51 AM
Sounds (and reads) like you are putting a lot of effort into the creation.

Some of Tony's methods were determined by the technology available at the time. Have you made use of any modern technology to improve or make things easier? I'm thinking in particular of GIS systems for mapping and then resource determination and movement.

While its true that I have a lot of technology "advantages" that Tony didn't have access to, there are still constraints. The maps started with "lets see what I can do with PowerPoint" being the "Poor Man's graphic software program", as a friend of mine used to say (and probably still does!) Wikipedia has been a great help, and excel, combined with online random number generators (Random.org).

Tony had to flesh out his characters using a card deck. I might still use that but so far I have been using a dice generator to roll me 18d6 which then gives me Original D&D stats. I have some other systems for fleshing them out; currently I am looking at Pendragon's personality traits, and system for managing Manors for a decade spanning campaign game.

Question: Can you use a GIS with a non-earth related coordinate system? My campaign "World" is smaller than Earth, for example.

Quote from: Jim Webster on November 30, 2020, 10:18:33 AM

Quote from: dwkay57 on November 30, 2020, 09:01:51 AM
Sounds (and reads) like you are putting a lot of effort into the creation.

Some of Tony's methods were determined by the technology available at the time. Have you made use of any modern technology to improve or make things easier? I'm thinking in particular of GIS systems for mapping and then resource determination and movement.

In my case that would presume I knew what a GIS system was  :-[

GIS = Geographic Information System. Essentially a form of database formed around spatial information. A lot of municipalities use them to manage their infrastructure because it allows you to show how things are related to each other rather than look at a flat plan all the time. One could see the elevations of all the storm water manholes, for example, and the system could easily display how the water flows and where there is liable to be flooding; information that is more difficult to determine from that paper map. Of course, one needs the software, the knowledge to use it, and all the relevant data has to be gathered.

Quote from: Erpingham on November 30, 2020, 11:20:19 AM

QuoteI have borrowed shamelessly across a wide swath of fantasy and gaming literature!  :P

Which category is Anne of Green Gables in? :)

Ah, yes!  TV Show?  ::)

That came about from a friend mocking me after I showed him my map! He said something like "You've borrowed (stolen?!) from everything except Anne of Green Gables!"

So at my next map-making session I put the "Isles of the Green Gables" in!  ;D

Quote from: altfritz on November 30, 2020, 12:16:21 PM


GIS = Geographic Information System. Essentially a form of database formed around spatial information. A lot of municipalities use them to manage their infrastructure because it allows you to show how things are related to each other rather than look at a flat plan all the time. One could see the elevations of all the storm water manholes, for example, and the system could easily display how the water flows and where there is liable to be flooding; information that is more difficult to determine from that paper map. Of course, one needs the software, the knowledge to use it, and all the relevant data has to be gathered.

That's me excused class on all three levels then  :-[

Yes GIS is Geographic Information Systems and is the sort of application that powers your sat nav.

From my experience - you can use them with non-earth co-ordinates and can create layers to represent different topics. So you could take a physical layer of ground characteristics and add a layer of settlements, then one for roads or tracks, and then one for where your troops are.

An alternative may be to colour cells on a spreadsheet but having started to do that, I gave up and started to investigate GIS options. There are a couple about for which "domestic" licences aren't too bad (they are certainly a lot cheaper than when I first used them in the 1990s) and one of the projects for 2021 is to move that investigation forward.

There is GRASS GIS which is free I believe. I have used it once, in an online course a few years ago.

https://grass.osgeo.org/ (https://grass.osgeo.org/)

I may have to try it again. I guess I could arbitrarily decide on a lat/long for my maps, the only problem being that the RW is bigger than my version! I had intended to fudge things, particularly the North-South distances.